The other day I came across an ad for the Amex Business Platinum card and applied on behalf of my dad. He’s never had it before and the sign-up bonus was 100,000 points. The down side? The spending requirement is $25,000. The first 50,000 points is paid out after $10,000 spent and remaining 50,000 posts after another $15,000 is spent in 3 months.
You might be wondering, “Big deal. You’ve spent $25,000 in a day before.” True, but that was on gift cards. Amex has really clamped down on gift card churning as a means of meeting spending requirements, so I have to do it another way. Luckily, I have a few options.
Plastiq
The easiest way to knock out some of the $25,000 Amex Business Platinum spending requirement is by via Plastiq. I had planned on making about $5,000 worth of mortgage payments every month (across multiple households) but I keep forgetting Amex doesn’t work for that.
So I think what I’ll do is pay off the remainder of a ~$4,500 student loan. Just by paying household bills (for multiple households), I can take care of around $1,000 worth of spending in a month. Now we’re down to $19,500 worth of spending requirements.
Reselling
I’ve threatened to get into reselling before, but this time I’m serious. A few months ago, Walmart was clearing their makeup shelves and everything was marked down to $1. I bought tons of foundations, mascaras, eyeliner and all kinds of other stuff and managed to resell it for $5+ each. By the time all eBay fees were paid, I pocketed a nice profit on my $300 investment.
While I don’t have much reselling experience, I have been looking through best-selling items and found a couple of unexpected options that resell at 50% above retail. This isn’t about making money for me, as much as it is about safely meeting the Amex Business Platinum Card’s spending requirement.
I would totally be ok just breaking even, though it’s nice to know I won’t have to settle for that. My goal was to meet at least $4,000 worth of spending requirements through reselling. However, since I can’t make mortgage payments with Plastiq, I’ll up that to $12,000. I think that’s feasible across 3 months.
Kiva + Zidisha Loans
For the remaining $7,500 spending requirement, I can get by with a combination of Kickfurther and Zidisha loans. Zidisha is an alternative to Kiva loans, which I’ve been using up until this point. The reason I’m considering switching to Zidisha is because their loans are interest-free. That’s a huge deal, because according to some estimates, Kiva loans can carry interest fees as high as 35%. Of course, Kiva has higher repayment rates, so keep that in mind as well.
Zidisha charges a 3.5% credit card transaction fee, unless you opt in for the monthly plan. You can designate a specific amount that will get deducted from your credit card account every month and deposited into your Zidisha account. You can choose how to lend these funds and monthly contributions can be cancelled at any time.
While my Kiva loans have been getting repaid on time, I treat those as charitable contributions. Even if the funds don’t get repaid, I’m ok with that. I think that’s an attitude everyone should have when it comes to investing or lending money. Never spend more than you can afford to lose.
Kickfurther
Kickfurther is a good way to meet spending requirements while trying to stay under the radar. I’ve been doing pretty well with my Kickfurther investments so far. Most of the co-ops I’ve invested in paid out about a 10% profit, so even though Kickfurther charges a 1.5% withdrawal fee, I still come out ahead.
Repayment takes about 6 months depending on the terms of the co-op. Keep that in mind if you’re thinking of using Kickfurther to meet credit card spending requirements – you will need to float the cash for a while.
Meeting the Amex Platinum Spending Requirement Without Manufactured Spending
While meeting the $25,000 spending requirement on the Amex Business Platinum Card initially sounded daunting, planning it all out made it seem far more feasible. It will definitely be a nice break from my once-weekly trips to Walmart.
I’m the type of person that gets worn out by routines – I need variety to keep me engaged and this is plan is definitely going to do that. Of course, I could still get shut down anyway, but what are you gonna do? Nowadays you just have to keep your fingers crossed and hope it works out.
When did Plastiq start to allow you to make mortgages with Amex again? Last time I checked only MC was allowed for mortgages and it’s been like that for quite some time. Did you enter it some special way to get it to work? Just curious as I would love to be able to do some easy Amex spend myself.
They did not. I keep forgetting! I can, however, make student loan payments with Amex. Granted I accidentally paid most of mine off recently, so it will be a small payment…
A lot of work and especially difficult if you are tying to keep track of other card spending limits at the same time. Good luck
though!
I think the only challenging part of this is that I can’t MS. I’ve got my MS routine down to a tee, so that part would have been super easy.
Kickfurther, Zidisha & Kiva are all solid ways to lose money. Maybe you should point out the out-sized risks with each as well.
As I wrote in the post, there is risk and you shouldn’t invest more than you can afford to lose. I’ve had mostly positive experiences with Kickfurther and Kiva, so generating hysteria around risk isn’t necessary.
If you know how to get Plastiq to take AmEx for mortgages this will make reaching this MS much easier for me.
I too would like to know how you were able to make mortgage payments via Plastiq using an Amex.
I haven’t – I thought I could. I keep forgetting that’s a restriction. But there are other bills you can pay via Plastiq with Amex…
Also interested in opening the card but just hesitant about completing the high spending.
Another option: Pay taxes online through one of the many options available. The fees are as low as 1.87% and there’s no chance of losses that come with Kiva et al (I also use Kiva for very small amounts of MSing.). The downside, of course, is that you need to pay your credit card bill well before you would get any refunds. If you actually owe the taxes, you might as well go ahead and pay them.
I’ve already paid my taxes, so that’s off the table. There’s risk in all forms of ms, so it’s definitely good to diversify and not spend more than you can afford to lose.
Not sounding the hysteria alarm, but recently had an experience on kickfurther where the investment wasn’t paid back.
Which company?
Ariana, I learned a few things from your blog and I am happy to give you back. Plastiq is so 2017. Please start reading /r/churning, there are multiple alternatives to Plastiq as low as 1% fee.
Such as…?
Watchitude. Was supposed to pay out in May. Had a problem because of the Toys r us situation. Initially said he would create a pay plan in July, now it’s September. I feel for the guy, but still…
It’s possible to call 855-854-2682 and get 100,000 for 10k spend. YMMV but worth a shot for the smaller MSR.
Platiq won’t let me pay my student loan or car with an AmEx. 🙁
Would it be a problem to use Kiva and Kickfurther for basically the entire minimum spend on an Amex Platinum? I especially like the idea that Kiva goes to a good cause. I just don’t want my bonus to be clawed back.
That’s how I met a large chunk of my spend. I think if you can float the money, it might be ok. Just keep in mind that the money you contribute to Kickfurther or Kiva could be gone, so I wouldn’t necessarily put all my eggs in one basket (or two, for that matter). That being said, this is a good time of year to look into reselling opportunities. So many popular products are going on sale and people who miss out on these deals will look to places like ebay and Amazon to buy them at a discount.