spendlesslivebetter

I was just approved for my 1st Ink card and am researching the best methods of how to maximize my UR point production. After (Way too many hours) researching and calculating, I've determined how I plan to use my card and wanted to check and see if I'm missing something. I plan on using my Ink for my Cable, Internet, Cell phone bills; and also to purchase $200 visa gift cards at Staples for $207 ($500 seems to be unavailable in my area), which will earn me 1035 UR points each. If I subtract out the 200 points I'd be getting with "normal" usage, that equals 835 points for $7, or 0.84 cents per point that I'd be paying. Our plan is to use our points for Category 6 Hyatt rooms and Business class airline tickets exclusively, which seems to get us a value of 3-5 cents per point. So paying 0.84 cents per point seems like quite a deal. Looking at our past spending habits, if we use these $200 Visa gift cards exclusively for all our purchases, we'd be buying around $1000-$1400 in gift cards per month to use for groceries, gas, shopping, and dining. Is this the best approach? Is this against the Chase terms of service?

I should note that I also have a CSP which I could use for dining and travel expenses, but getting 2 points/dollar is a lot less than getting 5 points/dollar. I could also use my Ink for 2x for buying gas instead of the visa gift cards to raise any alarms, I just hate leaving points on the table.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

PainCorp

You should spend some time reading this forum and the Manufactured Spending forum. What you are asking about has been covered in depth in the later.

SanDiego1K

Welcome to FlyerTalk, spendlesslivebetter. That's a great handle, and really is the purpose of much of our discussion on FlyerTalk. You've clearly put a lot of thought and a lot of time into figuring out how to use your Ink card. We've got ours set up to be used on a recurring basis for our cell and cable bills. It's nice as we never need to think about paying the bills. They automatically go on the card that gets the best possible return.

We do some spending on Amazon for our businesses, and buy amazon.com cards at Staples. We also get our Starbucks cards there. If my husband has a trip and will be staying at Marriott properties, he picks up giftcards at Staples. We also have a merchant account at Staples, and buy our office products there. I use their price match guarantee for our printer ink as they tend to be quite a bit higher than Walmart.com for example. We've had our Ink cards for quite awhile now, and never been challenged on this type of spend. We do have legitimate spending for the business that mixes in with the 5x categories.

I hope that you stick around and join us in these types of discussions. It's great to have you here.

StartinSanDiego

Welcome, Spendlesslivebetter. You have clearly done your research and I think it will be a terrific investment of time and energy for you. Some of us have gotten a bit obsessed, so if you find yourself pondering miles and points at inopportune times, well, join the club! You will find many like minded folks around these here parts...and we are looking forward to your future contributions.

As Paincorp said, a visit to the manufactured spend forum will be time well spent.

jeanie

Thanks for creating this thread. I actually have a question about gift cards at office supply stores as well.

There used to be a problem nationwide with gift card fraud with the cards bought in stores. The thief would often spend the gift card online before the real customer had a chance to redeem it. For years because of this, I have tried to buy e-cards as much as possible. The advantage to an e-card is that a unique card number is e-mailed, and thieves usually don't have access to the e-mail.

Has this happened to anyone on this board? Is it still a problem?

My local Office Depot has the Amazon/Kindle gift cards up to $500. It would be nice to get 5% cash back to be used at Amazon. But I don't see the Kindle cards on Staples.com. So it would need to be purchased at the store.

Thanks.

Note: I purposely was vague about how the theft was carried out because I don't want to give a tutorial on how to commit gift card fraud.

PainCorp

Was your issue with beans in Atlanta?

jeanie

I was actually referring to this type of issue:

http://www.scambusters.org/giftcard.html

Has anyone had this happen, or is it just an internet rumor?

Thanks.

stainlesspoints

Be careful of putting large purchases on gift cards, since you don't get the same type of purchase protection using the gift cards that you on cards like American Express or Visa Signature ones.

I think the only way you might run into trouble with your strategy is if your annual spend on the card approaches (or exceeds) the annual income you reported on your application. I imagine Chase might get concerned.

KennyBSAT

Managing and paying for everyday purchases with relatively small ($200) gift cards can be a major pain, you lose most of the protections that a credit card gives you, and you run the risk of misplacing cards. You can load $5000 per month to Bluebird at Walmart with them, or buy money orders. My grocery store will let me do multiple swipes for one money order, so cashing out $1000 costs 69 cents.

SuperKirby

That is great, what grocery store?

KennyBSAT

Regional chain, basically TX only, but others have had success at other stores. I tell the cashier that my debit card has a 200 per transaction limit (true) and ask if I can purchase a single MO with 5 transactions. Then I take one card at a time out of one pocket, swipe it and put in another pocket. Everybody happy happy happy!
Some people have been turned down for talking about 'gift cards', it's important to remember that you have a debit card with a PIN.

SuperKirby

Very good info, thanks. What is the grocery chain? I'm in Texas a lot (mainly DFW & H-Town), just in case =)

KennyBSAT

HEB. They own virtually all of the TX grocery business outside of DFW and Houston, but they have stores there too.

SuperKirby

Ahh good ol' HEB! Use to go there a lot in Waco (the only legit grocery place to shop for Baylor students).

eltex

I saw some vanilla reload in heb, but the register wouldnt accept my cc for payment. Gonna try a couple more before making conclusions.