we primarily do this gig for miles. Sure there's a chance I could keep a coin or three for novelty purposes, but mostly this is a legal and fairly easy mileage churn with little cost to the user.
That said, I have another update on my test from above post:
Citicard called my wife, left a voicemail saying they thought they saw possible fraudulent activity on the acct today. She hardly uses this MC sicne she primarily uses her AMEX and the card had a $0 bal on it but suddenly jumps to $2,500 in one whack all to the US MINT. Yeah, I could see why they called. Anyway she was going to call back--and still might--but we also realized she doesnt really need miles on that acct right now and would rather SPG ones. So I think we may actually let the charge go and have her try the test again with her AMEX>
more to come later.