This is an ingeniously evil idea.

The merchant has no way of telling whether your Amex card and your wife's Amex card are linked to the same account. That you have the same last name is irrelevant.

Next time you want to make a return for your wife, take her card with you.

Actually, the BANKS have system in place to catch large amount of refund that did NOT have prior charge(s) to match it.

The story went like this: someone paid ahead a year's worth of Cable TV subscription with different credit cards back in the old days when spending requirement to earn sign up bonus was a measly $250... Then he called the cable company to ask for a refund... After a few of such attempts, the cable company decided to refund all the advance payments to ONE single card, being the last card used to pay for the bill, but needless to say, the amount refunded was much larger than the payment(s) made by this card...

Long story short, the card issuer froze the refund. I only learned the part of the story up to that point, and never was told the final outcome of it... despite I asked the person a few times... I could only guess the outcome might not be good...

Dont let your creative juice run wild, for you never know what is put in place to spot fraud activities as seen by the software...

Expedia once issued a courtesy credit to me that was considered a compensation for my not taking them up on a hotel price error (6 nights in Hilton Tokyo at 1/10th of the normal rate.) The supervisor told me they had a special code to use for credit back to CC WITHOUT prior charge in order to make the credit go through. Now I have no idea what he is talking about, but come to think about that, this obviously also has something to do about the refund must go back to the original form of payment.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...es-thread.html

That is perhaps the funniest thread title I've ever read in my entire life.

Anyway, thanks for the credit on the "ingeniously evil" idea, but, unfortunately, I can't really take credit for it. This is just an extension of the "coin"/"currency"/"gold" game. The whole idea is to get something charged onto your points earning card, and then somehow try to turn that something (that you charged for points) back into cash (without losing the points). The coin gig is just one of the most fungible things that you can buy, but there are certainly other things; problem is trying to get around the transaction fees.

What would be great is a site that allowed you to buy currency at face value (high dollar currency, like 100 dollar bills). Unfortunately, because of CC/transaction fees, this is almost always a big loser. There are other ways, of course, to get around these problems, but the holy grail is to find something that allows you to swipe a card (on one side of the transaction) and have cash and points come out the other side.

I have a feeling that we're a rare breed on here; I doubt many/any people have ever really even thought of how abuseable a system is that allows you to return to a different card (for the purpose of points). The reason that's it's not allowed is almost certainly because of fraud/theft. But, if you find a vendor that will do this for you; keep it to yourself. You'll never have to pay to fly ever again; it's a points printing machine.

which I spend my time online and in FT trying to figure out on a daily basis. Some do MRs and their friends think they is crazy. I do this.



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Alls I can say is that there have been stores that allow it but most do not. It's actually been a long while since I have looked. It's usually a stumble-upon kinda thing.

MM

I didn't do this on purpose, but I exchanged a K-Cup coffee maker at costco. Their policy is to credit your credit card and then you repurchase the item instead of exchanging it.

Most merchants just automatically credit the card back, but at costco they will ask for the physical card. I usually use my hilton card for the first $40K of purchases to get diamond. I use my costco am ex card just as a membership card and when the clerk asked for the am ex card I used, for some reason I handed him my costco one. I didn't even realize I made the mistake until I downloaded all my activity from am ex later that week and saw what happened. I called Am Ex and they transferred the credit from Costco Am Ex to my hilton am ex so I kept the hilton points. I am not sure what will happen when it's time to issue my costco rebate check on that Am Ex since I didn't buy anything on this year and it will be a negative number.

While many merchants routinely allow this, many merchants have agreements with the sponsoring bank that won't allow a credit to a card in excess of the amount charged to the card originally.

So if you spent $100, the merchant can't credit more than $100 back to that card. Makes good sense.

If you spent $0 on a card . . .

Among the reasons, many are mentioned above, but another is just the fee issue. If the merchant has an account that returns fees on refunds (not all do) then the sponsoring bank wants to be sure they're getting the right fees back from the cardholder's bank. Otherwise, you get the 150,000 points problem as listed above, all at the merchant's expense.

Don't forget, for a merchant to accept your AA Platinum Citi Visa probably costs them something like 3.6%, where to refund to your generic debit card, they only get back maybe 1.6% (again, if they even get fees refunded). So the merchant is out a nice chunk of change, and wants a system that disallows this.

Anyone ever get a refund on a closed card? Works every time, even though the account is closed by request, or for fraud, or even with an expired number. And this is why.

Since a Visa card always starts with a 4, that's actually 5 digits you have to have in common between two cards.

How likely is that???

(I know I've never yet had anything even close to that with a Visa or MC, and have only come close with cards issued by Amex, where I seem to often have only one or two digits -- of the last 5, not just last 4 -- different between them, as if they have a sequence of last 5 card numbers predetermined just for me personally. But since Amex-issued cards are always from the same issuer, I presume they have a system to make sure you never end up with two cards from them that have the same last 4 or last 5, as then they themselves would have problems telling them apart.)

And I don't think you can request a specific set of last 4 digits from any MC/Visa card issuer, can you?

You mean like a vanity credit card?

Well, first, if both are MC or Visa then no problem...

Second, how about using some VAN system to generate cards endlessly until you get the desired 4 digits that match your ATM?

Then you buy online using the VAN and going to the physical store to return with the ATM/DEBIT...

Another big issue here for merchants is chargebacks.

You buy something, and return it to a different card. Then you complain to your first card bank that you never go credit. They see no credit on the account, and, if you have proof of the return, they pull the money back from the merchant.

So another reason why a merchant shouldn't allow this.

Good point on that. I am surprised all the merchants don't have their systems set up so it automatically credits the card used automatically.

The merchants refund credit card purchases to the credit card used to make the purchase because Visa, MasterCard, and American Express rules mandate it. The merchants would be in violation of their contract/agreement with their credit card processor or the card networks if they gave refunds in a different form (eg. cash, or to a different card.)

Merchants who don't follow the rules have an increased risk of chargebacks*, can get their interchange rates raised, or could lose the ability to accept that type of card.

* Someone could buy something, return it and get cash, and then file a chargeback saying the refund never posted. The merchant would then have to admit that they refunded cash improperly, or issue a refund to the credit card, or the card issuer will do the chargeback. The chargeback can still happen even if cash was refunded since the rules were violated.

The place I get my hair cut is Fantastic Sams. They have a few places nationwide.

When I tip the barber, I often ask to put the $5 on the same charge as my cut and add any coupons. So for $18-20 I am done and what I see is the cashier take a $5 bill out of the register and hand it to the barber as I say goodbye and walk out. Been doing this for years.

When I go to Stop & Shop supermarkets and there's any small glitch in my bill, a missed opportunity to apply a coupon or a bad piece of fruit discovered as I put my bags into my car, I can walk back into the supermarket, go to the CS desk and hand the clerk my receipt. they just give me back cash. I have received up to ~$15.

Neither of these are opportunities where I go out LOOKING to get cash off a CC and get miles for it, but that's what just happened.

So are these stores doing something wrong or is this just a case of good customer service mixed with a dose of reality instead of strict policy?

When I worked as a bartender years ago in a ski town, the bar manager said each of us could have a loosely determined freebee list of people... we could give away a beer here or there to up to like 5 people a day. This was based on no rule or strict accounting. It was all honor system and we all never abused it. there'd be times all your friends would come in and you would comp 8 beers a nite and other times when you wouldn't have given any away for a week. It all worked out. Bar manager said it kept the locals happy which is part of the main business.

The reason I bring this up is because I think some of you posting here are wrong about strict policy rules in business. Some businesses have room for 'loose cash' and other things that could be done in alternative ways so long as none of it totals to too much $$$ over time.

I used to work for BayBanks, which was the New England-based grandfather to all of the BofAs in new England. I was in the money room counting deposits from ATMs. People deposited everything in those things. Coins (not mint ones lol) paper, foreign money, old money, etc) and each of our booths had change all over the place. While every transaction had to go through and be accounted for, this loose money was often there for 48 hrs before being fully counted in, and yet the customer was credited in full for their sometimes erroneous deposits of nono cash/paper check currency. What I'm getting at is there was an allowance for some looseness and error now and then.