American Express Gift Cards
This is an amazing deal, and this opportunity can drastically reduce the cost of your manufactured spending, and therefore, your travel. Many, but not all, manufactured spending techniques discussed in the previous pages involve fees. It's not that bad, because the fees for manufactured spending are usually far less than the airfare you would pay for any given plane ticket. However, the opportunity with Amex gift cards is revolutionary, because it's a huge opportunity to manufacture spend for free or at a profit.
The basic premise is that you go through a cash back portal and use a credit card to order American Express gift cards. Then, wait for the Amex gift cards to arrive in the mail. Unlike Visa and Mastercard gift cards, all American Express gift cards aren't PIN-enabled. So, you can't use them for PIN-based liquidation methods directly. Instead, after they arrive in the mail, you can go to stores and use the Amex gift cards to buy reload cards and Visa gift cards. Then, liquidate those prepaid debit cards and Visa gift cards as usual so that you can pay the credit card bill.
Go to www.cashbackmonitor.com to verify this, but as of the time I'm writing this webpage, the best cash back portal for Amex gift cards is Top Cash Back at 2%. Once you're on American Express's website, place an order for two gift cards: one for $3,000, and another for $2,000. The total fees for $5,000 of Amex gift cards is $16.85. Pay using a mile-earning credit card (but not a Citibank card, because they will charge a cash advance fee). Let's say you use the Amex gift cards at CVS to buy $500 Visa gift cards for $4.95 each. Then, you use the Visa gift cards to buy money orders at Walmart, which cost 70 cents per $1,000. Then you deposit the money orders in your bank account, and use the money in your bank account to pay the credit card bill.
In that case, the fees for buying the Visa gift cards and the money orders would be a total of $53.50, and the total fees for this whole process is $70.45. On Top Cash Back, you earn about $100 in cash back. This means you manufactured $5,000 of spending on your credit card, and earned about $30 in profit. I think you can order up to $5,000 in personal Amex gift cards per day. So, keep on doing it again to earn more miles. Check out Frequent Miler's comprehensive post about Amex gift cards.
The basic premise is that you go through a cash back portal and use a credit card to order American Express gift cards. Then, wait for the Amex gift cards to arrive in the mail. Unlike Visa and Mastercard gift cards, all American Express gift cards aren't PIN-enabled. So, you can't use them for PIN-based liquidation methods directly. Instead, after they arrive in the mail, you can go to stores and use the Amex gift cards to buy reload cards and Visa gift cards. Then, liquidate those prepaid debit cards and Visa gift cards as usual so that you can pay the credit card bill.
Go to www.cashbackmonitor.com to verify this, but as of the time I'm writing this webpage, the best cash back portal for Amex gift cards is Top Cash Back at 2%. Once you're on American Express's website, place an order for two gift cards: one for $3,000, and another for $2,000. The total fees for $5,000 of Amex gift cards is $16.85. Pay using a mile-earning credit card (but not a Citibank card, because they will charge a cash advance fee). Let's say you use the Amex gift cards at CVS to buy $500 Visa gift cards for $4.95 each. Then, you use the Visa gift cards to buy money orders at Walmart, which cost 70 cents per $1,000. Then you deposit the money orders in your bank account, and use the money in your bank account to pay the credit card bill.
In that case, the fees for buying the Visa gift cards and the money orders would be a total of $53.50, and the total fees for this whole process is $70.45. On Top Cash Back, you earn about $100 in cash back. This means you manufactured $5,000 of spending on your credit card, and earned about $30 in profit. I think you can order up to $5,000 in personal Amex gift cards per day. So, keep on doing it again to earn more miles. Check out Frequent Miler's comprehensive post about Amex gift cards.