5 best category bonuses for manufactured spending

Earning miles via manufactured spending can be tedious. Most of the time you’re earning 1 mile per $1 spent and even if you’re buying Visa gift cards in large volumes, the fees eventually stack up. It can be tedious work, which is why so many people don’t even bother. If you’re like me and have found an ms-friendly Walmart store, your only challenge when it comes to manufactured spending is doing it efficiently.

A big part of that is making use of credit card category bonuses so you’re getting the most miles possible out of every dollar spent (not to mention the fees involved in liquidating those gift cards). So what are the best credit card category bonuses for manufactured spending? There are five of them and I’ve outlined them below:

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Best drugstore category bonus cards

Drugstores used to be a really hot category for manufactured spending back when Amex offered 6 points per $1 spent with the Hilton Surpass card. This was before Hilton’s massive award devaluation. Back when a free night at a top-tier hotel required just 50,000 points.

As you can imagine, people went nuts buying Vanilla Reload cards to earn super cheap 5-star hotel bookings. How cheap? Generating 50,000 Hilton points for a free night at the Conrad Koh Samui or Conrad Maldives cost just $67.15. No, that number is not missing a zero.

Needless to say, Amex put a stop to that by eliminating the 6x category bonus. Still, if you find a way to manufacture spend at Drugstores nowadays, the following cards still offer bonus points in this category:

• Citizens Bank Cashback Platinum MasterCard – 5% cash back
• Wells Fargo Cash Back Card – 5% cash back (for the first 6 months)

Best gas station category bonus cards

I haven’t tried to buy a gift card at a gas station in a long time. Like, since the Vanilla Reload days. However, I’ve walked into plenty of gas stations that sold PIN-enabled Visa gift cards. I doubt much has changed in my neck of the woods recently.

Maybe one of these days I’ll give it a try and see if there’s a goldmine in my backyard that I don’t even know about. If you’re able to buy PIN-enabled Visa gift cards at gas stations with one of these mile-earning credit cards, you’re in for a substantial point haul:

• Hilton Honors Ascend Card from American Express – 6 points per $1
• Hilton Honors Card from American Express –  5 points per $1
• Chase Freedom – 5% cash back/5 points per $1 (during select quarters)
• Wells Fargo Cash Back Card – 5% cash back (for the first 6 months)
• Citi ThankYou Premier – 3 points per $1 
• Blue Cash Preferred from American Express – 3% cash back
• American Express Business Gold Rewards – 4 points per $1
• IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card – 2 points per $1
• Chase Ink Plus Business Card – 2 points per $1
• Chase Ink Cash – 2 points per $1
• United MileagePlus Explorer Business Card – 2 points per $1
• Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard – 2 points per $1

Grocery store category bonus cards

Grocery stores are probably the easiest bonus category for maximizing manufactured spending Grocery stores easily accessible to most people and now that Safeway has implemented chip readers, $500 Visa gift cards are back!

If you have one of the below-listed credit cards, you’ll be generously rewarded for your grocery spending. Personally, I’d probably focus on Hilton Honors Surpass card or the Blue Cash Preferred from American Express. Blue Cash has a $6,000 limit, forcing me to go easy and avoid another shut-down.

If free nights at Hilton hotels seem out of reach, keep in mind that with the Hilton Surpass grocery bonus, it takes just $15,833 worth of manufacture spending to earn enough points for a free night at a top-tier hotel.

• Hilton Honors Ascend from American Express – 6 points per $1
• Blue Cash Preferred from American Express – 6% cash back on the first $6,000 spent per year (1% after)
• Hilton Honors Card from American Express – 5 points per $1
• Wells Fargo Cash Back Card – 5% cash back (for the first 6 months)
• American Express Gold Card – 4 points per $1
• American Express Business Gold Card – 4 points per $1
• Blue Cash Everyday from American Express – 3% cash back
• Amex EveryDay Preferred – 3 points per $1 on the first $6,000 spent (plus a 50% bonus after 30 or more purchases per month)
• Amex EveryDay – 2 points per $1 on the first $6,000 spent (plus a 20% bonus after 20 or more purchases per month)
• Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard – 2 points per $1
• IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card – 2 points per $1

Best office supply store category bonus cards

This is probably my favorite bonus category of all times. Back in the day when Office Depot carried Vanilla Reloads, I would walk in with my Ink card and walk out with $3,00 worth of prepaid cards and 15,000 Ultimate Rewards points. This was easily a minimum of $150 in travel rewards earned at a cost of $23.70.

I can’t think of an easier or more rewarding manufactured spending method (except maybe the defunct U.S. Mint Deal). There was no need to go to Walmart, stand in line, fill out paperwork, etc. The liquidation process was done entirely online via Amex Bluebird card loads. 

While it’s not quite as cheap as it used to be, manufacturing spend in the office supply store category can still be lucrative. Yes, $300 Visa gift cards are a major pain to liquidate, but the fees are reasonable and this is a great method for stocking up on Ultimate Rewards points. If Ultimate Rewards aren’t your cup of tea, there are plenty of other credit cards that offer generous bonuses for the office supply category:

• Chase Ink Plus Business Card – 5 points per $1
• Chase Ink Cash Business Card – 5 points per $1
• Citi American Airlines AAdvantage Business Card – 2 points per $1
• United MileagePlus Explorer Business Card – 2 points per $1

Best Retail Category Bonus Cards

The retail category bonus offered by a limited number of credit card companies can become quite lucrative during the holiday shopping season. For example, there might be a great sale on merchant gift cards, in which case you can buy a ton and sell them to The Plastic Merchant.

You can earn 3 Membership Rewards points per $1 spent or up to 5% cash back doing this. Some would argue that the value of Membership Rewards (and the fact that there’s no spending cap) makes it the best option. That really depends on how you end up redeeming your points. Personally, I’d rather earn 3-5% cash back:

• Chase Freedom – 5 points/5% bonus during select quarters (on the first $1,500 spent)
• American Express Business Gold Rewards – 3 points per $1 spent on computer hardware, software, and cloud computing purchases.
• Blue Cash Preferred from American Express – 3% cash back (select department stores)

Final thoughts

The most lucrative credit card bonus categories at the moment are probably office supply stores and grocery stores. I have yet to find a gas station that lets me buy prepaid cards with a credit card, but that may well change. The key is to always be on the lookout for gift card sources from lucrative bonus category merchants.

How do you find these merchants? Always check your credit card statements for any unusual categorizations (i.e. Target as a grocery store). Make this a habit and you might eventually come across the next big manufactured spending deal.

If you’re not into manufactured spending or want to maximize your non-bonus category spending, be sure to check out the following posts:

• 10 best credit cards for non-bonus category manufactured spending
• 6 best credit cards for people who aren’t into manufactured spending

Which of these credit card category bonuses do you use to maximize manufactured spending?