#milemadness Meet the Player Interview with MilesAbound

In our second interview, who unlike DCbroker has not been thrown out of the tournament for earning too much, thought he has come close a few times, we meet MilesAbound, currently in Top of the leader board, having averaged around $1370 in profit each week.

Not much is known about this international man of mystery, it seems to all intents and purposes that he is located in New York City, and can be found tweeting about his exploits @milesabound but should you track his IP address from his CVS runs it seems to show a pattern where he is actually hanging out in various resorts in the Maldives, and employing a retinue of serfs to collect the fresh batches of Vanilla Reloads fresh from the truck, before the manager knows they have arrived.

Let the questions commence!

What approach did you take to this tournament?

As someone who has spent most of my career working in the evil halls of Wall Street I took the approach that most people in finance do when presented with a competitive landscape. I looked at the rules and evaluated up-front which method would be the most profitable under the rule structure.  So I ran some numbers to compare how my profit would be measured if I focused on techniques that increased my earnings regardless of cost, techniques that reduced my costs, techniques that diversified my earnings etc, and quickly concluded that the best approach was to focus on high earning multiples and forget about costs. Although that meant depleting the bank roll at a relatively rapid rate, it was clear the high earnings would out-weigh the declining spend ability.

Or put in simple terms, earning 5x+ on your spend is far more effective than finding ways to reduce $5.95 per $500 fees.

How closely does the activity shown here and in #milemadness in general depict your Manufactured Spend habits, what are you doing differently, if anything and why?

Some aspects are similar. The overall volume is about the same, and I also focus on techniques that require the least amount of time and effort, which was critical here to maintaining the kind of daily spend necessary to keep up.  The big difference for me is I tend to “float” funds for longer and split my MS activity into what I call “load” and “unload” activities. A “load” is where I am buying some instrument that earns my points like Vanilla Reloads or gift cards, and an “unload” is where I am turning those instruments back into cash. A few techniques like buying money orders you are basically loading and unloading in the same transaction, but in most cases I go on “runs” where I am just “loading” and other where I am just “unloading”.

So rather than try to do $5k a day, I will more likely go out and try to do $10-15k maybe 3 times a week. I find this a more efficient use of my time, but of course it means I have to accept higher limits on what I might get stuck with. If I am sitting on $15k of gift cards and suddenly there is no way to do bill pay or buy money orders with them, I have to find other ways to liquidate and that can be hard.

Your Tournament Strategy seems to be focused on earning CITI Thank You Points why is that?

I have the old Citi Thank You card that earns 5x at gas, grocery and pharmacy stores. Given the valuation of Citi TYP for the tournament it’s the most effective tool I have. I could also use the Chase Ink products at office stores but the fact that they sell at best $200 gift cards makes liquidation very inefficient for me. Although with that said there are many other 5x options out there and I think other contestants could have been better prepared in getting these.

When the tournament is over, along with the fame and fortune, you will be left with a lot of points of this type, what is your plan for them, how do you squeeze that extra bit of value from them when you spend or redeem?

A trip to Africa to take my kids on safari is high on my bucket list, and safari trips are one area where traditional miles and points are not that helpful. So I may utilize the points to help with that, either by booking travel, using travel certificates or trading the points with someone else who can utilize some of the better Citi TYP options like getting 1.6 cpm for US/AA flights.

What is the biggest disadvantage you have in this tournament?

The fact that I have a very intense career and work 50-60 hours per week, plus family time. Many of my competitors have far more spare time in which to pursue these activities, whereas I am having to weave it all inside a very hectic schedule.

And what is the biggest advantage?

I live in an area that is very friendly, I am able to purchase large amounts without question, and have several options for unloading.

Who do think is the most innovative player and why?

I think we are all using largely well known, tried and tested techniques but I have to hat tip MilesPointsAndMaiTais for the ShopKick program. In particular for the Best Buy deal a few months back that was highly lucrative

Who has the most boring strategy?

I do! It’s the same stuff nearly every day!

What have you learned from the tournament, is there anything you wouldn’t do again, and have you seen anything new emerge that has changed your attitude?

One thing that became quite challenging with most of my spend focused on one card was managing my credit limit on that card. I was frequently running up to the credit limit as I awaited previous payments to post. So I tried a variety of different ways of paying down my card and in experimenting on this found one particularly simple and powerful method which really helped my efficiency.

What advice would you give to a complete beginner who wants to get started?

Start small, and focus on understanding the techniques rather than just replicating what you might see within boxes and arrows. Once you understand the basic concepts, you will find yourself working out your own opportunities rather than relying on some blogger or FT. If you try technique X at store Y and it fails, think are there other stores like Y where it might work? Is there some tweak to X that would make it fit store Y for me?

If you could change anything about the tournament, what would it be and why?

Initially I was against the bankroll idea and thought we should just let people do as much as possible. It had a “no child left behind” feel to it. But having been through the process of doing this much each day, I actually find myself thinking it’s a very rational approach and serves as a great “risk limit” on this activity. The $5k number may not be right for everybody, for some it should be a lot less and some, maybe, a lot more. But the reality is if the music stops then you need to be able handle being without that bankroll for a long time.

So actually I quite like the format and would not change it

OK folks, there you have it, a glance into the mindset of MilesAbound, who is already up to around 300,000 Thank You Points earned since we started the tournament.  Feedback time!

Choose your own Adventure

• Do you want to know how MilesAbound will leverage those points to build a Safari vacation? If so click here
• Do you want to know how many new ‘tricks’ MilesAbound has found during the tournament? If so click here
• Do you not care about any of this, and just want me to include large Red Arrows? If so click here