thebakaronis

We normally use the Chase Sapphire card and use the United Explorer card solely to hit the $25K spend to get the PQD waiver. This year I'm in a bit of a bind. I'll qualify for Platinum only if I get the PQD waiver. There's a chance that we will not be able to hit the $25K spend on the Explorer card in the remaining time available this calendar year. I'd hate to go to ZERO status next year because of this. So one idea I had was to make some large purchases that we don't need over the holidays, register those expenses on our December statement and then return the items (unopened) to the store sometime in the second half of January (making use of extended return periods offered by many retailers). I know I'd be cheating the system here, but it hurts to think that I'll lose all my status just because we might be short of the spending threshold by $5K or so. The question is: would the return be flagged by United and my Platinum status for 2020 revoked for not achieve PQD waiver?

(PS: the alternative to avoid the PQD mess is for me to get a foreign address, which I can plausibly since my parents live in another country and I travel there frequently.)

findark

Guess: You would be fine and your YTD spend in 2020 would start out deeply negative (if you care about PQP from spend), but I'm not 100% sure about that. It's normally a really bad idea to try to game CC benefits by charging back after obtaining a benefit.

lazytom

How about you buy a fully refundable/no-fee-changeable ticket and then later on use the ticket value for other travel you were planning to do anyway?

mduell

Look at the manufactured spending forums for ideas to cheaply buy spend.

Kacee

The more significant risk is that Chase shuts all your accounts and forfeits your UR points.

STS-134

Pay property taxes with the credit card if you really have nothing else to buy. Don't spend money that you wouldn't otherwise spend though.

scubadu

Agreed. Or even pay personal income taxes (e.g. make a 4th quarter estimated payment)

It would cost the credit card surcharge, but that certainly is worth avoiding committing fraud.

Regards

escapefromphl

2 I’ve done before:
- Buy Costco gift cards.
- Book a week at a resort, there are a few in the Marriott system that typically take a credit card deposit of 3 nights. You can cancel in 2020.

Repooc17

Would it be fair to conclude your actual PQD for the year (or through the end of the year) would not reach $3,000?

I am not sure if this is a good idea. Address change would require you to submit verification as proof. Given the timing, it might trigger additional review.

Also, non-US PQD waiver is going away as of January 1, 2020.

sexykitten7

United only knows what Chase tells them. My concern would be that Chase updates your spend and that will cause you to lose status. I've had status post in early-January when I've cut it close on the waiver and Chase normally subtracts out returns. I would not take the risk because you can't build a time machine. Just prepay bills or MS if you have to.

UA can pretty easily tell where you live if you book all your tickets thru them. (Hint: it's where all your trips originate). I haven't heard of anyone being caught but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

BudgetJetsetter

Here's some things that might help.

Prepay your cell phone bill. I've put $1,000+ towards my account before and this is about 5-6 months worth of credit (I have 6 people on my plan).

Prepay utilities if possible. My utility company charges a flat fee for credit card payments. I usually do enough so the fee is less than 1% of the payment. Usually only a few months of prepayment is necessary.

STS-134

Yep, my cell phone account has a balance of -$208 due to an AmEx promotion where I got bonus MR points for paying $100 or more, 3 times. And I'll pay my utility bills $750-1000 at a time for the same reason you do, flat fee for payments.

Another idea: use Plastiq https://www.plastiq.com/ and pay the mortgage with your credit card (disclaimer: I have never used this service).

KRSW

Kiva.org is where I've put plenty of MS before (and still do). DO read up on it before putting any money in as you can lose money on there. BUT, done right it's pretty profitable. I've lost $23 out of $15k. Or the way I look at it, I paid $23 for ~45k Chase points. Pretty good deal to me.

If you're interested in more, PM me and I'll share my strategies. Rule #1 -- AVOID US borrowers. There's more than enough sources of credit in the USA. If they're fishing around on Kiva, they're not going to pay you back.

bigshooter

I'm going to derail the thread slightly, but how do you have 75000 PQM/90 PQS to achieve Plat, but you don't have at least enough spend for silver/gold? Just confused by your statement of having zero status.

If you can float the amount you're short of the $25k go hit a Simon mall. You can buy $10x$1000 GC at a time (maybe it's 20) and either find a way to liquidate those or just use them for your spend over the next months.Read in the MS forum on how to get rid of them if you don't want to put organic spend on them.

STS-134

I can think of one easy way you could do it: partner flights on non-016 tickets.