Last week was probably big for most of you. The Simon Mall $1,000 Visa gift card promo started and while we’ve established that it’s not the cheapest way to earn points and miles, it’s certainly faster than GiftCardMall. Raise your hand if you like buying Visa gift cards in $1500 increments, waiting 1-2 weeks for them to arrive, then liquidating them in four transactions via Walmart money orders. Let the record reflect zero.
I wasn’t able to make it to Simon Mall right away since my local customer service center closes at 6 PM. I commute an hour out of town and would not have made it in time.
When I finally went out there on Sunday, I learned that my Simon Mall had extended its hours on two days of the week to 9 PM. That’s great news because it adds an extra $48,000 worth of spending I can do during the week.
Everything considered, it was a pretty good week for me. I earned 27,725 points and miles along with $188.17 cash back.
Cash back
I was so relieved to finally make it to Simon Mall on Saturday, two days into the $1,000 Visa gift card promotion. I made up for lost time and picked up $24,000 worth of Visa gift cards.
My Fidelity Rewards card got declined, so I paid for the entire purchase with two Discover It Miles cards. I paid $94.80 in fees and earned $361.42 cash back. Total profit? $266.62.
Liquidation time has been significantly reduced since the 4-card swipe restriction means I can now liquidate $4,000 per transaction instead of $2,000.
Cash Back earned: $361.42
Fees: $94.80
Total profit: $266.62
Chase Ultimate Rewards
I’m still not meeting my target $5,000 spending goal on the Chase Ink Plus card, but I’m trying. Last week, I placed a $1800 Visa gift card order through Staples.com that earned me 9,272 points at $53.70.
At one point I stopped by an actual Staples store and picked up a $200 Visa gift card for an additional 1,000 points. These cards carry a $6.95 fee but I earned $5 cash back from Dosh. I’d like to make this a regular occurrence since Staples is so close to the Simon Mall customer service center.
Aside from putting the Ink Plus to use, I also placed three $1500 GiftCardMall orders using the Chase Freedom Unlimited. After fees, I earned about 6,380 points at a cost of $8.55.
Points earned: 17,103
Fees: $114.20
Cash back: $50
Total cost: $64.20
Citi ThankYou points
I can always put Citi ThankYou points to good use. At the moment, I’m trying to earn more of them for either a Lifemiles or Flying Blue promo award. I placed two GiftCardMall orders totaling $3,035.70 last week. The total cost after BeFrugal cash back came to $5.70.
Points earned: 3,035
Fees: $35.70
BeFrugal cash back: $30
Total cost: $5.70
Korean SkyPass
I’m making steady progress on my SkyPass miles goal. This week, I placed a single $1517.85 order through GiftCardMall.
Points earned: 1517
Fees: $17.85
BeFrugal cash back: $15
Total cost: $2.85
Marriott Rewards
Two $1517.85 Visa gift card orders through GiftCardMall earned me 6,070 points for $5.70 out of pocket. What can you do with those points? Nothing, yet. But if I keep accruing Marriott points at this cost, I can get a top-tier award night for practically nothing.
For example, a standard award at a Category 8 hotel costs 85,000 points. To earn that many points, I’ll end up spending less than $80 on gift card fees.
Points earned: 6,070
Fees: $35.70
BeFrugal cash back: $30
Total cost: $5.70
How many points and miles did you earn last week via manufactured spending??
How are you liquidating so much MS? I can cash in GCs at my local grocery store, but limit my deposits to less than 10k per account per month to avoid triggering SARs.
Isn’t that structuring?
Isn’t that considered structuring? :/
Congrats Marshall. By making a conscious effort to keep deposits under $10k, you are in fact committing the definition of structuring.
Walmart money orders. You shouldn’t do that, as some folks have pointed out. As long as authorities are able to track your transactions, you shouldn’t have a problem depositing $10k+.
Your bank doesn’t shut you down making that many MO deposits? Did you have a talk with their risk management folks (do they exist st banks?) to tell them what you’re doing?
Seems like bank shutdowns have always been the concern with high volume MO deposits.
You can always speak to your Bank representative. As far as I concern they say you can deposit whatever amount of MOs you want, WF considers MOs = checks. If you are not doing anything wrong you shouldn’t worry about it. I always deposit all my MOs in the same bank and they can ask if I did buy them, I said yes and that’s the end of the story. Never had an issue, however, you should always have a plan B, C, Etc.
Do you mind my asking what volume you do of MOs with your bank each month? Seems all I ever read is about people either being s/d or worried about it for doing high volume.
What I get concerned over is being reported to the IRS. Even though I’m doing nothing wrong, I’m not great at keeping all the receipts and paper trails.
No shut-down yet, but it could happen at any time and that’s why I keep my regular checking account separate from MS. If I do get shut down, my regular banking activity isn’t interrupted.
Correct, I have WF only for MS activities, I deposit all there and then I pay off CCs. [YMMV]
Do you just have a separate account for MS (at the same bank) or a different bank for this?
Separate. That way if I get shut down it doesn’t impact payroll and daily banking activities.
Way to get busy !! I am going to try to get to Simon this week as well. What card do you use at Giftcard Mall to get 4x Marriott Rewards? I usually use FU but open to ideas. Thanks for the motivating post,
Beechy
It’s the Amex Bonvoy card. I placed two orders at 2 points per $1 each.
Is AmEx ok with gift card purchases now? I thought they might clawback the points.
They put it into their terms and are no longer paying out at Simon Malls. We don’t know if it’s being enforced everywhere else.
Staples this week has the offer where you can buy a $200 MC without fee – but if you have Dosh, you get $5. I plan on going once a day – to accrue Dosh dollars to spend on other fee programs like GiftCardMail, Simon Mall, etc.
My Staples tends to get wiped out during these promos, so I doubt I’ll get in on this. Good luck though!
Araina – would you please call me ?? I have a quick question I would like to speak to you about.
I removed your phone number for privacy reasons. I’m not able to get on the phone, but happy to answer your questions via email: ariana at pointchaser.com
Why Marriott? Seems you could earn 30000 points for a top tier Hyatt faster at 1x than 80000 points at Marriott at 2x. Is a top tier Marriott better or do you have status with them to get upgrades?
Can’t remember anyone MSing for Marriott before. Maybe I’m missing something.
I don’t have a Hyatt card right now and while 30k Hyatt points only require $6k in spend on the Ink Plus, I’d rather use my UR points for flights. I think I’ll cover this more extensively in an upcoming post.
Are you using a portal for Staples using the Ink cash? Or just paying the full fees? And are those MetaBank GC’s?
Just paying full fees. Not the cheapest way to buy Visa gift cards by a long shot. I’m trying to get to $50k by October and these orders are quick. But I do try to stop at Staples store and make use of the Dosh rebate daily.
How to liquidate GC at Walmart? I tried several stores and they did not accept gift cards for MO payment.
[YMMV] no all Walmarts do MOs, you have to go to every Walmart you can and they will let you know if they do GCs for MOs. I have visited 7 Walmarts in my area and only two allow it. If you don’t have any more WMs around you could do a road trip to some interesting place and go to WM there, for MS purposes is a hit and miss with them.
Do you actually ask them if they accept GC for MO?
NEVER ask if they take gift cards for money orders. You are using a debit card
Just go in and say I want a money order. If they ask how you are paying, you say debit card.
Good luck.
NEVER ask if they take gift cards for money orders. You are using a debit card 😉
Do you factor in mo fees in your profits ?
I always forget to do that. Money order fees will be $33.44.
The Simon Mall $1000 cards are a game changer so much easier to liquidate, wish they were here to stay