no you are absolutely right. One is a legitimate loophole and also breaks no laws, and the other is a choice college kids make that does break laws but gets you girls so it's considered socially ok and necessary
Plus, when you are like 20, they don't hang you for it like they might if you did it for a business or sponsored illegal entrants into the USA or something.
ANYWAY, the similarity I drew is in fact rather similar. here's again why:
AMEX, like other large bank companies, does have several products that can in fact create loopholes that could work in situations such as yours. But they do not, for many reasons, change or update or correct some of these and as a result, many of us can and will take advantage of these things when we find them.
They could and probably would shut people down if they perceived they did it too much, and especially with some regularity where you became all too familiar in their world as a user of these 'churn" like activities. Lilke the fake ID kid, if you stick your neck out TOO far, you WILL get caught eventually.
AND once they begin to really crack down on this issue, EVERYONE goes down--even the kid who just used his ID one time.
yeah, that's illegal but think of it from the standpoint of some otherwise innocent 19 year old kid who wouldnt even think of drinking and driving. he just wants to get in the bar and be cool. BUT the big bust happened and he looks as bad as the drop out senior who makes a living on doing fake IDs at $20-$30 a pop.
the relation to the Amex gig is that they may be able to live with a few people who seep thru some cracks in a non perfect world, and they may be able to handle the slight 'losses' if that is what they are perceived to be, just as a bouncer in a bar may let some kid in even if he suspects the ID is fake just cuz the kid has a couple of cute girls with him. the college scene is like that. Amex may see that you are doing other business transactions with your cards so they kinda let you slide. BUt liek I said, once everyone knows about it, things change.
I was someone who touted and regularly used the National City reloadable gift cards. You could load up to $5,000 in one shot, cash it out in a matter of days with a simple online transaction, and do it again. I think one month I did like 7 of them on 3 cards each! Since Citibank's Mastercard has the Virtual credit card feature, you could always use a DIFFERENT CC number to reload your gift cards, and their system would not see that it's the same person churning over and over.
one day, though, as expected, this all came to a screaching halt for me and a bunch of other people, and then, the whole thing came tumbling down brick by brick.
I recall getting a nasty letter from Nat City, who also conveniently 'held' my gift card funds on one of the cards I had yet to cash out until several weeks AFTER I would have needed those same monies to pay off my credit card!
Bastids!
their letter stated I was grossly breaking bank poilicies and this card was not intended for these purposes, etc. blah blah blah. It went on to say I was not welcomed to use their products.
I called them and they were obtuse, and even as I tried to explain that I DID in fact use my card for regular charges too, they said NOPE! We know what you are up to and it's not meant for that. Even as I stated their OWN policies back to them, I came to learn more about something I've always seen in marketing: Deals and schemes are put out there to the mass public to kinda work. If someone really makes it work well for themselves, they are not supposed to reach that limit and marketing changes the gig.
I have seen this a lot in my world, with banks, rebates, credit cards, ski areas, concerts, etc. And I am not just some churner scammer guy. I am just someone who finds ways to do things like you have, and tries to make them work while sharing the idea with others.
Sometimes companies like Amex don't like it when we take that much control from them.
good luck! Milk it til it dies. I may join you.
MM