PLease reply to this idea I had for accumilating miles without flying. Buy gold (bullion or coins or other precious metals of your choice that accept credit cards for purchase) coins and then sell them back to the/a dealer. Repeat this process over and over untill you have acquired tens of thousands of miles (or even hundreds of thousands). This is considering that you are using a credit card that gives you at least 1 mile for each dollar spent and allows you to aquire unlimited amounts of miles. This sounds like cheating so I would like feedback. Anyone tried this yet?

ie. Buy five 1 ounce Gold coins for $250 x 5 = $1,250.00 = 1250 miles (just an example price..I didnt check the price of gold as of today). Sell the coins back to the dealer you bought it from (or another dealer). Pay your credit card bill, repeat the process an unlimited amount of times (depending on the restrictions of your frequent flyer credit card). Do this 20 times a month and acquire 25,000 miles. You end up paying nothing. You can even do it all over the internet which is great. You dont even have to leave your computer to aquire the miles. Feedback please.

FlyerGod


Question : Will the gold dealer charge the credit card as a cash advance or a credit purchase (sorry forgot to ask). Are there any problems with doing this to get free miles? Feedback please.

Huge commission charges, potential losses (& appreciation) in value during your "hold" time even if minimal and possible tax paperwork liability!

Interesting handle!

Why limit it to coins? Why not buy a car and sell it back, it will save you a ton of transactions. I think the problem will be that the dealers will see no reason to sell you something at $250 and buy it back at the same price. I would guess they will buy it back for their cost, which will be less, and then mark it up. There isn't any chance they will pay you $250 for something they can get for less.

Please let me know if you are able to find a dealer stupid enough to go along with this.

Built into the dealer's costs are rent and other overhead, including the 2% or so merchant charges for Credit cards. I wouldn't think that a dealer would sell an item for $100 and then repurchase such an item for the same amount of money barring any upward fluctuation in value. If he or she did, they wouldn't last too long in business, and would most likely be featured in the annual "Darwin Awards."

If you find them, please let me know so I can prey on them before the other wolves have picked all the meat off...

Several years ago someone purchased thousands of dollars of travelers checks from their AAA office, paying with a credit card that earned miles. AAA sold the checks at no charge. They then deposited the checks in a savings account, earned interest for a month, and then cashed them when it was time to pay off their credit card.

Eventually, AAA stopped accepting credit cards as a form of payment for the travelers checks.

The travelers check sounds like a good one. Anyone have any inventive ways to get miles for almost nothing with a miles credit card? Any Ideas?

My core business is Mint stamps ("postage") and coins and bullion and rare banknotes, and yes in broadbrush theory this can work.

Dealer buy/sell spread on say a Krugerand or Sovereigns or Maple Leafs or US Eagles or Perth Mint ingots is miniscule - it all is about volume. Bullion coin dealers often buy gold coins at say $235 an oz and sell at $245 an ounce when "spot" bullion is at $US240. (Our recent 10% GST messed this up, but Perth Mint got an exemption passed into law for gold coins of purity greater than 99.4% which conveniently is exactly what they make!) State Sales taxes in the USA may or may not apply to bullion, I do not know.

They will ALLLLLLL add the (here) 1.75% VISA/MC charge of course to that sort of level. That % in USA is oddly, higher for most merchants.

And of course, for this to work, you either accept the 5-10% loss on each same day deal or take a forward position on bullion prices.

"Buying" points same-day for 5-10% "cost" is nuts. And if you want to take position on Bullion, the Chicago Futures Market will make you enough money if you are right to allow you to BUY full revenue F tickets, and not bother with this penny-ante method.

------------------
~ Glen ~

[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 05-02-2001).]

I posted here recently about my exploits with TC via Travelex. Same deal as bullion basically, you need to take a position on a foreign currency, and hope like heck you are right, that it moves as much as the profit "spread" Travelex build into each deal. Travelex gave one Qantas point for each dollar you bought or sold - cash needed tho, not cards. I made 50,000-100,000 points or something as I bought $US TC with a bunch of $A and sweated a few weeks. Not recommended for the conservative mile accumulator tho.

------------------
~ Glen ~

[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 05-02-2001).]

Full revenue F tickets? Im not familiar with those. Im off to google.com to find out what these are. In the meantime if you dont mind, please post further information on how to purchase these F tickets with a mileage card and what the f tickets are. Thank you.

Paid first class tickets, you should be able to buy from any online travel site or from the airlines directly.

I think Glen was saying you might make enough $ in other investments to pay for first class travel.

-Robert

rwinn. Hole in one!

In my town you can pay your real estate taxes with a credit card, but only if they are delinquent. Many people line up on July 1 (they are due June 30th) and pay with a credit card. It's got a one month interest charge on it because they are delinquent, but most people feel it's worth it for the miles.

They use to let you pay current taxes that way, it cost the city a fortune.

I had once the luck to buy a Postal Money Order with my Credit Card. But it was a mistake on the part of the Post Clerk, if you are lucky and a Postal clerk should do the same mistake withyou you can get a few miles...but not as many as you would with buying gold.

------------------

You can also by some foreign currency/US travelers checks from currency to go at www.chase.com

I don't think buying and selling gold coins will work. You will buy a gold coin at $375 and sell price to dealer is $364 (give or take a dollar in both prices). So there is a difference of $11 which you are essentially spending for miles (turns out to be 2.94 cents a mile) and that is if the value of gold didn't fall down between the time you buy and sell.