Paying for a Trip to Charlotte and Still Coming Back with a Profit

27 Comments

1. I spent I think like 20k TYP myself on the flights and then Ken got the Hyatt room so I think I owe him like 6k Hyatt or equiv. But I MSd for 45k DL and 10k AS and burned some GC to BB and MO so I think I came out ahead. Plus I met cool people and that to me was worth the most.

2. Why not just give VGCs to milesabound (or some other reliable friend) every now and then. He can sweet talk the ladies at WM every weekend and bring back the MOs to you. It’s about scaling and expanding the box. Not very different form drug dealers flying in and out of the country.

   1. I do have a few things like that (for example, my parents and I are going to take turns loading our collective Bluebirds when out of town Walmart opportunities come up to make sure we load as much at once as possible) as we just use each other’s miles when needed. However, in MilesAbound’s case, if he is going to be spending time on this going to Walmart, he may as well get all the benefit for himself and not have to split a cut with me. :)

3. It’s a PITA to live in NYC and use Bluebird.
   MP, any reason on buying One Vanilla over VGC? Is it any better than a VGC?
   Also, spending 30k Thankyou points on Hyatt seems inefficient to me. You could have spend 24000 Chase points for that (I assume there were two nights there?). Cause 30k TYP in your case is $375 towards airfare. In my case it would be even more, especially considering that you traveled with US Air, it would be $480 in US Air airfare (since I have Citi Prestige).
   How did you pay for a taxi? No Barclay’s Arrival anymore? I’d do it with Chase SP card.

   1. I did pay with Barclaycard Arrival for the taxi as that’s what I use on general spending, but am out of points to redeem right now since I just spent them on train tickets in Europe :)

      Once you have many Citi ThankYou points (or a large number of any miles for that matter), the incremental value is not as high as the first point – I cannot spend them all of them on airfare and I definitely have a lot of airfare covered with them right now far into the future. So, to me, redeeming each point at one cent each considering how many I have is decent value. This essentially equates my Citi ThankYou card to being at least as good as a 5% drugstore cash back card with the option to get higher value on airfare.

      While everyone feels differently, I personally would not redeem 24,000 Chase points for $300 in value even if I had no Citi points. I generally use them for high end Hyatt hotels (like Andaz Maui or Park Hyatt Milan or Park Hyatt Vienna) and business class flights so they’re far more valuable to me than 1.25 cents each. I’d rather pay cash in that situation. In addition, we were able to earn two nights toward the Hyatt Diamond Challenge and also received 2000 points for the stay (which I’d also be forgoing if I used points).

      There’s essentially no difference between VGC and OV, but I like OV better as their embossed look and lack of “gift card” labels makes them appear less “gift card like” in case someone objects!

      1. I wouldn’t redeem 24k UR points either, I’d rather pay with CSP or Ink and earn 2 UR points per dollar, also you could go through UR mall and book via hotels.com and earn additional 3 points per dollar, that’s 5 points total, and in your case would be 1500 UR points. But I wouldn’t pay with TYP either, as at 1.6 cents they have much better use for AA and US air.

4. Love this! I also did the DO very cheaply, and I flew in from the west coast. I didn’t figure it out as exactly, but:

   > the flight was using USAirways points (gotten from opening a card that required just one purchase, and for which I got the fee reversed);

   > I got a lower rate at the hotel as a senior ;) saving $3/night over the conference rate, for which I will get Hyatt points plus 1500 bonus points for a promo they were running at that Hyatt;

   > I used my Arrivals card to pay the hotel bill, which also included some bar food, and I will use Arrivals points to offset the hotel charges;

   > I paid just $10 to get from the airport to the hotel, handing the cash to another attendee who rented a car and generously offered rides via Matt’s Social Post and Twitter;

   > It cost $2 to take the bus back to the airport;

   > Didn’t need to order food on the plane, having eaten in lounges both in PDX and CLT before boarding the flights – wasn’t that mushroom and brie soup in the US lounge terrific?!

   > I tipped Housekeeping as well the guy at the bar during the cocktail hour.

   So out of pocket I spent under $20. I did not MS while there :( but I didn’t plan to, not having a car. Since I live near a WM it is less of an issue for me.

   Between the points I’ll get from Hyatt and from the Arrivals card, I certainly came out ahead. And I had an absolutely terrific time!

   1. We are honored you chose to spend your US Airways and Arrival points to come hang out with us and it sounds like you put it all together really well :)

5. Thanks Professor. A couple rookie type questions that come to mind (sorry I am not as proficient as most who post here):
   1) You don’t worry about your citi card being cancelled by MSing so muck on this card?
   2) How do you MS so much when you can only put $5,000/mo on BB? Do you have a bunch of BB accounts? Since you can only loaf $1000/day I assume so.(sorry that was more than a couple questions)

   Thanks for the post.

   1. I do have many Bluebirds I can use from friends and family and I had five with me in Charlotte. I actually wrote a post about how it’s a good idea to be “nice to friends and family” :) http://milesprof.wpengine.com/2014/03/02/friends-and-family-bluebird/ . Some credit cards are more tolerant than others about drugstore purchases, but you have to do what you’re comfortable with. I am fairly relaxed with my Citi and Wells Fargo cards, but I will be far more careful with Amex Old Blue Cash 5%. The best thing is to read Flyertalk to hear other people’s experiences and then you learn what’s (more) safe and what’s not. It also depends on people’s personal comfort level… I am also fairly risk tolerant and it doesn’t keep me up at night :) – others may be less so.

6. Hi,
   I am new in this point game and I load max 2-3K on my card per month ( roughtly once every other weekend).
   In California for the past 2 week ends, Walmart personnel recently will only allow you to load one debit card per day(max 500) on bluebird(even thought their ATM machine will allow 2 debit card per day(max 1000)). I did not get a straight answer from the supervisor -one told me that this is their new guidelines and another told me that it is illegal since you are money laundering). I did not argue how could this be money laundering since the bluebird card has my name on it? I explained my reason which in case of fraud – I can contest the charges while if it is a debit card, i have lesser control.
   Can you confirm if other people has encountered the same restrictions?
   Thanks,
   Bert

   1. It seems the policies are very store or manager-specific and people have been encountering all kinds of situations. Some aren’t able to load anything at all and their Walmarts will no longer take prepaid debit cards. It’s just the case with these things and some get luckier than others.

      1. I have so much to say about this but I will hold back my frustrations. I think in those stores where you run into managers who do not like PP cards, just use another debit card like ST.

7. Dear professor,

   Nice blog you have. May I request a quick lesson? How do you go about loading multiple BB’s at WM? Do you load all at once from a single cashier? Does the fact that some BB’s belong to other people present a problem? I appreciate your response.

   1. It’s going to be different everywhere and this is where people reading skills come in (I played a bit of poker in grad school). No one has ever asked me for id or anyone looked at the Bluebird name (then again, I naturally just don’t arouse suspicion), but I can tell some cashiers aren’t really in the mood to load more than one. Some are fine. You can try to load some at the kiosk also, if it works for Bluebird. Otherwise, try going to a different cashier or the money center. I’d say start slow and build up… and avoid arguing or causing a scene :)

      1. Thank you for your clear answer, professor. This is very helpful for someone new like me. I hope to be able to return the favor with a tip or a CC app in the near future. Thanks again.

         1. Newtoms- just to echo what miles prof said… I’ve never had a cashier look at my bb card. So, don’t worry about it. Just be relaxed. If they do, it’s fine to say, “oh I said I would load it for my friend/wife/husband so they don’t have to make a separate trip. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I’ll just tell him/her they’ll have to come load it themselves. Thanks anyway.”. All the while being pleasant and polite. I have other similar minor hiccups like this and you just say, “ok, thanks for your help.” and keep the relationship pleasant. No big deal.

8. Really great blueprint for making trips “profitable” – thanks. A quick question – did you factor your OneVanilla fees into your computation?

   1. Oh, wow, completely forgot to include that and updated the post :) Still profitable, but $85 less so. Thank you for catching that, very important.

9. Great Post MP..but….It seems to me that the driving force behind your successful and profitable MS is your 5X Thank you Card… Unfortunately, since this offer is no longer available (or at least I am not aware of one), the majority of the your blog readers do not have this card or cannot apply for one because the offer is dead. So I dont really see how we can benefit from this post or learn something new other than being teased a bit…:)

   1. I just happen to still have the Citi ThankYou card as my 5x card, but that’s just my “stand-in 5x” card. There are still other opportunities to earn 5% with the Wells Fargo cash back card or Old Amex Blue Cash card and I plan to switch to these without much changing. The same strategy still stands with any 5x or 5% cash back card and the profit will not be very different… so this post should hopefully be useful to those who are interested in profiting in the same way :)

      1. I want the 5X Thank You Card toooo…lol… Any idea if they still offer it in the branch?

         Also, the Wells Fargo card…. is it 5x at drugstores for 6 months only?

         1. Ah the TYP… I think the greatest CC I have seen in my 14-15 years doing this stuff. It is over but there are some who still have it so they should know they should max it out while they can!

            WF does drug and grocery but is only 6 months and it is a bit wonky about how you pay them off.

         2. They do not and even if you send in old brochures (as we did), they reply saying “The offer is no longer available. We have not pulled your credit” or something to that effect. Yes, Wells Fargo is 6 months only… but was well worth it in my opinion :)

            1. I’d like to point out there is an entire thread devoted to the WF card on FT. Most folks report they have no problem getting the card but that WF is very tricky how they go about suffocating your 5% MS.

               1. You’re lucky if you get a credit line over 2k, many of them report a measly line of 1k

               2. Supposedly they send you the card late, maybe giving you 5 months of MS, not 6.

               3. People have been warned and account closed when they maxed out their 2k line, paid off the balance within the cycle and tried to do more spend, I think they called it recycling the line. Others just attempted to go over the teeny lines and either got shut down or warnings.

               I was going to apply but I saw only 1 comment from someone who received a line over 5k. Plus if you try to call and ask for a higher line, they say you have to spend for 3 months before they will reconsider a line raise, there goes the 6 months.

               So my question to the Professor, was your line sufficient for MS?

            2. I got over 10k in credit line and never had any problems with the card, but I do have a checking account with Wells Fargo. I think the issue is threads end up skewing the opinions due to self-selection bias. Those that are having problems are simply more likely to go read forums about problems and post about their own. Those without problems are just happily using their cards :) It’s important to do the research, however, and make sure you can withstand the risk. I am fairly risk tolerant and don’t worry much about my account being closed (not that it won’t happen – it just doesn’t stress me out), but I’ve been ok with 10k-20k a month (as an alternate to my Citi ThankYou card).

            3. Thanks for your input. I completely agree with the skewing aspect of people posting on forums or even yelp, etc. Good to know you got a nice CL. Did think it was funny how some MS folks act entitled and were very angry that WF would do such a thing to them with the low credit line. Some were saying they had 20k lines on other cards but then got the 1k or 2k on the WF card. .

               Anyway food for thought. It opened my eyes to what the banks can and will do to curtail MS and recycling the lines.

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