The future of MS is right here on FlyerTalk. By that I mean carefully reading the threads that pique your interest, trying to learn what others are doing and sharing your own ideas, and then figuring out how you can apply the things you learn here to your own situation.

I actually disagree.

By the time a new ground breaking method is discovered, a few folks were already using it for quite a while.

Now, FT is a great place to develop the method, however once it is here, and then disseminated through all the blogs and other forums, it is typically too late.

Add in the fact that this forum has turned extremely hostile over the past few months, and significantly worse since CVS, I see more methods being kept private, or on private forums.

Obviously there are some methods that will be extremely difficult to kill, no matter how many people MS... that would be something like buying gift cards and cashing them in for money orders.

For that to die, you would need to stop the ability to buy gift cards with cc, and there are currently so many places you can do that, and then change the law to not allow debit use.

When talking specific methods that hinge on a niche item, be it amazon payments, reloadits, and what we have seen with Serve reloads... all it takes is that one hole to be fixed and the game is over.

IE... You can only reload Serve with CC in one place... CVS. Bam, done.
You can pretty much buy VR with CC only in CVS.... bam, done.
Mint.... done.
Reload it Cards... not many chains carry them, typically home depot and a grocery store chain. HD is already hard coded, grocery chains have mostly put out memos that it is cash only, and even still... highly dependent on cashier.

Now on the flip side... if you had unlimited credit, and say 24 hours... how many thousands of dollars of visa gift cards would you be able to buy?

For me... well lets see. A conservative $3k per store, 14 hours, from 8am to 10 pm, lets take out 2 for breaks... with 20 mins between stores. So that is a conservative $9k per hour, for 12 hours, that is $108,000 in Visa Gift cards in a working day.

In reality, I am sure you can up to $5k per store, with say 15 mins between stores, you just more than doubled to $240k a day.

Fact is... you cannot find any other methods where you can buy so many "MS loading tools" anywhere else. Grocery stores, gas stations, drug stores, convenience stores, all have them and have no issues selling them. A certain chain has a store policy of no limit to how many in gift cards one can buy. Heard from a cashier someone came in to buy 40 cards in one shot. $20k.

With a team... say 5 people, you can with work, clear $100k a day in MS.

(I do realize if you live in a rural community it may be an issue, however if you are on the coasts or a major metropolitan area, PLENTY of opportunity.)

I know of a few people who publically claimed they made this full time. Based on what I do in 1 or 2 hours a day average, and what I was able to do on a full weekend day... I have zero doubts about anyone who claims they do $500k or more a month. They may be lying about personal results, however that is totally doable... even without VR, etc.

As Vol stated, VR was an EASY loading and unloading tool. It got shut down, who cares, move on. Think of this as a business, adapt or die.

With a few current promos going on, I have personally put myself in gear, and well past pace towards goals I set for April, and I think I will hit it in 2/3 the time I originally planned. This is with just me and wife helping out every so often, only a few k a week. If I bring anyone else into it... can easily make it a lot more.

I actually think the real big hitters are not on FT but rather other forums and mostly stay quiet. Just know... it is all well doable. Just learn the game from top down and new methods will come to you.

Sorry for the rant, but I hope it helps others as much as it helped me to type my thoughts out.

Not sure I see the point of this. You still split the proceeds five ways.

Correction - the big hitters are on FT, but more active in other (private) forums and mostly stay quiet on FT. Effective techniques are no longer being publically disclosed for fear of the tragedy of the town common effect. :cool:

It comes down to a few things... Mostly the fact that in a good team, 1+1=3.

All you have to do is read for examples.

Some folks cannot go to Wally every day for mo. However when you have 2 people, you can do the same thing but now be every other day. With 5.... You are there once a week... Yet still maintain the output.

It does make it easier in terms of you can break down who does what for the day.... Buy, sell or record keep or day off.

If you don't see the benefits yet, simply put you are not doing enough volume.

Lastly, not everyone on the team needs to have the same split, depending on what each brings to the table.

Some of the big hitters are out with a hernea....from carrying grocery bags full of discarded GCs to the local recycling center.

What other (private) forums are we referring to? PM thanks.

They are "private". :)

This man wins the prize for understanding the tradedy of the town (commons) effect.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to go back to hogging Kate...

There is a point if the team was participating in an MS contest. Such contests exist (as in the one related to the recent DO in Charlotte).

I guess that depends what you think BIG is.

The future of MS is not what it used to be..

I would think BIG is in excess of a couple million points/miles a year or 25k cash back. That would likely be less than 20% of MSers. Those in that class are not blind to FT but they are not drawing circles and arrows.

Less than 2%. 90% settle for making minimum spend to get their signup bonuses. Of the rest, most can't or won't commit to what it takes to make 2+ million points a year in MS: putting a daily average of about $4K to $5K on their credit cards, and converting that merchandise to sufficient bank deposits in time to pay off their credit cards before the statements close.

Bottom line, MS is a nice side gig that works out really well when the rewards of MS are in line with your personal goals. But like most jobs, a few are amazingly good at it, and most are somewhere between mediocre and awful.

I think to MS in the 7 figures of points requires exponentially more time invested than something it the 6's. I probably MS about 10k a month more or less, spread across different category bonuses nets me about 250k or so points per year and it really involves minimal time (2-3 walmart trips per month). And I dont have any inclination to increase it above that. Not worth the diminishing returns!

The low hanging fruit is so easy I'm not sure why everyone doesn't do it to some degree really. Just using basic techniques listed in this forum you can MS $2500/month with a few clicks of a mouse every month with NO FEES. A couple more clicks and $12.50 a month nets you another $2500 which nicely balances the first $2500. After that, you start having to venture out of your house, depending on how much you can evolve.. anyways, I digress.