mia

Coupon Connection is a transactional forum, while Manufactured Spending is for discussion. Our rules prohibit trading outside of Coupon Connection, but I think you are not proposing to ban public discussion of this topic? You may wish to advocate creation of a closed Advanced Manufactured Spending forum, but this seems to be a separate proposition because there still needs to be a venue for public discussion.

Also, this idea seems to be the topic of an existing thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...-public-2.html

Mary2e

IMHO, these credit card points deals and fake spending is a fad and the credit card companies are going to simply start shutting them down or make it really difficult for people to apply and qualify for many cards with bonuses at one time. They're not stupid.

kokonutz

I agree with this. So we might as well get while the getting is good.

Again, all anyone has to do is google 'vanilla reload.'

After the links to VR itself, here is what comes up for me:

MillionMileSecrets blog
lifehacker blog
frequentmiler blog
Points, miles and martinis blog
Romsdeals blog
thepointsguy blog
the mile point thread
hackmytrip blog
fatwallet
etc
etc
etc
Flyertalk doesn't even come up until the third page!

If I google the exact phrase 'manufactured spending' then yes, FT comes up first...along with a bunch of blogs.

Information wants to be free. Get while the getting is good. When the credit card companies think it is enough, it will be gone whether we talk about it or not. Because even if we do not, others certainly will.

SkiAdcock

Just curious - does your refusal to share a tip or trick also mean that as a matter of principle you won't take advantage of the tips or tricks shared by others in the forum because the forum is open?

Agree.

Agree. The topic came up at the recent London Do. One of the overseas cards tracks a lot of things w/ relation to its promotions, and is now instituting a time limit before one can re-apply or get a new card for bonus points. We also had one FTer say that they won't pay for airline or hotel, but travel simply based on promo points from cc bonuses, and I remember thinking to myself, well what are you doing to do when the cc companies start scaling back?

Agree.

Cheers.

Mary2e

If you read the cc forums or even MilesBuzz you'll start to see the pattern of cc companies tightening up the requirements and other loopholes look like they're starting to be closed.

I give it another 6 months and everything will be dead and those of us who used the promotions sparingly and only for cards we might actually want to keep, end up paying the price.

josephstern

Just wanted to lock in that "6 months" prediction.

I disagree 100%, even with the amount of information posted here.

Mary2e

No need to lock it in, I'll gladly admit it if I'm wrong. But the tides have been changing, and I don't think I am.

kokonutz

I personally think it depends.

If enough folks are running up bills that are not getting paid off 100% each cycle then the CC issuers are going to keep the game going. CC issuers are pretty darn good at making money. @:-)

But the first rule of manufactured spending always applies: don't manufacture more spend than you can actually afford at any one time, because you could get caught short at any time if a loophole is closed or program shut down.

Mtek

I'd have to disagree, I think you need to keep a few things in mind. MS'ers are the EXCEPTION not the rule. In the grand scheme of the billions of transactions I'd bet were a very small fraction of the banks Credit business

2nd, even people who "know" about MS'ing don't have the time or patience to utilize it to its fullest.

On a personnel level I've explained some tactics to friends and family and they get a glazed over look that tells me its ultimately not the easiest of hobbies to undertake or understand

If you think about it there's tons more people who have credit problems then there ever will be people to use credit to gain an advantage

We & MS'ing is the cost of doing business.....per Jesse Pinkman ...."breakage"

I think with minor tweaks and modifications the game stays for the foreseeable future

Mary2e

You do realize this post was from last year and the subforum has been created, right?

tom911

Or the entire forum gets moved to OMNI Games

GUWonder

Today, it's not a subforum added to Milesbuzz. It has its own full forum under Credit, Debit and Prepaid Card Programs. Just to say that there is a discontinuity between the thread title's announcement and what is the current situation for MS.

Moderator2

The new forum GUWonder references is here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manuf...-spending-719/

Under that premise, I'll change this thread's title and retire it.