Indeed, they are different. It's been reported before that the 5X bonus did not work for Chase Freedom some time back in Jan. Likewise Citi Forward.

No.

Not a good idea. There's been mixed results on it, some have reported doing it without problems. Others have done so have been caught. However, who knows if it was the act of having the same card number on different accounts that resulted in getting caught, or contributed to it.

I max out, well, nearly max anyway.

I also disagree with you on the VAN's. They can be used multiple times before the short lived expiry date. By default however, they seem to be tied to the first merchant you use them on (i.e. you can't use the same VAN on Amazon, and then go use it on Serve).

Additionally, I've seen no evidence that adding new cards, and removing old ones often results in AP thinking you're doing stuff that looks 'fishy'.

sorry.. I am not understanding the objective of fishing cash out of cc.. if reward points (TY, UR, Membership rewards, miles etc.) are not being accrued on Amazon payments.

Is it only to get the $1000 of "cash advance" for free?

I guess it's one of those "If I have to explain, then.." kinda things.

What makes you think that reward points are not being accrued?

I caught myself after doing this once, sometime last year. Both charges came through fine, but that was a loooong while ago.

My paranoid self says to buy a gift card and go that route.

I'm willing to bet my FT decoder ring that this is the basis of our fountain o' miles- rather than funding a marketing campaign, they (AP) is writing off the subsidized cc pulls as the marketing expense, and looking for word of mouth spread.

FT decoder ring
 

How do I get one of those fancy decoder rings? I called the reconsideration line 10 times and couldn't get approved for one :)

sorry.. I meant bonus reward points (e.g. Chase UR 5x bonus etc.)

Really? Are you sure that's what you meant?

I hope you can see why I thought you were asking a very different question.

Well then, if you are now saying your original question then means "what's the point of fishing cash out of CC if you won't get an Amazon category bonus?", then well, I'll answer: "Because you can still meet spending requirements for sign on bonuses using it, and, still accrue rewards at the base category rate, which isn't all that bad."

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YouDontKnowMe -

Welcome to FT, and thanks for the consolidation.

On your list of "don'ts", I'm not sure every one is an ironclad rule, but they are definitely good general guidelines, especially for new users. I think we all probably break some of those, but we all have nice long track records at this point.

In any event, thanks for the post!

1. Why use AP?

- Because if you play it right, it's a huge fountain of CC miles per month for doing absolutely nothing but making a few clicks.

Yeah, I know but a number of the questions seemed pretty basic so I didn't want to confuse them "just yet"

Good to know about the VANs. Thanks

Maxing out never seemed prudent to me, but glad to know you can! I guess I play this really cautiously, cuz I only use one account, it's mine, and I buy 50% of all my purchases on amazon!