From the little bit of experience I have had with online casinos, it is highly unlikely that you would be able to do this. Most credit card companies will not accept the charge in the first place. If they do, there is most likely a service fee (through a third party provider).

In fact, many retailers now don't even ask for the card when you make a return. They scan the receipt, pull up the original sale, and credit the original card. If you don't have a receipt, you can usually only get a store credit.

Nordstroms has gone so far as to put a scan sticker on the tag of every item at the time of sale. My wife was able to return something without the receipt and still have it credited back to the original card without presenting the card again.

AMAZING! i get crucified and talked to like a little kid for even asking about how i can sell an award ticket on NW airlines because i cannot find a ticket from my home city.......but this obvious scam of stealing miles is condoned by so many in this thread

or good places. see "Catch Me if You Can" ;)

Cheers

Glass Houses
 

WOW! Thanks for all the thoughtful replies.

As for as the moral issues, I find little difference in my “scenario” and the seemingly “approved” practice of opening a new CC account, making a single purchase and then closing the account to reap the miles. Or likewise the “approved” practice of doing balance transfers at zero interest for the sole purpose of gaining miles AND drawing interest on the transferred balance.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, right?

Pecking on others is just part of human nature (and that of many other animals as well). Try not to let it get to you.

For me, there is a significant difference is these situations. The retailer is trying to do right by the customer, so it might have a lenient return policy to give you the benefit of the doubt. In its efforts to keep you happy it might fail to properly match up the charging card with the one to which it will credit. That oversight might end up costing the retailer some money.

The cc companies, however, are essentially saying "try this card out and we'll give you a bonus". They know full well that many will just take the miles, pay the annual fee and close the account. They're just hoping that enough people who keep the account going will more than offset those who close it early. Also, keep in mind that the annual fee you pay probably comes pretty close to the cc company's cost of the miles.

So, the difference is one business is fully aware of what you might do with respect to miles, but it rolls the dice. The other has no idea what you're doing with respect to miles, but it's trying to keep you happy. Personally, I think it's abusive (morally, not legally) to take advantage of the retailer here.

Anybody with a generous promotional offer who doesn't require any "attached strings" or what is otherwise known as fine print is asking for what they're getting.

One problem here being that you could then, having received a refund to a second card, then dispute the charge with the first. As a merchant, I've seen this scheme a bit too many times...

Now that this thread has resurfaced with the above comment, it brings up another question. If the merchant has the signed credit card form and imprint or scan of the card with the original purchase, how can a customer get away with a dispute of the charge? My only guess is that the merchant can't trace the credit back to the second card even though the customer claims he returned the goods? But a check of the credit card activity by the merchant around the supposed return date should find the credit to a different card. Maybe I am missing something.

I know "someone" who used to do this years ago. The reason he started was because he had been a loyal AA casual flyer for years and had accumulated about 60,000 miles towards his goal of two RT tickets to Oz, when AA changed the rules of the program (circa 1989). With only a couple of months notice and a Citibank AA Visa, he went to an upscale department store and bought jewelry (high price but fits in the pocket, as opposed to furniture which bulges in the pocket) and returned same with another card--all in an effort to get to his mileage goal. His rationale was that 1) Hey, they changed the rules in the middle so screw "them" and B) It appeared to be a victimless act.

After giving it much thought all he could come up with in terms of "victims" were the banks. One got fees and the other paid them out upon issuing a credit. His heart was not bleeding for the banks.

Then, one day, while returning a tennis bracelet a (not so bright?) clerk said to him "Oh, you're the guy! There was a memo circulated about you buying and returning jewelry." Apparently they were perplexed because their focus was on someone potentially switching stones or something. In any case, he had reached his 100K goal and felt that, given his notoriety, it was time to cool it.

Back then, stores did not have systems in place that keep track of what card was used for a given receipt. You can tell which ones do now because they are the ones that don’t even ask for your credit card when you make a return (Best Buy and Target come to mind). For the rest is it a manual process to “notice” that a different card is being used. He still does this on opportunistic occasions but doesn’t go hunting for opportunities. For example, a few weeks ago he went to exchange something he had bought on a rebate card. It was a $100 item. Instead of using the original card he returned it on a non-rebate card and made a new purchase with the rebate card again. In affect, he got a 10% cash rebate on the item (2 x .05 x $100).

There are not effective systems in place at the bank level to tie credits to purchases. In a case like this, for a relatively small amount, like $100, it’s a simple matter to call the back and ask for a check. If you do not call, last time I checked, Regulation Z requires that a check be issued automatically on a persistent credit balance over 90 days. Automatic processes are always nice because they avoid the human scrutiny that can occur when calling a CSR, but for a $100 credit on a card with reasonable volume, they’re not going to track it to a specific purchase. It’s a needle in a haystack. On the other hand, a large automated credit check being issued will undoubtedly show up on an internal exception report and will likely come under some scrutiny.

Anyway—that’s what my friend told me.

has anyone verified if costco returns to same credit card for online purchases? if I bought something from their website and returned instore, would they credit the same card or do they have a different return process? What if I told them I lost the original card and this is my new one, as long as its still an amex? (I have 2)

I have done somethng like this many times. I will open a credit card, I always receive very high limits, such as 50k 75k. I then purchase several refundable F tickets on UA or AA (they give faster refunds), wait until the miles post on AA, Starwood, etc. Then refund the tickets and close the account leaving only a negative mileage balance with the credit card company.

I recently did it when I needed 70k additional airline points and 40 starwood points.

works like a charm!

I've looked into the fees to paypal myself 10,000 FROM my UAL card into my paypay account, then paypal puts it in my bank account, then I pay UAL card, but it ends up being way too much money, and I might as well fly somewhere and gain the real miles plus the UAL card miles

If you really want to shop get into consignments, or buying things in high qnty cheap and selling them on ebay or the likes, you may make a bit of money on the side as well as accumulating miles

Wow, nasty! I hope airlines clamp down on this activity aggressively.