I just read that article on TPG....

Someone in the comments mentioned how he used to spen around 20k a month on several ink cash cards at office supply stores for 5 years until being shut down in 2017....

I have 4 ink cash cards (my wife has 2) and I will be doing a huge (400k) renovation soon and was hoping to use as much as possible with GC though office supply... it'll take a year of work of course.

What is the chance they will shut me down? I never realized they will do such a thing.

 

Well, there is a difference in spending 20K in gift cards at Staples or Office Depot and legit renovation costs. I would recommend being proactive. Call Chase, and let them know that you are going to be having increased charges on your account. I have done this before when I am worried a charge might get rejected as fraud. For example, when I charged over $10,000 to get new central AC units for my house, I called the credit card company to let them know the charge was coming.

As long as your credit limit is high enough, I don't think you will have a problem. They want you to use their cards.

 

Why would Chase ever assume charges for $10k to an air conditioning company was fraudulent or manufactured spend? I would worry far more about huge GC purchases

 

Thank you for the reply Jeanie

I just want to reemphasizes that I will INDEED might spend 20k a few months on GC at supply stores - home depot gc, lowes gc, amazon gc, and so on... these will all be used for my renovation but the purchase will be for a gc on my ink cash

 

If you have 6 cards that gives you a max of $150,000 in spend @5x points. If you space things out and mix in some 1x spend on it as well you shouldn't have a problem. I wouldn't go in and buy all the Home Depot/Lowes cards from a single store in a single day though. Maybe stock up on gift cards for a few weeks spending $1-$2k per card and then gradually increase it.

I had one ink plus card that I would run up $5-10k on in a week when there were VGC sales and never had any issues even when I maxed out the $50k spend @5x.

 

I just looked, and if you use your Ink card through the UR portal to buy at Home Depot.com, you get an extra 2% cash back. So that would give you 3% total for the transaction.

It's obviously a personal decision to make, but it is worth considering if 3% vs 5% is worth the risk of getting shut down by Chase.

 

I wish it was those numbers... that will only be achieved if I buy online but 70% will be in store so it is more like 1 vs 5 points per dollar which is huge...

It is odd how they shut you down for this as this is not a violation of the terms. I have two mortgages, several account (personal and business), as well as a balance of around 80k sitting in their accounts... been with them for 10+ years.

If they chose to shut me down over something that isn't a violation then they are silly but I guess it is up to them.

I was planning on using freedom unlimited for all other non gc purchases but maybe it will make my ink cash look nicer if I use it instead and lose those 0.5 points just to have many small other purchases instead of just 5x points.

 

Why is this? Do you think it is legit to run through huge amount of GCs through Staples and pile up reward points?

Max out $1,500/quarter Freedom is small, but doing $20,000+/month or more on multiple CCs is a different story.

If people play fire, some day he will be burnt...

 

I am sorry... but I am not breaking any laws nor am I doing something that is against the terms of the card.

Can't they say that 5x isn't on gc purchases if they wanted to? they can easily do that like many others who apply such rules.

I am not cheating anyone. This comes at quite a price for me at time spent.

If they indeed shut you down over something like this and they say that it is because they don't like your usage then they are the one at fault as I did not break any rules.

That is irrelevant of course because you won't win that argument with them as they probably are allowed to close account for whatever reason they care to (unsafe usage for example which has no real definition).

But as far as thinking this isn't legitimate? I beg to differ.

 

Of course you broke the T&C of the CCs. At least the CCs have not bee used as intended to. You are fine with the laws

 

Please show me where it is stated that I am not allowed to buy a gc at staples? or office supply store for that matter?

Isn't there forums dedicated to people who buy gc for thousands of dollars and then liquidate them?????

I never done that. Not once. I use it for real purchases

 

Just another thread where the OP asks for an opinion, and then gets mad when the answer isn't what they want to hear. Whether or not you agree with the potential for a shutdown, there is an entire thread with almost 2400 posts documenting people who have been shut down by putting too many gift cards on their credit card account. On FlyerTalk, it is called MS - manufactured spending. Some people have luck with it, others don't. I recommend thoroughly researching this before you make a decision. There is a risk involved.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...solidated.html

 

Why someone who can afford to pay $400,000 for a renovation would want to waste time manufacturing spend for points I will never understand.

 

It sounds as if you are, because you agreed to this statement when you opened the account: you agree that the card is being used only for business purposes . I am not saying that Chase typically cares how business cards are used, but if they were looking to justify a shutdown this would be a reason.

Buying gift cards alone is not manufactured spending. MS only occurs if the cards are subsequently liquidated for money. Typically this involves purchase of VISA or similar cards. It sounds as if bklgafly intends to buy merchant gift cards and redeem them for goods or services to be used in the renovation. I would call this category shifting. Chase still may not like it, but it doesn't represent the same credit risk.

 

They can shut you down for anything they want and worse yet they can terminate all of your banking relationship, accounts as well if you have them