cstead

Just to add a bit to the CTR and SAR discussion.

Anyone who deposits or withdraws $10,000/day aggregate (so $4000 in and $6000 out will do it) will trigger a CTR. The bank has to investigate this. Doing this once or twice usually won't matter, but perpetually doing this will have SARs filed against you. Banks have a policy that after a customer of your profile has X SARs, you're out.

Additionally, most banks have an unpublished threshold that triggers internal audits. At some banks, its $5000/day, at others I've seen it as low as $1000/day, with $3000/day seeming to be the median value. They do this to look for people who structure. Depending on the complexity of the reporting the bank uses, you may be able to fly under the radar by staying below their threshold.

I'll echo the comment that as long as what you are doing is legal, which this is, you really don't have anything to fear. However, you WILL get at the very least a call from your bank. Think of it as doing lots of same-day turns in YYC: you're going to get hassled, so you better tell the truth up front.

seoulmanjr

My understandng is that earning Amex MR points are specifically excluded. However, if you have an Amex that earns other points/miles (such asn the HHonors Ame, or the AA Amex, etc), you can earn those miles/points by doing this.

peace,
~Ben~

rgm18

are you sure that amex mr doesnt earn points? where did u hear this?

i bought on both my spg amex and my amex gold bizness card today, i was hoping for pts on both...

r

EDIT: whoops, i see in post 20 where it says no MR points...oh well, too bad, i was looking forward to more MR points to xfer to alitalia...guess itll just be spg then...

ET

I called my "local" but not that close AMEX Travel Service Office, and they said that if you use your AMEX HHonors or AMEX Starwood credit card to buy T-chks, that it would be considered a cash advance even if they treated it as a credit card. They said they had a client do this and it was billed as a cash advance. Do these people not know what they are talking about, or could this be correct? A cash advance off an AMEX is not worth the points.

Having never taken out a cash advance, do you have to do anything special to use the card for "cash advance" purposes (ie do you have to supply a pin like ATM transactions?). So if I just signed a credit card slip that it should never be interpreted as a "cash advance"? Can someone clarify?

rrgg

I also wonder if the Travel Service reps are just giving the most logical answer and not the accurate one. Despite what ET wrote, AMEX told me these would be processed as a purchase and not a cash advance on my SPG AMEX.

seoulmanjr

I guess we'll know when we try it. I'm going to try it next week for $50 and if I get hit with cash advance interest on it, it'll just be a pricey experiment. Anyone else with experiences doing this, please post how it hit your bill.

peace,
~Ben~

shukris

I just got $1000 in travelers cheques and immediately deposited them in my bank account. Charges haven't fully posted yet to AMEX but I'll let you know if they show up as a purchase or not.

dgordon

As I stated in my very first post, I didn't post this right away because I wanted to make sure that what I understood would happen, would really happen. It is considered a purchase, but it is your cash advance amount, if less than $1000 that would limit what you could get since it uses this availabilaity to get the funds. So my very first purchase was denied until we figured this out. I called AMEX while I was still there to raise my Cash Advance limit to $1000 so that I could buy $1000 worth of travelers checks. No problem. First two times I only used my SPG card. I got points transferred that included these transactions. It was NOT a cash advance. There were NO other fees involved. We are in the next month, and I have added getting checks using my Hilton card as well - a card I don't use except when I am staying at a Hilton which is not very often. I had to raise my limit to $1000 first because I never keep that amount allowed on any of my cards. I always lower it to $10 or 0.
There is no fee buying travelers using any method (cash, check, or CC) if you have an AMEX card of any kind.
You can buy foreign travelers checks the equivalent of the $US $1000 also at no fee.
It takes about a week for the $1000 cash advance limit to become available again, but I am not sure if the $1000 a week limit is related to that, or different rules by AMEX.
When I was getting checks today, I saw a notice that any $10,000 transaction in one day is reported to the IRS. I would gather that the same rule applies to banks.
The rep that told you that it was treated as a cash advance was wrong. But, because it is the cash advance availability that matters, they might be thinking so.

dgordon

shukris - if I were you I would NOT immediately deposit the entire amount at once. Deposit a few on different days. I think your method is more likely to trigger suspicion as to your motives, whereas it is realistic that you could use your TC over a few days. Anyway, I am doing it differently.

rrgg

The AMEX website will show different types of travel centers.

https://www134.americanexpress.com/c...avel/travel.do

Some are labelled "American Express Travel Service," and others are independently licensed with American Express. Is it possible the conflicting info is coming from the latter type? And maybe this trick doesn't work with them for whatever reason?

See also: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...7&postcount=23

dgordon

I looked at my last SPG AMEX bill for last month where I made two different $1000 purchases of checks. When you click on the detail, under merchant type, it says Travel Agents - cash advance. In spite of that, I will REPEAT myself. In the points transferred to SPG it included the $2000 purchase of checks. There were NO cash advance fees. It was treated as a purchase. If anything else happens on your card, I would call and complain because it is happening as I was told - it is a purchase, NOT a cash advance.

seoulmanjr

Sounds like a green light to me! I can't wait to try this out this coming week... I have a lot of AmEx cards and in NYC there are a lot of these centers. The only thing I only have one of is a bank, but that cna be remedied if need be. But it won't be necessary because I plan on taking my own advice here:

Churn gently, folks.

peace,
~Ben~

shukris

Thank you. Advice noted. I'll wait a bit from now on.

lpy

Thank for the OP, I will give it a try, but I don't think it will last long before AMX fix this loophole.

Steve M

Actually, the reporting of cash transactions (including cash equivalents such as travelers cheques) covers ALL businesses in the United States. Basically, any transaction of any type that involves more than $10,000 in cash in a single day must be reported, even if the business is not a financial institution and even if they don't ordinarily transact in large cash transactions. A car dealer will certainly know about this requirement, as it may not be that unusual for people with earnings from unreported sources to attempt to buy a car with cash. But the rule applies to ALL businesses - your grocery store would have to file a report if you bought more than $10,000 of groceries in a single day and paid cash.