Mileage earned with a debit card
 

Continental and Chase Manhattan launched the first co-branded debit card. Annual fee: $30. Members earn one OnePass mile, which does not
expire, for every $2 spent. Call 800-242-7324.

It doesn't sound like a very good deal to me since you can get 1 mile for 1$ with the Chase credit card. Also you have substantial risk if the card is lost or stolen compared to a credit card where your maximum liability is limited to $50 by law.

Here in Washington State, the same laws apply to debit cards. Thus, your liability is limited to $50. Thanks to some strong marketing promotions in this region, the debit card is used by a large percentage of the population. Quicker than whipping out the checkbook and easier to manage.

Brings up an interesting possibility. Could one set-up their own little business selling, oh I don't know, widgets and then use the debit card to purchase their own product (for the miles of course)? I could sell a widget to myself and use the debit card to pay for it. The money comes out of the debit account, I get the miles, and the proceeds are funneled back into the business (i.e. my bank account). Not sure if this is legal, although I can't see why not.

Yes you could, of course you'd have to pay the merchant fees for the transactions, generally around 1.5%. Plus you might have tax issues to deal with(both sales and income). So you'd be spending a lot to get the miles. Of course you might be able to get around the sales tax issues by returning the good to the seller(yourself), then you the buyer would be entitled to a sales tax refund. If you could convince the state and the feds that there was no income involved, see a tax expert, you be down to the merchant fees for credit card processing.

The lowest fees I've seen are 1.48%, which means a 25,000 purchase would cost $370.
On the debit card it would get you 12,500
miles.

Sounds like a losing deal to me.

The merchant fees for credit cards are around the 2% mark - I didn't know that the merchant fees for debit are almost as high. Grocery stores in Canada (generally) take debit but not credit. I asked a manager about this once and was told that the fees for credit are much higher than debit.

Well part of the thing is how you use the card. If you use it as a mastercard or visa the merchant will pay the same rate as a credit card, in fact they have no way of knowing it is a debit card.

Also I have a few more details from Chase.

The card has a $30 annual fee, refundable in the first 30 days if you cancel the card.
It has a limit of 80,000 miles earned per year(160,000 in purchases). All purchases count towards miles except ATM withdrawls(boy if they let you do that, it would be like taking candy from a baby).

And there is a 2000 mile enrollment bonus.

So if you're a chase customer, you can get 2000 miles for 30 bucks, not a bad deal especially if you're within 2000 miles of your award.

I wonder if you purchased travelers
checks, e.g. through AAA, would they
count as miles?

Aaron- That was tried a few years ago. A guy walked into a bank, charged a bunch of travel checks with his card, got the miles, then "deposited" the travel checks to his checking account, paying off the credit card befor any interest could accrue. He repeated the process a mess of times.... Travel checks no longer count. Nice idea though...

I'm wondering whether the same is true
for a *debit* card. If so, we could max
out the Chase/Continental card within
a month or two!

I just got the Chase debit card too, for the miles. I agree that the credit card deal is much better but I try to avoid credit cards ... I want to pay my Chase mortgage with my debit card. Then, even if I bought NOTHING else all year, I could get a free ticket for less than $50, I figure.

But, Chase Mortgage will only accept CHECKS. Not withdrawals from your debit card (they told me that they consider it the same as a credit card, which they don't accept ...) so, here is my plan, please let me know if you know any better way!

Today I am going to go to the post office and get a money order in the amount of my mortgage. Since they only let you use your debit card to get money orders to a max of $1,000, I might have to go back more than once. They charge $0.80 per money order plus whatever the bank will charge. The mortgage co. already told me they would accept a money order and Chase bank told me that the post office transaction wouldn't count as an ATM ... (actually the guy was pretty insulting about it when I asked, pointing to the bank ATM and saying, "THAT is an ATM! Nothing else is!") so I am going to try it and see what happens. Maybe I will try the bank deposit thing too with money orders! :-)

I would not count on getting any miles for a money order. If you have to enter your pin, then it clears through the ATM network and is only a minor charge for the merchant as opposed to the 1.5% charge for VISA/MC. The Post Offfice will only accept the card when used with a pin. The Compubank debit card only gives miles when transactions clear through VISA. I would certainly bet, that Chase only gives miles when the transaction clears through VISA/MC network.

I hope it works for you, but I think your Chase rep was not only rude, but wrong.

CompuBank's Visa debit card is no fee, and gives you one clickreward mile per dollar spent on the card when you use it as a debit (not an ATM) card. The miles are transferable one to one on any of the clickrewards airlines except American and Delta. Any amount over I believe 500 can be transfered to the airline account, or you can do all the other stuff you can do with clickrewards miles. If you purchase something through the clickrewards mall with the card, you get the miles for the purchase, and the miles from Compubank, so you actually get two or three (depending on the store) the miles.

I pretty much use it for everything now, the miles add up very quickly. You can open an account or get more details at compubank.com .

Cordelli,

Compubank does not give you a clickreward when you use your card as a debit card, but only for qualified purchases. I know we are dealing with real echinical terms, but it is very important as you won't get any miles if you make the wrong choice at the checkout counter. The self-service swipe machines are a real pet-peeve of mine anyway. IF you go to Wal Mart and use your Compubank card and choose debit (After all it's a debit card isn't it), then you will be prompted for your pin and then you will not get any miles.

Here is the info that I copied from the ComouBank web page.

*****
You earn 1 ClickMile for every dollar you spend on a qualified purchase using your CompuBank Visa Check Card. What is a qualified purchase? Purchases qualify if they are made without using your PIN, and they do not include cash advances or withdrawals. For example, you will not receive miles for ATM withdrawals made using your CompuBank Visa Check Card. Nor will you receive miles for cash advances or withdrawals whether using the debit or credit option of your CompuBank Visa Check Card.

Helpful Hint: When you are at the grocery store or gas station or anyplace where you have to swipe your card, be sure to choose the "credit" option. The purchase amount will be deducted from your CompuBank account, and an equal amount of miles will be awarded to your ClickRewards account!

Thanks SuperCat and Cordelli, I will try this. SuperCat I think you are probably right about the ATM ... (sigh) ... I will come up with something else.