Future of MS
May 31, 2014, 2:05 am
#31
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 80
Revolving credit, and traditional credit card issuers in general, are absolute dinosaurs. There are plenty of startups (Lending Club, Prosper, for example) that are trying to disrupt the consumer credit space. Meetearnest.com is another newcomer offering 2 year personal loans for 6.5% APR. If you are talking about consumer credit in general, I predict there will be a new player in the market that will surprise Chase, Amex, Capital One, etc., that will totally transform the consumer credit industry that we have come to known today. Too many people are using CCs to finance purchases for 15-20% APR (at least ~50% of account holders...maybe not MSers) when fed fund rates are still around 0%...something will happen!
May 31, 2014, 10:05 am
#32
Formerly known as FTRox87
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: TX
Programs: AA/US 1M, AS, BA, CX, EK, EY, JL, KE, LH, NH, OS, QF, QR, TG, UA/CO | *$G
Posts: 1,428
one fear I gots is that the day of reckoning might be coming... by that I mean if all the big spend, easy avenues / closed loops dry up -- AND min spend remains at the stubbornly high threshold that it's currently at as some sort of new normal, then lots of folks are gonna be SOL.
these days $5k, $10k even $20k is no big deal and can be done in a cpl days... but imagine having to actually put in some effort to spend $10k even in 3 months :/
these days $5k, $10k even $20k is no big deal and can be done in a cpl days... but imagine having to actually put in some effort to spend $10k even in 3 months :/
May 31, 2014, 11:08 am
#34
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: DFW,OVB (Russia)
Programs: AA HH Gold SPG Gold BA
Posts: 1,823
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.
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 $500k or more a month. They may be lying about personal results, however that is totally doable... even without VR, etc.
As Vol stated, VR was an EASY loading and unloading tool. It got shut down, who cares, move on. Think of this as a business, adapt or die.
With a few current promos going on, I have personally put myself in gear, and well past pace towards goals I set for April, and I think I will hit it in 2/3 the time I originally planned. This is with just me and wife helping out every so often, only a few k a week. If I bring anyone else into it... can easily make it a lot more.
I actually think the real big hitters are not on FT but rather other forums and mostly stay quiet. Just know... it is all well doable. Just learn the game from top down and new methods will come to you.
Sorry for the rant, but I hope it helps others as much as it helped me to type my thoughts out.
It would be actually quite easy for Wal-Mart or other stores to stop people from being able to cash out gift cards without disrupting gift card sales or changing any laws
All they would have to do is recode the money center systems to run MO or other load transactions as cash withdrawal/advance. (Like USPS does for money orders)
Then it wouldn't really matter if the card has a pin or not
May 31, 2014, 1:49 pm
#39
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: WAS
Programs: SPG Plat. Marriott Plat. Hilton Diamond. Hyatt Diamond. IHG Plat.
Posts: 2,580
May 31, 2014, 4:09 pm
#41
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 6
You think that they're going to offer VGC/OV/etc with EMV chips? Not a chance. And once registers are updated to only accept EMV cards this strategy will pretty much die out. It shouldn't be for a few more years though and I'm sure many retailers will drag their feet during the upgrade process.
May 31, 2014, 4:23 pm
#42
Formerly known as FTRox87
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: TX
Programs: AA/US 1M, AS, BA, CX, EK, EY, JL, KE, LH, NH, OS, QF, QR, TG, UA/CO | *$G
Posts: 1,428
you guys live in a fantasy world if you think debit or gift cards are gonna go away overnight or even in a few yrs... its a $60 billion industry in the US alone... its not going anywhere.
afaik terminals that accept EMV can also accept regular mag stripes.
infact with the intro of emv chip and pin, I'm hoping CC can be directly used as DCs instead and cut out the middle step/fees altogether
(given we still get the same amount of rewards tho)
afaik terminals that accept EMV can also accept regular mag stripes.
infact with the intro of emv chip and pin, I'm hoping CC can be directly used as DCs instead and cut out the middle step/fees altogether
(given we still get the same amount of rewards tho)
May 31, 2014, 5:54 pm
#43
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: DFW,OVB (Russia)
Programs: AA HH Gold SPG Gold BA
Posts: 1,823
You think that they're going to offer VGC/OV/etc with EMV chips? Not a chance. And once registers are updated to only accept EMV cards this strategy will pretty much die out. It shouldn't be for a few more years though and I'm sure many retailers will drag their feet during the upgrade process.
Jun 1, 2014, 7:38 am
#44
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Land of the parrots and parrotheads
Programs: Several dozen
Posts: 4,820
Believe it is harder going cash back, but have heard of some holding multiples of the same CB card. Over here we run cash back cards as only 3% of total credit line available in the portfolio. That said, miles and hotel points are stacking like cordwood. Some of our spend is just to bump status now. We caught Hilton cheap skating us golds on upgrades in Tokyo to avoid executive lounge costs, so we are running up to platinum (executive lounge access mandatory) as a countermeasure, for example. Figure executive lounge access comprises 25% of the value of our Hilton stays so running up points for platinum status there is cost effective.
That said, I will probably try to bring CB up to 6-9% as a percentage of total credit line outstanding this next year to begin generating cash as an offset to ADK Jr.'s student loans. I am just a few countries short of this year's goal of reaching 150 countries (TCC countries) visited and have more than enough miles to reach it.
That said, I will probably try to bring CB up to 6-9% as a percentage of total credit line outstanding this next year to begin generating cash as an offset to ADK Jr.'s student loans. I am just a few countries short of this year's goal of reaching 150 countries (TCC countries) visited and have more than enough miles to reach it.
Jun 1, 2014, 7:49 am
#45
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 1,758
Believe it is harder going cash back, but have heard of some holding multiples of the same CB card. Over here we run cash back cards as only 3% of total credit line available in the portfolio. That said, miles and hotel points are stacking like cordwood. Some of our spend is just to bump status now. We caught Hilton cheap skating us golds on upgrades in Tokyo to avoid executive lounge costs, so we are running up to platinum (executive lounge access mandatory) as a countermeasure, for example. Figure executive lounge access comprises 25% of the value of our Hilton stays so running up points for platinum status there is cost effective.
That said, I will probably try to bring CB up to 6-9% as a percentage of total credit line outstanding this next year to begin generating cash as an offset to ADK Jr.'s student loans. I am just a few countries short of this year's goal of reaching 150 countries (TCC countries) visited and have more than enough miles to reach it.
That said, I will probably try to bring CB up to 6-9% as a percentage of total credit line outstanding this next year to begin generating cash as an offset to ADK Jr.'s student loans. I am just a few countries short of this year's goal of reaching 150 countries (TCC countries) visited and have more than enough miles to reach it.
Do you and MM use the same alarm clock?