Originally Posted by Djlawman

But the descriptor is also only half the issue. People don't just want to increase to meet initial spend requirements for bonuses, they want to think of ways to increase overall CC spend just for the plain vanilla miles. E.g., the Mint. (FWIW, I never saw it as worth my while to lug dollar coins over to my bank on a regular basis, but those people were not doing it just to meet intro bonus threshholds.)

Originally Posted by lkar

I accept this may be a semantic discussion about the breadth of the word manufactured and we may just have different ideas about what manufactured spending is, but I don't think most of what gets discussed now really is about truly manufactured spend. In a thread in the new forum I am participating in, we have come up with three terms, each of which are different things: time-shifting, bonus shifting, and manufactured spending. The techniques are similar, but the truth is the true manufactured spending discussion doesn't happen much in the board formerly known as milesbuzz, because these techniques are more heavily kept under wraps. One product that can facilitate true manufactured spend has been heavily edited to cover the tracks. Anyway, I do think the word is pejorative to some (many?) and might suggest FT is teaching people to cheat and defraud instead of how to be saavy and creative.