Good Bye My Dear Friends
Jan 12, 2016, 12:27 pm
#46
formerly southsidesilver
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: San Diego,CA
Programs: BA Gold, UA Silver, HH Diamond
Posts: 996
Google wallet was a good one for me, moved a lot of money before they brought in the fee, and then I still did it with the fee on a CC and then they stopped allowing credit cards.
Debit only now, but that excludes all BUXX cards
Debit only now, but that excludes all BUXX cards
Jan 12, 2016, 1:44 pm
#47
Join Date: May 2010
Location: BDL
Programs: DL PM, HHonors Silver
Posts: 440
Jan 12, 2016, 6:10 pm
#48
Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 136
I used US savings bonds, some small bank that offered fee-free GCs that you could cash in at your bank, Microsoft's search engine promotion with the word games, and some of those mentioned above. All of those together didn't gain me anywhere near as many miles and points as I've earned in the last two years, though.
Jan 13, 2016, 6:18 pm
#52
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Land of the parrots and parrotheads
Programs: Several dozen
Posts: 4,820
As long as the call is Bring Out Your Dead!....
Have to throw the USAirways Gram Slam Promotion onto the dead wagon. Played that game with 12 accounts which allowed for generating a million points in a day (although it would take weeks for all the transactions to settle and months before the points were all ready to use). Sometime later a contest was held to see who could set a record by MSing a mere million in a month. Where is Marie Laveau when we need her most to bring the spirit of MS back to life?
Have to throw the USAirways Gram Slam Promotion onto the dead wagon. Played that game with 12 accounts which allowed for generating a million points in a day (although it would take weeks for all the transactions to settle and months before the points were all ready to use). Sometime later a contest was held to see who could set a record by MSing a mere million in a month. Where is Marie Laveau when we need her most to bring the spirit of MS back to life?
Jan 13, 2016, 9:24 pm
#53
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Posts: 1,139
Emoneymail was 2000-2001. I do believe there was an offer for fee-free travelers checks that preceded the year 2000 and was discussed on flyertalk and ended when abuse occurred. I also believe the Home Depot gift card cash back technique was used in the early 2000s, and the Charter One Prepaid Debit cards were in 2003. So there was prehistoric MSing. It would be very interesting to know when the first Citi bank account was funded with a credit card. I never thought about opening citi bank account after citi bank account with a credit card. There was a guy on Flyertalk who claimed to have earned one million miles by opening an unimaginable number of Citi bank accounts until he got a call asking him to please stop. Believe the limit is now five lifetime Citi account openings with a credit card, which unfortunately I long ago reached.
Jan 13, 2016, 10:33 pm
#54
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Socal
Posts: 133
For me it all started with the First USA Yahoo! Visa. Unlimited no-fee balance transfers that earned 1% back in Amazon credit. Simply bounced balances back and forth between cards every few days for profit... good times.
Jan 15, 2016, 12:45 am
#56
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 1,112
I know that you can't use the rewards certificates on Visa gift cards, but I think it's still possible to buy merchant cards. I don't remember exactly.
Something that definitely did die with them, though, is the ability to buy Visa gift cards using Best Buy gift cards.
Jan 15, 2016, 5:38 am
#57
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 476
If you're referring to view Best Buy, they still do give points for purchases of gift cards, including Visa. The difference is that even if you're an elite member, you only ever get 1X points.
I know that you can't use the rewards certificates on Visa gift cards, but I think it's still possible to buy merchant cards. I don't remember exactly.
Something that definitely did die with them, though, is the ability to buy Visa gift cards using Best Buy gift cards.
I know that you can't use the rewards certificates on Visa gift cards, but I think it's still possible to buy merchant cards. I don't remember exactly.
Something that definitely did die with them, though, is the ability to buy Visa gift cards using Best Buy gift cards.
Jan 15, 2016, 9:57 am
#58
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 393
Wells Fargo PrePaid Visa Debit! You could add money with a credit card, $5k per month. I managed 3 cards, loaded $2500 every 15 days, rinse, repeat. 2012, I believe. (I liquidated them with free WF-ATM withdrawals and USPS money orders.)
Jan 15, 2016, 11:31 pm
#59
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 92
In 1979 the Royal Canadian Mint introduced the 1 oz Maple Leaf gold coin to compete with the Krugerrand. They advertised them for direct sale, at a set price, in magazines like National Geographic. At the time the price of gold was strongly moving upward. In the months between when they placed the ad and when it was published the gold value had increased so much even I could see it was too good a deal to be true. I mailed in my order and charged it to my Visa (recently renamed from BankAmericard), fully expecting the offer to be disavowed. But low and behold a couple weeks later I got a notice from my local post office to retrieve a very heavy registered mail package. First big score! I learned to never underestimate institutional inertia.
Ok, so technically we could argue that this wasn’t really MS (no points), but pretty good for arbitrage via credit card.
Ok, so technically we could argue that this wasn’t really MS (no points), but pretty good for arbitrage via credit card.