Originally Posted by
gardengirl
So Chase does business with travel hacking bloggers.
Likely not. Card issuers hire agencies to place ads.
If I can purchase a Bed, Bath & Beyond card for a wedding shower why can't I gift it to myself?
I don't think most issuers much care about purchases of
merchant giftcards, but they do care about purchases of Amex/Discover/MasterCard/VISA giftcards because the buyer is converting her Chase unsecured line of credit into a
cash equivalent asset which can be readily used to live on after defaulting on her Chase credit card account. Issuers care about these purchases because they are correlated with default, and with criminal money laundering. It does not matter at all that you will pay your account. Card issuers do not care about individuals, only about patterns of behavior.
Originally Posted by
gardengirl
Surely they're bankers and wouldn't offer 5X unless they were still going to profit.
No, they lose money on the 5X category. This is a
loss leader designed to encourage us to keep the physical card in our wallets, and use it for purchases where we will not earn a category bonus from any issuer.