Don't forget that Chase had transfers both ways to/from AGR. There were some insidious ways to rack up Amtrak points on short-hop trains since there was a 100-point minimum per segment (which at the time, IIRC, could stack as high as 250 points). One of the biggest loopholes was that, until some idiot blabbed, if you could get the conductor to take all of the tickets they'd all post to your account...so I heard a story of someone handing over a stack of 100 tickets on a short hop out of PHL (I think it might have been PHL-PAO, but it might have been another close-in stop) and getting the resulting 10k points (and thus Select Plus status) in one go.

Then they posted on it and Amtrak both retracted the points and put in a loophole-blocking rule.

Let us not forget the famous 'Getting Out More' promo from US Air. After 9/11, US Air was offering a double miles (status and regular) promo and sending individual codes to flyers for this. It turned out the codes were stackable and we were sharing them. I was using multiple codes and receiving 6x miles for trips. Flying out of BTV at that time, it was possible to become Chairman's Preferred by flying 3 RT of BTV-PHL-SFO. Total cost of about $700.

I did the US savings bonds, but my funds were limited back then, so it only amounted to some thousands of miles before they stopped it

There was a small bank that offered Visa gift cards for purchase with credit cards for no fee, but I found out about it late and only made about 30,000 miles or so. At that time I could take them directly to my CU and deposit them, which made it pretty easy -- buy online, get them in the mail, take them to the CU and deposit.

I did the coins, but only in a limited way. My CU didn't like it when I brought a lot of dollar coins in, so I took to putting them in the vending machines in the basement at work and then pressing refund and getting four quarters back. I think I made around 50,000 miles on that.

When Microsoft was pushing the Bing search engine, there were word games you could play online and gain points, which you could redeem for airline miles. I made over 100,000 miles on that, but I was cautious -- I only did it a little for quite a while, then later ramped it up with multiple logins, bots to play some of the games automatically and multiple computers ( I had access to a computer training room after hours). They later caught on to people doing this and restricted it, but if I had been bold from the beginning I could have gotten lifetime Platinum easily on AA.

The biggest thing for me was the debit card/money order/deposit cycle that is still ongoing. I could earn over 100,000 miles/points in a month, although it was a lot of work. I still do it a little when I'm back in the US and have a CC bonus to go for, but the amount I did in the three years before I retired got me several years of business/first class tickets back to the US and stays in some nice hotels.

The TYP game of fixed point prices for business-class tickets was a goldmine for me, but all the info I got about that was from here on FT itself and I didn't find it crpytic at all. The miles and points blogosphere wasn't as mainstream and popular back then as it has been the last several years.

What kills the deals more than ever is the increased clout and capabilities of the big players involved in the game -- those big players being substantial governmental and business interests, players who have stacked the game against the consumers more than used to be the case.

Did the CU take the quarters?
Please tell us where this is still ongoing. Thanks.

People are still buying money orders with prepaid debit cards, where the prepaid debit cards are purchased to hit the credit card sign-up bonus spending thresholds. Those prepaid debit cards are being used to purchase money orders that get deposited in regular old current accounts at times.

Have you checked out the MS forum here on FT? It seems to still be active.

Hyatt FFN and SPG Stay2Get1ResortNight were the best hotel promos ever which I leveraged into nights on Maui and Princeville.

Mistake fares were great.

And let's not forget the AA Buy 2 RT get a voucher for a free trip anywhere in our system deal. Stellar!

The best days of this game indeed seem to have been closer to when those kind of things were happening. Finding such extraordinarily valuable deals is a lot tougher than it used to be, and really not worth it as much as it used to be.

And given the changed corporate environment and business practices of travel service providers, I find it improbable that this game is going to be as widely lucrative again for as long as it used to be.

Things always change, but that's ok. If there's anything I'm sure of, it's this: whatever rules the set up, we'll adapt & outsmart them.

That outsmarting thing is not going to happen in the aggregate.

The travel service providers have increasingly stacked the game in their favor, including by way of the government increasingly on their side against the consumers. Of course there will be some exceptions to the rule; but in the aggregate most of the "we" consumers in this game will see a lower return than used to be the case.

I have been off and on for years, currently more on than off. Lots of good things learned along the way.

Thanks for these posts, a lot of them were great memories. I flew a lot in the early days of joining for very little. These lessons have lasted.

Changed: Mistake fares. I've come across some "mistake" fares but have kept them to my circle of friends and family. I've looked back here when I came across but not a mention.

I think I missed out on SPG Stay2Get1ResortNight, but I used 5x a similar SPG Stay3Get1ResortNight to get 5 nights at the Sheraton inside Iguazu Falls National Park, Argentina, and a "challenge" at the same time to earn accelerated status for that year with those same 15 stays.

Not only have these promos gone away, and SPG itself, but so has that particular Sheraton (it's rebranded and is currently a Hotel Gran Melia).

They didn't give me any hassle when I brought in bags of coins with mostly quarters. They didn't like the dollar coins.

I bought gift cards at a Simon Mall, bought MOs at WM and deposited them at my CU in April and May of this year in Wisconsin and Illinois, but now I only do it to make the spend on new CCs. Just before I retired in 1996, I was doing over 100K a month.

I honestly put more thought/effort into the coin thing than my actual job at the time. As I noted upthread, I bought a minivan for the sole purpose of hauling coins, but there were a few other logistical considerations:
1. I timed the deliveries to make sure I was available to meet the UPS man because I didn't fancy having $20,000 left on my doorstep
2. I already had a BofA account, but I opened accounts at two more banks, which gave me a choice of about ~30 bank branches that were semi-close to me
3. On Monday mornings, I did the bank runs, focusing on branches that were okay with coin deposits, but I tried to avoid going to the same branches on subsequent Mondays

The above might sound like overkill to those of you who didn't do coins. However, it was well worth the effort for me.

What is this?