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)
Mar 25, 2015, 11:20 am
#271
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 3,688
amex GCs do not have PIN so you either have to buy VGCs in order to load them to your prepaids or just use them to pay bills like home/auto insurance or similar bills. another option is to process them via readers for variable fees.
Mar 25, 2015, 12:40 pm
#273
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 184
Got my first Visa GC from shoprite in NJ for $500 issued by metabank. I did not see any GC more than $500. I will be loading my Serve card with it. Inorder to hit the monthly limit of $5000 (at WM) and $1000 (online) I will have to buy 12 of them at $5.95 each?
Mar 25, 2015, 1:11 pm
#274
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NYC
Posts: 158
AFAIK, you can use them for the $5000 at WM, but not the $1000 online.
Mar 25, 2015, 3:01 pm
#276
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 3,688
you only have to buy 10 $500 VGCs to meet the max load per calendar month. If you have regular Serve, you can load it with your CC (be careful about those that charge CA fees) at $200 per day, for 5 days or if you have Serve Softcard, you can load $500 per day, 3 consecutive days for total of $1500. You can buy Sunrise VGCs at WM for 4.94 fee and they load w/o problems at WM either at Kate,Money center or regular registers.
Mar 25, 2015, 4:38 pm
#277
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 7
pdelgardo, to get two coach tickets is very easy. I don't know where in the Midwest you are, but availability from ORD-LHR is going to be better on American than United, though availability on United isn't bad.
If you want to do it on American, hurry and get the US Airways card while you still can. This is probably only possible for another few days and will certainly be gone by mid-April. Go to usairways.com and click on the card, which comes with an $89 annual fee, but you get the miles with one purchase and payment of the AF. These 50,000 miles will be AA miles in a month or less. Then go to Citi and get the 50,000 American miles card: https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/cr...ds/CitiHome.do Then you'll have to do $3,000 of real or manufactured spending to get the 50,000 bonus on that card. Now, you have 103,000 AA miles and only need 17,000 more to get to Europe anytime from May 15 to October 15. If you didn't mind going earlier or later than that, you'd already have enough, as off-peak AA economy rewards are only 40,000 miles each. If you want to go in the summer, then you can try to also get the 50,000 miles for the Citi American Business Card, or you can try to get the 30,000 miles you can get from Citi for opening a certain checking account (go to www.doctorofcredit.com and click on best bank accounts). You could also get AA points from getting the SPG card and transferring.
If United is really a better option for you, then you can do this their way by getting the Chase Ink Plus and transferring the 50,000 points to United miles and doing the same thing with the 45,000 you get for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. Add the United card or the business card and you are there.
So, you don't have to do a whole lot of MS or churning to get your two tickets to Europe. It isn't going to be hard at all. Is there a Target in your area?
And, by the way, the key to your FICO isn't about carrying a balance. You want to show a low credit utilization, so you want your statement balance to be zero or near zero, meaning that you want to pay the cards off before the statement closes.
If you want to do it on American, hurry and get the US Airways card while you still can. This is probably only possible for another few days and will certainly be gone by mid-April. Go to usairways.com and click on the card, which comes with an $89 annual fee, but you get the miles with one purchase and payment of the AF. These 50,000 miles will be AA miles in a month or less. Then go to Citi and get the 50,000 American miles card: https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/cr...ds/CitiHome.do Then you'll have to do $3,000 of real or manufactured spending to get the 50,000 bonus on that card. Now, you have 103,000 AA miles and only need 17,000 more to get to Europe anytime from May 15 to October 15. If you didn't mind going earlier or later than that, you'd already have enough, as off-peak AA economy rewards are only 40,000 miles each. If you want to go in the summer, then you can try to also get the 50,000 miles for the Citi American Business Card, or you can try to get the 30,000 miles you can get from Citi for opening a certain checking account (go to www.doctorofcredit.com and click on best bank accounts). You could also get AA points from getting the SPG card and transferring.
If United is really a better option for you, then you can do this their way by getting the Chase Ink Plus and transferring the 50,000 points to United miles and doing the same thing with the 45,000 you get for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. Add the United card or the business card and you are there.
So, you don't have to do a whole lot of MS or churning to get your two tickets to Europe. It isn't going to be hard at all. Is there a Target in your area?
And, by the way, the key to your FICO isn't about carrying a balance. You want to show a low credit utilization, so you want your statement balance to be zero or near zero, meaning that you want to pay the cards off before the statement closes.
I did take your advice and was approved for the US airways card with a pretty large CL
I want to apply for the citi 50K card but I just converted an old citi card I no longer use to a double cash card so I was worried I would break the 2 applications in 8 days rule.
Do you think a conversion of an old card counts as an application?
I live in Illinois but my closest airport is St Louis so there are no direct flights to the UK. AA looks the way to go.
Thanks again for the great reply I really appreciate it.
Mar 25, 2015, 8:46 pm
#278
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 58
So the Wiki doesn't explicitly state this, but I wanted to confirm: For a Chase RR card, you need to leave the CA line over $200 in order to load and count as a purchase on Serve, correct? However, Chase won't count Serve as a CA (this party was in the Wiki), even though with a $0 CA limit on the RR card, the Serve transaction is declined.
Is that correct?
Is that correct?
Mar 26, 2015, 6:53 am
#279
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 184
you only have to buy 10 $500 VGCs to meet the max load per calendar month. If you have regular Serve, you can load it with your CC (be careful about those that charge CA fees) at $200 per day, for 5 days or if you have Serve Softcard, you can load $500 per day, 3 consecutive days for total of $1500. You can buy Sunrise VGCs at WM for 4.94 fee and they load w/o problems at WM either at Kate,Money center or regular registers.
I will use my US airways card to load via CC. And get Sunrise VGC at WM for $5000 limit at register. And which card can i use for online debit? Someone mentioned that prepaid visa debit cards will not work.
Mar 26, 2015, 9:00 am
#281
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 3,688
you're right, no prepaid GCs will work for online loads. most CCs will work for now UNTIL April 16, 2015 and thereafter, ONLY Amex CCs can be used for online loads. Check the Serve wiki for cards that charge CA although some will post as CA on pending status but later post as purchase.
Mar 26, 2015, 1:01 pm
#282
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NYC
Posts: 158
MP = MoneyPak
I'm pretty sure both of those are dead now, though.
Correct. Although I'm not sure if the problem is that the gift card simply doesn't work or that it leads to a shutdown of your Serve account.
Last edited by BeyondtheWrap; Mar 26, 2015 at 1:09 pm
Mar 27, 2015, 4:13 pm
#283
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 184
So what will work to get to $5000/month? i.e from serve wiki "Serve loading via VR/MP or WM/FD load: $2,500/day and $5,000 total per calendar month". And also for online debit loads for $1000/month?
Last edited by spidy1; Mar 27, 2015 at 4:36 pm
Mar 27, 2015, 6:54 pm
#284
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 184
I am going to find out what is going to happen in the next couple of hours when i try to reload that GC onto my serve at WM.
So what will work to get to $5000/month? i.e from serve wiki "Serve loading via VR/MP or WM/FD load: $2,500/day and $5,000 total per calendar month". And also for online debit loads for $1000/month?
So what will work to get to $5000/month? i.e from serve wiki "Serve loading via VR/MP or WM/FD load: $2,500/day and $5,000 total per calendar month". And also for online debit loads for $1000/month?
Now just have to figure out online debit load.
Mar 28, 2015, 5:10 pm
#285
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 7
I have a question related to MS
I did a search on EBAY for Shell gas cards and found this.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...ft+card&_sop=3
All the sellers want way over the odds for each card.
Any idea why they are charging so much?
Are they actually getting these prices?
I did a search on EBAY for Shell gas cards and found this.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...ft+card&_sop=3
All the sellers want way over the odds for each card.
Any idea why they are charging so much?
Are they actually getting these prices?