MilesBuzz! - One man's observation: USair card 1 mile for 1 cent

The other day I was messing around with my online shop, trying to set up Paypal payments. I decided to test some small charges to make sure my electronic delivery items would indeed be delivered automatically.

I happened to use my US Airways World Mastercard Free account (1 mile/$2) making 3 charges of 10 cents, 1 cent, and 2 cents.

Voila - I received 3 miles on my statement (I had no other charges for the month). I would've thought I'd receive ZERO miles....

Now I am curious - could this knowledge somehow be used to obtain a lot of miles? Certainly, I would not charge to my own shop, since after Paypal fees, my payment would be zero. But still, you would be 'purchasing' one mile per penny, that is if you made a lot of 1 cent charges.

How about charging 1 cent at a gas station, and repeat this 1000 times - for $10 worth of gas, generating 1000 miles?? At least it would be 1000 free miles since you would still get $10 worth of gas, that is if you had the time and courage :D

We don't live in the boondocks or anything, but I do believe if you tried that at a gas station around here, after the 6th or 7th time, the people behind the counter would come out and start beating you with sticks.

At a gas station, would it not place a hold for $75 per purchase on the card for a certain length of time? You might reach your limit pretty fast.

JudyJFLA

At a gas station, would it not place a hold for $75 per purchase on the card for a certain length of time? You might reach your limit pretty fast.

JudyJFLA

I'd also imagine the credit card company would suspend your card because they'd be concerned about fraud. Not to mention that 1000 transactions at a gas station would take an incredibly long time. My time is worth far more than the 1000 miles since I could just purchase them directly if I had to.

This wouldn't work for a single statement, even in theory. Your purchases are usually added up each month and miles are based on that amount.

In other words:
100 one cent transactions in one month-->1 mile
1 one cent transaction in one month-->1 mile

This wouldn't work for a single statement, even in theory. Your purchases are usually added up each month and miles are based on that amount.

In other words:
100 one cent transactions in one month-->1 mile
1 one cent transaction in one month-->1 mile

That is not what the OP experienced. He reported 3 small transactions and received 3 miles.

We don't live in the boondocks or anything, but I do believe if you tried that at a gas station around here, after the 6th or 7th time, the people behind the counter would come out and start beating you with sticks.

:D Amen Brother, he/she would be deserving of a beat down with that ^

That is not what the OP experienced. He reported 3 small transactions and received 3 miles.

I misread. That seems like an unusual way for the card to calculate miles.

You guys are missing the easy middle ground to get more miles .......

If what the OP experienced is true, accurate and going to continue, then we all just learned something small that could add up over a longer time period.

If you want $20 of gas, then pump $20.01 to get the extra mile .... no cost, a free mile, no effort .... so what is one mile .... not much, but they will add up, and why not get the extra mile every time you can.

Now we need to know, will this happen, and will it happen with other miles/points cards, sounds like an experiment is in order!

If you want $20 of gas, then pump $20.01 to get the extra mile .... no cost, a free mile, no effort .... so what is one mile .... not much, but they will add up, and why not get the extra mile every time you can.

The time and annoyance of waiting by the pump (instead of just letting it run automatically) and actually needing to remember to do this makes this idea very unattractive. I'll just get a USAir credit card for $90 and get 25k miles when I am a few miles short.

You guys are missing the easy middle ground to get more miles .......

If what the OP experienced is true, accurate and going to continue, then we all just learned something small that could add up over a longer time period.

If you want $20 of gas, then pump $20.01 to get the extra mile .... no cost, a free mile, no effort .... so what is one mile .... not much, but they will add up, and why not get the extra mile every time you can.

Now we need to know, will this happen, and will it happen with other miles/points cards, sounds like an experiment is in order!

My chase rewards+ CC (5pts/$1 for gas) rounds down at 50 cents and rounds up for 51 cents and above. Fill up 4 times per month max, so ending at $.51 nets me about 20 extra Chase pts/month. Wee-hee!

It is funny that once I noticed it I have kept ending at $.51 ever since and have netted about 1000 pts, give or take since.

If what the OP experienced is true, accurate and going to continue, then we all just learned something small that could add up over a longer time period.

If you want $20 of gas, then pump $20.01 to get the extra mile .... no cost, a free mile, no effort .... so what is one mile .... not much, but they will add up, and why not get the extra mile every time you can.Sounds good to me. If I can do that once a day, I should be able to squeeze out an extra coach award somewhere around my 121st birthday...

I didn't really intend this to be a "how to earn miles at the pump" thread, but how to find a way to charge many small charges to get free miles...not actually having to spend $1 or $2 to obtain a mile...

How about buying a 1-cent stamp at the Post Office? Is there a vending machine that can sell you a 1-cent stamp with a credit card?

I've seen public telephones in Japan that you can swipe a credit card and pay 10yen (approx. $.10).

There has to be a vending machine or an online vendor that sell very very small priced items.

Perhaps there is a way to do Paypal mass payments at 1 cent a piece as separate charges (I don't really think you can, but thinking along these lines there may be something ;)

You guys are overlooking something that makes this discussion quite useless to continue. Even if you assume that there is a way by which you can charge your card an unlimited number of times for 1 cent each time and earn 1 mile for doing so, the time required for each charge prevents this from being a worthwhile activity. If it took just 20 seconds to input and clear each transaction, you could earn only 3 miles per minute x 60 minutes per hour = 180 miles per hour. If you value your miles at 2 cents per mile, you are talking about earning $3.60 per hour for swiping a card repeatedly with no break. Unless you are really hard up for income, probably not worth it. Even a transaction per 5 seconds would only net ~$14 per hour for such a boring activity. Throw in the fact that you might value your miles at less than 2 CPM, that charging 100 times in a row, let alone more, is virtually impossible, and you can really see how silly this is.

How about buying a 1-cent stamp at the Post Office?
Minimum charge at the Post Office is $1.00.

It is funny that once I noticed it I have kept ending at $.51 ever since and have netted about 1000 pts, give or take since.

With Bank of America's "Keep the Change" bonus in the first year, I quickly figured out a cup of coffee and a packaged coffee cake at the gas station 1,000 feet from my house was $1.02. In the first year, there was a 98 cent cashback match from BoA ...

Unfortunately, I don't have a miles or points card that works on a "per transaction" basis - it's all aggregated each month.

How about charging 1 cent at a gas station, and repeat this 1000 times - for $10 worth of gas, generating 1000 miles?? At least it would be 1000 free miles since you would still get $10 worth of gas, that is if you had the time and courage :D

It would make a great YouTube video to see how far you could make it before someone was beating you with a stick :-)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8589262&st=%25%25&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1770122

Sold out. Dang. I could have used 25,000 of these.

Well, I guess the OP has a pretty good idea if you're just a *few* miles short of an award. You could get 20$ worth of gas, then .01, then .01 .... do it twice a week to avoid the stick beating and if you're 20 or 30 miles short it will add up in a month or two- not a bad idea.

Here is an interesting article on FW - 1 cent item at Home Depot:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/deal-discussion/894606

Even in the event where you are taking the time to round off a purchase, what I said in post #14 above applies. Even a few seconds of your time (for example, to pump a bit more gas so the total is $xx.01) is not worth the time for most people - literally. Unless you can come up with a method that takes a couple of seconds or less of your time and you want to spend your life using it, I see no point in even entertaining this concept.

Even in the event where you are taking the time to round off a purchase, what I said in post #14 above applies. Even a few seconds of your time (for example, to pump a bit more gas so the total is $xx.01) is not worth the time for most people - literally. Unless you can come up with a method that takes a couple of seconds or less of your time and you want to spend your life using it, I see no point in even entertaining this concept.
I know a lot of people who take the time to round their gas purchases off at even dollar amounts (even when paying on a credit card), so, at least for them, it's not really any extra time to end the purchase in $xx.01.

And I know a lot of people who make it a point to buy $2 worth of bean burritos at Taco Bell on a mileage-earning card even though they have cash in their wallet.

Perhaps the OP would find a more responsive audience if he posted in the Budget Travel forum... :p

In any event, if you were caught by a merchant running many small charges (especially ones for a single cent), they likely would not be appreciative, since each such transaction costs them (depending on the card processing company they use and their volume) between around 10 to 30 cents.

A thousand one-cent transactions could actually cause the company to lose $290 on the $10 revenue they took in from you.

I know a lot of people who take the time to round their gas purchases off at even dollar amounts (even when paying on a credit card), so, at least for them, it's not really any extra time to end the purchase in $xx.01.

And I know a lot of people who make it a point to buy $2 worth of bean burritos at Taco Bell on a mileage-earning card even though they have cash in their wallet.

These behaviors, however, are not exempt from the same valuation. No matter why you do something, if it takes 5 seconds extra to earn 1 mile, your theoretical max is 12 miles per minute or 720 miles per hour. If you value these around $14, you might deem it not worth your time. Imagine if it takes 15 seconds to earn that extra mile... now its not even a consideration.

Imagine if it takes 15 seconds to earn that extra mile... now its not even a consideration.

I will, and I know others who will, too.

Not everyone has your same standards of valuation.

I will, and I know others who will, too.

Not everyone has your same standards of valuation.

You are certainly correct - people value miles differently. For that matter, people value their time differently. However, plug in alternative values and you will find that at 15 seconds per mile earned, it would take some extreme mile and/or time values to make the venture worthwhile:

At 15 seconds per mile earned, 240 miles per hour are earned.

I value my miles at 2 cents per mile, so the miles would be worth $4.80 per hour. Even if the activity were as simple as swiping a card over and over, $4.80 per hour wouldn't be nearly enough to encourage me to participate.

Let's say someone else values their miles at 4 cents per mile (which represents an extreme valuation). They would be earning $9.60 per hour. It is hard to imagine that there are people who would accept $9.60 per hour for their time even if they just had to swipe a card or round a gas meter repeatedly.

Conclusion: People *do* value miles and time differently, but it would take extreme valuations outside the typical realms to make the exploit described within this thread worthwhile.