Capital One checking gameplan- Advice Needed
 

Not sure of where to place this, so I’ll put it here…

I’m looking at a current Capital One No Hassle Rewards checking promo and wondering if this is a good way to tackle things.

-2,000 points for opening an account
-8,000 points for setting up a monthly direct deposit of $1,000 or more
-$200.00 account credit after 3 months of said direct deposit
-Receive 20 points per purchase with my debit card (Double Rewards)
-Receive 10 points per ATM transaction (Double Rewards)
-No fees or minimum balance required, provided that I maintain a monthly direct deposit of $1,000.00
-Free next-day account transfers

So after a few months, I’d have 10,000 points and $200.00. I have an iPhone attachment that allows me to swipe credit cards as payment at a rate of $.03 per transaction. My account is set to deposit funds in my current checking account.

Theoretically, I could swipe my Capital One debit card for $1.00 a total of 6,667 times and break even with the $200.00 account credit I received. At 20 points per swipe, that gives me 133,340 points. Added to the points I got at the initial sign-up, that’s 143,340 points. That translates to a travel credit of $1,433.40, which I would then use for 2 tickets to STT for my 15 year anniversary next June and save my miles for a family vacation. Over a year, that averages to 18 swipes per day.

I know that it may be a little work, but it seems like a pretty decent ROI. I could have my paycheck deposited into my Capital One account, setup a transfer to my main account and simply recycle my own money back to myself.

Am I missing something? Capital One confirmed that there is no cap to how many times I can use my debit card. My credit features also has no set cap. I am unable to open several credit cards to get miles/points and am looking for a decent work-around.

I don't want to get too into it, but you're not going to be able to swipe your own debit card 6,667 times without them closing your account. There are twi definitions of "unlimited," the one that means absolutely no limits, do whatever you want, and the one all banks and companies use. Their definition is: Once we notice you abusing the system you will be shut down.

Read carefully the T&C, but there are usually broad clauses that say they can shut you down for any reason, or no reason.

A lot of ideas you read about on here do not scale up to infinity. Not that the account won't be useful to generate *some* amount of points, but don't count on this being a never-ending well.

Also be advised that rewards earned on bank accounts are taxable and you will receive a 1099 INT when points are redeemed or transfered out to another account.

10 monthly transaction limit
 

I signed up for the same (or similar) No Hassles reward account, but it caps me to ten bill pay transactions per month (@ 10 points per payment).

I'd suspect the card swipes are capped at ten (or perhaps something a bit higher, but almost certainly less than 100 per month), so you won't be able to earn as quick as you would like.

I also would think your card would be shut down if you did do that many transactions, or at least have your card put on stop all the time by the fraud prevention team. Of all my credit and banking relationships I have, Capital One is by far the most aggressive in fraud prevention. As I travel and spend internationally, I have had to call into the fraud prevention team to unblock my account quite often.

What is the % fee? And what service is this? I'd definitely be interested...

I've actually been doing this for the last two months without incident. There is NO cap limit with my card swipes or the amount of points earned. I was upfront with my plan when I opened the account. Theres nothing against the T&Cs in doing this. They even allowed me to raise my ATM withdrawal limit to $1000 per day so that I can transfer funds. I'm averaging 6,500 points per month, but part of that is due to the fact that I was in Europe for 2 weeks and couldn't swipe with an international data plan. My goal is 10,000 points per month.

I have to pay 2.75% per transaction, which works out to $0.03 per $1.00 transaction. I use the Square app.

Can you open the account online ? And then can anybody please post a link to this offer ?

Good for you! They will definitely shut you down in a month or two, If not, please come back and tell us they haven't:D. But even so - what do you care? There are plenty of other banks.

1099 is another story, and I wouldn't want to pay taxes on those miles

I'm guessing its Square