Squeezing every mile possible... down to cents
 

I recent opened Barclay US airways Masters card (world premier).

I went to check the statement, so i logged on this morning, and i found something interesting.

Normally, when you have multiple purchases, as an example

May 10th subway 5.30
May 12th 7-11 4.10

you are billed $8.70 and you get 9 miles (if your credit card gives you 1 mile to 1 dollar spent).


However, for Barclay US airways credit card, they reward you for each individual item. What's more interesting is, that they always seem to round UP!

So i got : 6 miles for subway purchase ($5.30) and 5 miles for 7-11 ($4.1) <-- these are just examples.

This theoretically means that I can, up to, get two miles per one dollar spent, (if my spending comes out to $1.01, although i haven't tried if 1 cents on top of 1 dollar will result in round up or down). I know for many FTs one or two additional miles won't make any difference, but it was interesting to see how Barclay awarded miles based on individual purchases, rather than NET purchase at the end of statement.

I hadn't noticed that, but I am now going to go back and check.

If this works, then a lot of us will be checking out at the grocery store purchasing one item at a time using the automated checkout kiosks!

Hmmm, nice find! That would be mighty nice if you found something for $1.01 that you needed many of, and could do it with multiple purchases.

as long as someone behind you doesn't shoot you :p

Assuming this is indeed true (and I certainly hope it is, as I have the card too!), you could actually do much better... assuming you could find a merchant that would let you ring up a credit card charge for a $0.01 purchase :D

here are my two purchases, and the rewards that came with it


Trans Date Post Date Description Purchases Points Earned
04/28/11 04/29/11 EXXONMOBIL 47868369 2.67 3.00
04/27/11 04/28/11 SUB WORKS 9.32 10.00

You could be that merchant

www.square.com

$0.01275/mile

Wouldn't that end up being $0.010275/mile? (2.75% of the 1 cent transaction)

Hmmmmmm

Don't they charge fixed cost + rate?

so 1 cent purchase will turned into 45 cents +1 * 2.75%

Actually, wouldn't it be $0.000275/mile, since the 1 cent is just getting deposited back into your account?

I feel like I must be missing something here...

Yeah, I think you're both correct

So not a bad cost/mile but it's not exactly the most productive way to generate miles either

There is a fixed cost, if you don't use the reader... but doesn't seem to be if you DO use the reader: https://help.squareup.com/customer/p...ocessing-fees-

With the fixed cost + fee, it's 15.035 cents / mile

http://www.squareup.com is the website.

they may need to adjust their business model