Originally Posted by
JohnV
We live on a rural island but can get to the mainland by boat and get to a Walmart. So if I go there I'll find a way with bluebird (is that something from customer service department
... sorry I'm a newbie) to use one of my credit cards to buy a money order or check to pay this contractor (and other local businesses like well systems etc) what I owe them in a cash type form they will accept, as a check,is that right?
No, the reference to Walmart and Bluebird was to the Manfucatured Spending process of buying Visa gift cards (at grocery stores or wherever) which are up to $500 each (so you need $35 of them for $17500), going to Walmart and loading them ($1000 a day limit, and thus requires trips on 18 different days to Walmart for $17500) into your Bluebird account, and then using one Bluebird check (once you have all $17500 you can write one check of your Bluebird account).
But unfortunately, if you have to take a boat each time to get to Walmart, I don't know if 18 trips on 18 different days is going to make sense for you to earn 17500 miles (or whatever). And, btw, each gift card if typically $5.95 in purchase fee, so for 35 of them you'd be out $208ish, not counting your expenses to travel to Walmart by boat 18 times.
Walmart does not let you pay with a credit card for a money order. That would be too easy, and everyone would be talking about that if it were possible. What Walmart
is good at is accepting generic Visa gift
debit cards for money orders (or for deposits into Bluebird acconts), but in both cases no more than $1000 per day. And, in turn, many grocery stores (as well as some other stores) allow you to buy generic Visa debit cards with your preferred credit card. It's only multi-step processes like this that can be used (with Walmart just as the intermediary) to go from credit cards to checks or money orders.
But perhaps you should just use a different strategy for earning miles? You can earn 50000 miles by spending $50000, or you can earn 50000 miles by spending $3000. The difference is the first method is all you have if you keep and hold credit cards, while the second method is how fast you earn if most your spending is on "minimum spend" requirements for signup bonuses on new credit cards. "Churning" credit cards generates miles way faster than "ordinary spend" on credit cards, and while there are many ways you are disadvantaged from earning on "ordinary spend" on credit cards in a rural area, the much smaller amount of spend you need for the same amoutn of miles with credit card "churning" may work almost as well in a rural area as in an urban area.