Jan 3, 2015, 3:13 am
Last edit by: CWAL
Welcome to Manufactured Spending. If you are new here, please spend some time reading before posting. Most likely your questions have already been answered multiple times. Consider deals that you share. These threads are searchable by Google. A volatile deal may be worth holding close to the vest.
Hints
1) On FT, topics are heavily consolidated. Sometimes the title of the thread and first few posts may not properly reflect the broad range of discussion inside the thread. Be sure to visit any thread relating to the product or service you want to learn more about because you might be surprised by how in depth the discussion really is. High "View Count" and "Replies" are good indicators of active "master threads" on a specific topic.
2) Use Google to search FT. It works a lot better than the built-in search.
Important Rules
1) MSing is very YMMV. It varies by store, manager, and right down to the cashier working at the moment. That being said, always be nice and courteous in the face of rejection. The biggest secret for success is to lay low so you can try again.
2) DO NOT spend more than you can afford. START WITH SMALL AMOUNTS TO TEST THE WATER! As an example.. don't start with a $5000 purchase of VGCs if you can't afford to float that much! Instead, buy one and try it, and scale up once you are comfortable with a new method. It's easy to lose track, or get robbed, when you are handling so much money. Getting a refund is NOT always possible.
3) DO NOT ask employees, cashiers, customer service representatives, etc... about how to MS, or about things you read on this forum. The information you read here are very specific, unknown, legal uses of products or services. Most employees, cashiers, and even managers do not know about them. At best you'll get bad information. At worst you'll create a lot of unnecessary misunderstanding.
4) It bears repeating that there are no guarantees. you could easily buy $10,000 in gift cards or some other instrument, only to discover that your method for liquidating them vanishes the very next day. MS is not "normal" financial activity ("normal" being defined by the banks), and thus is often perceived as "suspicious" even if it is legal.
5) never underestimate the risk of criminal activity. gift cards can easily be stolen, loaded onto a compromised account, loaded in a debit card skimmer, or even fraudulent (e.g., an already used card put back on the rack).
If you have a question that does not seem to fit anywhere, or you have not found an appropriate place for it, post it here.
- A helpful note from seat17D about some of the inherent risks of MS
Hints
1) On FT, topics are heavily consolidated. Sometimes the title of the thread and first few posts may not properly reflect the broad range of discussion inside the thread. Be sure to visit any thread relating to the product or service you want to learn more about because you might be surprised by how in depth the discussion really is. High "View Count" and "Replies" are good indicators of active "master threads" on a specific topic.
2) Use Google to search FT. It works a lot better than the built-in search.
Important Rules
1) MSing is very YMMV. It varies by store, manager, and right down to the cashier working at the moment. That being said, always be nice and courteous in the face of rejection. The biggest secret for success is to lay low so you can try again.
2) DO NOT spend more than you can afford. START WITH SMALL AMOUNTS TO TEST THE WATER! As an example.. don't start with a $5000 purchase of VGCs if you can't afford to float that much! Instead, buy one and try it, and scale up once you are comfortable with a new method. It's easy to lose track, or get robbed, when you are handling so much money. Getting a refund is NOT always possible.
3) DO NOT ask employees, cashiers, customer service representatives, etc... about how to MS, or about things you read on this forum. The information you read here are very specific, unknown, legal uses of products or services. Most employees, cashiers, and even managers do not know about them. At best you'll get bad information. At worst you'll create a lot of unnecessary misunderstanding.
4) It bears repeating that there are no guarantees. you could easily buy $10,000 in gift cards or some other instrument, only to discover that your method for liquidating them vanishes the very next day. MS is not "normal" financial activity ("normal" being defined by the banks), and thus is often perceived as "suspicious" even if it is legal.
5) never underestimate the risk of criminal activity. gift cards can easily be stolen, loaded onto a compromised account, loaded in a debit card skimmer, or even fraudulent (e.g., an already used card put back on the rack).
If you have a question that does not seem to fit anywhere, or you have not found an appropriate place for it, post it here.
- A helpful note from seat17D about some of the inherent risks of MS
New to Manufactured Spending? Start Here (2015)
Apr 2, 2015, 12:39 pm
#301
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NYC
Posts: 158
2. Are there any certain gift cards that work best for getting money orders (if I want to pay for my mortgage and sales tax/licensing on a new vehicle I just purchased)? Can Serve/Bluebird/Redcard with enough funds for the money order amount be used to directly purchase the money order (instead of using any said give cards above)?
Serve/Bluebird/Redbird cannot be used to buy money orders because they are American Express cards. Any kind of Amex card processes as a credit card when using it for retail transactions.
Apr 2, 2015, 12:50 pm
#302
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 1,207
First off, Welcome!
1) I noticed many of the same things. After a while, you get used to the acronyms, and they become second nature. There's a general Flyertalk glossary, linked to at the footer in each page, but it's more FT (Flyertalk) generic, and not MS (Manufactured Spending) -specific, and so is generally unhelpful. I emailed the curators several times to have it updated to add things like WM and VR and such, but they never responded/acted (and probably rightly so; our little MS sub-forum is pretty niche, it seems, to the intent of the site at large). So anyway, just keep plugging along, and you'll notice someone using the non-acronym version, and then you'll know it. For now: VR = Vanilla Reload, WM = WalMart.
2) Yes, I think so? VR seems to be discouraged. Sunrise Bank (I think?) gift cards seem to be generally accepted? As for the meat of your question, using Serve/BB/RC to purchase a money order, I don't know, but most people would ask "Why would you want to do that in the first place? Once you've got the money on your Serve/BB/RC account, you can use it to pay off a credit card using bill pay, so there's no point in trying to do a money order." But maybe someone else could actually answer your question, because I don't know.
3) It generally depends on the card, and the disclaimer everyone likes to throw around when offering their advice/experience with a specific card is, YMMV. In general, I believe that for Redcard, there are not cash advance fees? For Serve, there can be; read the wiki at the top of that thread for good info about which cards incur them, and which do not.
4) That policy is supposed to take effect in the middle of this month (April 2015), and so you've got a couple more weeks before that's true. But yes, it is supposed to be the case soon. Thus, your hope to meet your minimum spend on your CSP may be limited through this particular avenue.
5) Yes. In general, the process is you direct the billpay to the bank of the card issuer (e.g. Chase, or American Express), and then input the card number whose bill you're trying to pay, because that is the same thing as the "Account Number" that is having the money sent to it.
6) Yes. There are online avenues you can use to purchase one. YMMV! A lot of people apparently do this; personally I'm not interested in buying a temporary card from an online source/vendor. It's up to each person's own personal risk tolerance.
7) Not sure.
In general, if you've only just read this thread, good job! But there's still a ton of reading you have to do. Read the wikis on other threads, read the threads themselves (ok, I know that's probably unrealistic, especially for something like the RedCard thread, which has 4400 posts already this year), or at least read the last 10-20 pages of posts in those most-active threads. The research has just begun, and a lot of your questions would be answered by doing more reading. But, scolding aside, seriously: welcome, and good luck!
(Replying to your follow-up question in your follow-up post: There may be one or two other places one can load a gift card aside from Target and WalMart [FD], but in general, yes -- online loading using that method will get your accounts shut down right quick, or so I've heard.)
1) I noticed many of the same things. After a while, you get used to the acronyms, and they become second nature. There's a general Flyertalk glossary, linked to at the footer in each page, but it's more FT (Flyertalk) generic, and not MS (Manufactured Spending) -specific, and so is generally unhelpful. I emailed the curators several times to have it updated to add things like WM and VR and such, but they never responded/acted (and probably rightly so; our little MS sub-forum is pretty niche, it seems, to the intent of the site at large). So anyway, just keep plugging along, and you'll notice someone using the non-acronym version, and then you'll know it. For now: VR = Vanilla Reload, WM = WalMart.
2) Yes, I think so? VR seems to be discouraged. Sunrise Bank (I think?) gift cards seem to be generally accepted? As for the meat of your question, using Serve/BB/RC to purchase a money order, I don't know, but most people would ask "Why would you want to do that in the first place? Once you've got the money on your Serve/BB/RC account, you can use it to pay off a credit card using bill pay, so there's no point in trying to do a money order." But maybe someone else could actually answer your question, because I don't know.
3) It generally depends on the card, and the disclaimer everyone likes to throw around when offering their advice/experience with a specific card is, YMMV. In general, I believe that for Redcard, there are not cash advance fees? For Serve, there can be; read the wiki at the top of that thread for good info about which cards incur them, and which do not.
4) That policy is supposed to take effect in the middle of this month (April 2015), and so you've got a couple more weeks before that's true. But yes, it is supposed to be the case soon. Thus, your hope to meet your minimum spend on your CSP may be limited through this particular avenue.
5) Yes. In general, the process is you direct the billpay to the bank of the card issuer (e.g. Chase, or American Express), and then input the card number whose bill you're trying to pay, because that is the same thing as the "Account Number" that is having the money sent to it.
6) Yes. There are online avenues you can use to purchase one. YMMV! A lot of people apparently do this; personally I'm not interested in buying a temporary card from an online source/vendor. It's up to each person's own personal risk tolerance.
7) Not sure.
In general, if you've only just read this thread, good job! But there's still a ton of reading you have to do. Read the wikis on other threads, read the threads themselves (ok, I know that's probably unrealistic, especially for something like the RedCard thread, which has 4400 posts already this year), or at least read the last 10-20 pages of posts in those most-active threads. The research has just begun, and a lot of your questions would be answered by doing more reading. But, scolding aside, seriously: welcome, and good luck!
(Replying to your follow-up question in your follow-up post: There may be one or two other places one can load a gift card aside from Target and WalMart [FD], but in general, yes -- online loading using that method will get your accounts shut down right quick, or so I've heard.)
Apr 2, 2015, 1:42 pm
#303
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 157
First of all, Thank you for the welcome and for the responses from all. I need some clarification regarding #2: Do the Vanilla Visa ones come with a PIN already or do you have to set the pin when you register the card online? Are other Mastercard/Visa cards the same way? Is there a specific process that needs to be followed for paying for the money order at either Walmart or another grocery store. I had this process for loading to the Bluebird/Redbird/Serve account for paying for a money order:
Hand cashier the BB card. Tell them you want to load $nn. Hold in your hand, a bit like a magician might, the target card AND a regular bank debit card, with the second one on top. You're not flashing the card(s)... you're just patiently waiting to swipe when ready. When cashier tells you to swipe, swipe from the bottom of the deck. Done.
I am just not wanting to get burned but see an opportunity to help meet the spend requirement on the Chase Sapphire I mentioned earlier. The DMV will accept money orders but charge over 2% for debit or credit payments. Since I need to pay sales tax and licensing fees for a car I just bought I see this as a good opportunity. My mortgage company, Wells Fargo, doesn't allow credit or debit purchases. That is only possible through Western Union and I learned the hard way last month that I get cash advance fees from both Western Union and my credit card.
Finally, I just want to add that I know I have a lot to learn and am trying to read as much as I can in different threads. It's just tough to get a ton done with a 2 year old running around and a job that doesn't allow me enough free time to get much done there either. I am trying to limit questions to a minimum. So, thanks for showing patience to a newbie.
2. Are there any certain gift cards that work best for getting money orders (if I want to pay for my mortgage and sales tax/licensing on a new vehicle I just purchased)? For me, the Vanilla Visa GCs work best for buying MOs at grocery stores. I just type in my regular PIN for a newly activated card I bought. Can Serve/Bluebird/Redcard with enough funds for the money order amount be used to directly purchase the money order (instead of using any said give cards above)? These 3 are all prepaid cards and the PIN works only for ATM withdrawal so you can't buy MOs with them since they will be processed like a credit card. Rarely do you find a store that will sell MOs on credit.
Hand cashier the BB card. Tell them you want to load $nn. Hold in your hand, a bit like a magician might, the target card AND a regular bank debit card, with the second one on top. You're not flashing the card(s)... you're just patiently waiting to swipe when ready. When cashier tells you to swipe, swipe from the bottom of the deck. Done.
I am just not wanting to get burned but see an opportunity to help meet the spend requirement on the Chase Sapphire I mentioned earlier. The DMV will accept money orders but charge over 2% for debit or credit payments. Since I need to pay sales tax and licensing fees for a car I just bought I see this as a good opportunity. My mortgage company, Wells Fargo, doesn't allow credit or debit purchases. That is only possible through Western Union and I learned the hard way last month that I get cash advance fees from both Western Union and my credit card.
Finally, I just want to add that I know I have a lot to learn and am trying to read as much as I can in different threads. It's just tough to get a ton done with a 2 year old running around and a job that doesn't allow me enough free time to get much done there either. I am trying to limit questions to a minimum. So, thanks for showing patience to a newbie.
2. Are there any certain gift cards that work best for getting money orders (if I want to pay for my mortgage and sales tax/licensing on a new vehicle I just purchased)? For me, the Vanilla Visa GCs work best for buying MOs at grocery stores. I just type in my regular PIN for a newly activated card I bought. Can Serve/Bluebird/Redcard with enough funds for the money order amount be used to directly purchase the money order (instead of using any said give cards above)? These 3 are all prepaid cards and the PIN works only for ATM withdrawal so you can't buy MOs with them since they will be processed like a credit card. Rarely do you find a store that will sell MOs on credit.
Last edited by mulliganman30; Apr 2, 2015 at 1:49 pm
Apr 2, 2015, 2:26 pm
#304
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 10,904
As for the meat of your question, using Serve/BB/RC to purchase a money order, I don't know, but most people would ask "Why would you want to do that in the first place? Once you've got the money on your Serve/BB/RC account, you can use it to pay off a credit card using bill pay, so there's no point in trying to do a money order.
The nice thing about this, if it would work, is that you could use the Serve for ALL your spend (at least up to the $100k per year limit) so your activity wouldn't look particularly abusive. Yeah, you are buying MOs with it, but also using it at restaurants and movie theatres and stores. And it would pull it all from the CC so you would get full miles.
As I said, I'm not sure if this would work, and it will be dead in 15 days anyway even if it does work. Honesly they should not be too happy about it since they get much less for the debit transactions than they spend on the CC pulls. Maybe this is why they are removing the ability to add a non-amex CC.
Apr 2, 2015, 2:58 pm
#305
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 157
For my purposes of trying to use a visa giftcard/debit card to purchase a money order. Is there certain ones that will let me load between $500 and $1000 on it. If not, I'm trying to figure out how I can purchase then since I am likely only allowed one debit swipe to pay for the money order...
Apr 2, 2015, 3:04 pm
#306
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 3,688
For my purposes of trying to use a visa giftcard/debit card to purchase a money order. Is there certain ones that will let me load between $500 and $1000 on it. If not, I'm trying to figure out how I can purchase then since I am likely only allowed one debit swipe to pay for the money order...
Apr 2, 2015, 3:11 pm
#307
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 3,688
What if the money is not on your Serve account, but you have a CC added and set up as a backup funding source? I've never tried this, but would that work? (ie, it looks like a debit card transaction to the store, so it should go though, and it's a POS transaction, so serve should pull from your backup funding source -- ie, your CC). I assume that that would post as a purchase on the CC, just like a load (but, getting around the load limits).
The nice thing about this, if it would work, is that you could use the Serve for ALL your spend (at least up to the $100k per year limit) so your activity wouldn't look particularly abusive. Yeah, you are buying MOs with it, but also using it at restaurants and movie theatres and stores. And it would pull it all from the CC so you would get full miles.
As I said, I'm not sure if this would work, and it will be dead in 15 days anyway even if it does work. Honesly they should not be too happy about it since they get much less for the debit transactions than they spend on the CC pulls. Maybe this is why they are removing the ability to add a non-amex CC.
The nice thing about this, if it would work, is that you could use the Serve for ALL your spend (at least up to the $100k per year limit) so your activity wouldn't look particularly abusive. Yeah, you are buying MOs with it, but also using it at restaurants and movie theatres and stores. And it would pull it all from the CC so you would get full miles.
As I said, I'm not sure if this would work, and it will be dead in 15 days anyway even if it does work. Honesly they should not be too happy about it since they get much less for the debit transactions than they spend on the CC pulls. Maybe this is why they are removing the ability to add a non-amex CC.
I found this out early on when I tried to get CB out of it and it wouldn't process as a debit card with a message that was like... function not supported.
Apr 2, 2015, 3:35 pm
#308
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 157
So does that mean there isn't an alternative for creating manufactured spending to meet spending requirements for the Sapphire card allowing me to pay these two bills?
Apr 2, 2015, 4:30 pm
#309
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 3,688
First of all, Thank you for the welcome and for the responses from all. I need some clarification regarding #2: Do the Vanilla Visa ones come with a PIN already or do you have to set the pin when you register the card online?Registration is not necessary to use these GCs. I suggest you visit a WAG or CVS that sell Vanilla GCs. Look for cards that have an ice cream cone icon that says Vanilla. Color of these cards are black and silver. One of them says One Vanilla Prepaid Visa Card, others have Gift boxes in them with Gift Card written on top. You won't miss these 2 and the fee is 4.95 while other vanillas have 5.95 fees so choose the ones with lesser fees. At the back, it says there that you can select any 4 digit PIN at first use. Are other Mastercard/Visa cards the same way? NO, this refers only to vanilla GCs issued by Bancorp. Is there a specific process that needs to be followed for paying for the money order at either Walmart or another grocery store. I had this process for loading to the Bluebird/Redbird/Serve account for paying for a money order:
Hand cashier the BB card. Tell them you want to load $nn. Hold in your hand, a bit like a magician might, the target card AND a regular bank debit card, with the second one on top. You're not flashing the card(s)... you're just patiently waiting to swipe when ready. When cashier tells you to swipe, swipe from the bottom of the deck. Done. NOTE that you can't use Vanilla GCs to buy MOs at WM, they can still be used as payment for other stores that take debit for MOs. WM registers accept Vanilla debits up to $49.99 and beyond that amount, they will be rejected. Best GC to use for buying MO at WM are the variable Visa up to $500 sold at WM that are issued by Sunrise Bank. Take time to visit WM and check their Visa GCs and read the fine print on them and you'll find them.
I am just not wanting to get burned but see an opportunity to help meet the spend requirement on the Chase Sapphire I mentioned earlier. The DMV will accept money orders but charge over 2% for debit or credit payments. Since I need to pay sales tax and licensing fees for a car I just bought I see this as a good opportunity. My mortgage company, Wells Fargo, doesn't allow credit or debit purchases. That is only possible through Western Union and I learned the hard way last month that I get cash advance fees from both Western Union and my credit card.
Finally, I just want to add that I know I have a lot to learn and am trying to read as much as I can in different threads. It's just tough to get a ton done with a 2 year old running around and a job that doesn't allow me enough free time to get much done there either. I am trying to limit questions to a minimum. So, thanks for showing patience to a newbie.
Hand cashier the BB card. Tell them you want to load $nn. Hold in your hand, a bit like a magician might, the target card AND a regular bank debit card, with the second one on top. You're not flashing the card(s)... you're just patiently waiting to swipe when ready. When cashier tells you to swipe, swipe from the bottom of the deck. Done. NOTE that you can't use Vanilla GCs to buy MOs at WM, they can still be used as payment for other stores that take debit for MOs. WM registers accept Vanilla debits up to $49.99 and beyond that amount, they will be rejected. Best GC to use for buying MO at WM are the variable Visa up to $500 sold at WM that are issued by Sunrise Bank. Take time to visit WM and check their Visa GCs and read the fine print on them and you'll find them.
I am just not wanting to get burned but see an opportunity to help meet the spend requirement on the Chase Sapphire I mentioned earlier. The DMV will accept money orders but charge over 2% for debit or credit payments. Since I need to pay sales tax and licensing fees for a car I just bought I see this as a good opportunity. My mortgage company, Wells Fargo, doesn't allow credit or debit purchases. That is only possible through Western Union and I learned the hard way last month that I get cash advance fees from both Western Union and my credit card.
Finally, I just want to add that I know I have a lot to learn and am trying to read as much as I can in different threads. It's just tough to get a ton done with a 2 year old running around and a job that doesn't allow me enough free time to get much done there either. I am trying to limit questions to a minimum. So, thanks for showing patience to a newbie.
ETA: this week at WAG, there is a promo going on where if you buy any 2 Vanilla GCs, you get a $5 Walgreens giftcard. This deal ends Saturday, check it out.
Apr 2, 2015, 6:12 pm
#310
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 1
Flyer Talk is the best!
It's great to be a part of flyer talk!
Last edited by forejudos; Apr 2, 2015 at 9:51 pm
Apr 2, 2015, 6:18 pm
#311
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 157
Since you're just starting, I suggest you start buying small denomination GCs until you're sure you know what you're doing before you start buying GCs in $500 denominations. It may be expensive at first but just consider it as part of the learning process. Better safe than sorry, if you ask me.
ETA: this week at WAG, there is a promo going on where if you buy any 2 Vanilla GCs, you get a $5 Walgreens giftcard. This deal ends Saturday, check it out.
ETA: this week at WAG, there is a promo going on where if you buy any 2 Vanilla GCs, you get a $5 Walgreens giftcard. This deal ends Saturday, check it out.
Also could I use the second card to load to a temporary Bluebird/Redbird card? And then maybe try to use Bill Pay to pay a small credit card bill.
Apr 3, 2015, 4:46 am
#312
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: PHX & AGP
Programs: AA Lifetime PLT, Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium, Hilton Gold
Posts: 11,453
If you trully want to play this game, then pick a weekend and plan to no nothing! Then read this thread first after that then go to the Bluebird thread, Serve, thread, RedBird thread and so forth and read them all. Yes, Virginia that is a lot of reading, this is trully the only way to fully understand this game, and understand the acronyms used. This is trully the only way to understand this game to see the history of the game. If this sounds like too much, then maybe this game isn't for you. I've been involved in t his game for 2 yrs and watched this game changed monthly.. Once you have a understanding on where the game was at and read how it has revolved into what it is today, you have a leg up on many newbies..
Apr 3, 2015, 12:25 pm
#314
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: AZ
Posts: 187
Hello, I don't have access to redbird, so loading directly with CC is out of the question. If my plan is to use CC to buy visa prepaid gift cards to reload. Is there any significant difference between BlueBird vs Serve?