Astrophsx

What happened to keeping this on topic?

aviators99

I think this is on topic, actually.

HoKo

I agree, it's as on topic as many things discussed in this thread.

Anyways, nothing like a little economics debate to get the juices flowing

crabbing

i think it's been mentioned before that the mint has negotiated its shipping rates with UPS that are below consumer rates but not zero. but like HoKo, i have never heard of the mint avoiding cc processing fees.

dweick

aviator is correct, the US Mint selling dollar coins is a profit center to the US Treasury. It transfers millions in profits to the US Treasury every year. They only book a profit when they sell the coins so all those tens of millions of $$$ of 2001 NA coins sitting in the vaults of the US Mint were just an expense to produce. They have to sell them to book the revenue. That's why the US Mint is happy to pay the credit card processing fees, they do pay them, and the cost of shipping, they do pay for that as well though they get a good rate, to sell them. But they are also always looking at their expenses in selling, those expenses have risen substantially as a % of the value of the coin ($1) and like any business look to see if they can reduce those costs.

Now as to why they can't do the same with dollar bills, it's because the BEP doesn't produce dollar bills for the US government, they produce them for the Federal Reserve and charge the Fed cost + small profit regardless if they are $1 bills or $100 bills. So no substantial profit flows from the BEP to the US Treasury.

It's a win-win except for the banks and the Federal Reserve which gets stuck with the cost of storing all the coins in its vaults.

Andy2

I distinctly remember from the WSJ article that they asked the representative from the Mint what the CC fees were. The reply was that the fees were incurred by the central purchasing portion of the federal government and were not allocated down to agencies/instrumentalities like the Mint. I didn't mean to imply that the federal government doesn't incur fees or that the fees are fixed and do not increase as more credit card transactions occur. I was just saying that from the Mint's perspective, CC fees are irrelevant since they don't appear on the "income statement" of the Mint. The topic of discussion was that the sale of the dollar coins benefits the Mint from a microeconomic perspective even if it doesn't benefit the government as a whole. So the Mint has no incentive to kill the deal.

aviators99

What's your feeling from the perspective of the government as a whole? My feeling is that there is no net loss, and perhaps a gain.

leland

Is anyone else having trouble buying coins using an amex gift card? I can't get any purchase to go through. I set my address by calling, but it doesn't seem to be working.

Any tips?

buschoi

Have you read the last few pages and another thread that discussed the AMEX GC no longer works? It has been extensively discussed. No way around as of now.

euromannn

When was the last time you checked your credit score? Too many accounts will penalize you.

ddallas

Dead now. Read the last couple pages of the amex gift card thread below
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-not-work.html

Marathon Man

yes, the 2/2 order went to process finally.

I am curious what, if any shipping rates have been negotiated with Fed X and or the USPS. Or, has the reason why many shipments to USPS have been slow got to do with some theory that there are no arrangements? (sorry if that grammar fails. I aint had no cawfee yet)

TheBisch

I bought one of those on eBay not too long ago.... cost me a whopping $2.00 (US). I display it here at my desk and tell people I'm a trillionaire.

jamesteroh

I am assuming a VERY cheap rate if they are sending the coins overnight, otherwise they would just send them UPS ground. I worked in the title insurance industry and know that you can negotiate HUGE discounts with them. I know we were paying less than $5 for an overnight document envelope and I think the published UPS rate at that time was around $18 so we got over a 70% discount. It wouldn't surprise me if the mint has over an 80% discount rate with UPS.

jamesteroh

I don't understand how Am Ex can decline the charge if the funds are on the card. I haven't had an Am Ex GC in a while, but a vendor used to give them to me at christmas time and the terms stated it couldn't be used for pay at pump purchases and there were a couple other exclusions but I didn't see the mint listed.