Matthew Wood posts
Posts: 0
Files: 0
Biggest MS Developments - July
I'm going to periodically summarize the best of the Slack group discussions as part of your subscriber content, first so we've got a curated historical record for future reference, and second to make sure you didn't miss (some of) the major developments. Since this is an experiment, I'd very much appreciate your feedback on the format and how it could change to be better.Alright, let's dive in:Manufactured SpendLarry L gives a great overview of how both self check out and gift cards work at Lowe's and includes a capture ...
An Interesting Credit Card to Debit Card Service
Kasheesh has been brewing in stealth mode since last year, but as of today the cat is out of the bag after Benjy @ Miles To Memories shared some details. Here's what you should know:- It's a service built to let you split payments across multiple credit cards- It works with AmEx, Mastercard, and Visa- It only allows charges of exactly the face value of the virtual card through, others are rejected- The MCC for charges to your cards is 7399- The virtual card Kasheesh generates is a Mastercard, BIN 531367- It does work with Western UnionI...
A Method for Liquidating Metabanks and Other Tough Gift Cards
The doors have been closing on Metabank gift card liquidation for several years. Since 2019, we've lost liquidation at Walmart Money Centers, Kroger Money Centers, Safeway Money Centers, and most recently Publix Money Centers. But, not all doors are closed by any means and there's a great one that's been working for years and is still waiting for us to throw gift cards right through the door frame:Western Union in-store bill payments at WalgreensBill Payments with Western Union in-store are different than the peer-to-peer payments w...
$10,000 per Day in Manufactured Spend from Home
IntroductionFluz is an application for generating gift cards in real-time and getting cash-back for doing it, with an intended use case for buying during checkout online or at an in-person retailer for a little extra back on the purchase. It's basically a cash-back version of MileagePlusX.Of course 1-5% cash-back at the Adidas Outlet is fine and better than a swift kick in the pants, but that's not the main use case for us. Instead, Fluz has a set of "hidden-stores" that generate Visa and Mastercard gift cards of up to $200 in v...
Group Chat Update
EDIT: All invites have gone out. If you can't find yours please let me know (it will come directly from Slack and may end up in spam).Hey friends,I had impassioned arguments for just about every platform for a group chat imaginable, and in roughly equal numbers for each platform to boot -- unfortunately there's not going to be a single platform that satisfies everyone. So, we're going to start with Slack.I'm told there's a good Slack<->Discord bridge connector too, so after Slack is set-up I'll look into making a compani...
United Travel Hacks
Note: This is the promised first newsletter focused on travel hacking topics. These will come periodically just like the manufactured spend posts. Let's talk about how we can make best use of United awards and TravelBanks. With a bit of legwork, we can make both much more flexible than their rules imply.Award Ticketing FlexibilityUnited's award change and cancellation policies in the post COVID world are much more lax than they were before, but there's still a redeposit fee charged for everyone but United 1K elites if you want to ca...
Patreon Updates
Hi Friends,I'm just getting back from a long, disconnected vacation, but I wanted to give you two quick updates before I dive into the regular routine: I've had literally dozens of you ask about a Telegram / WhatsApp / Slack / Discord group for Miles Earn and Burn Patreons, and I think we're about at critical mass to make that work. I'm leaning toward Slack, but if you have strong opinions please let me know. I've also had requests for Patreon travel hacking posts in addition to manufactured spend posts, so I'll be incor...
Another $5,000 MS Opportunity from Home or at Walmart
Venture capitalists are currently overfunded, in that their funds are larger then ever and the number of targets they're chasing is shrinking. That means that they're making big bets on FinTech platforms with suspect business models, and those very same FinTechs typically give us another way to manufacture spend.Recently, a new FinTech funded with $46 Million in capital has given us an option to manufacture spend: Majority, a FinTech with the business model "all in one banking for migrants".The vitals: Load $500 per day, $5,000 ...
$6,200 in (Recurring) Visa/Mastercard Manufactured Spend
There are two opportunities for opening new credit union accounts that offer big spend on Visa and Mastercards without cash advance fees, and they're even better because they illustrate a technique not often discussed in the churning space even though it has relatively wide applicability. The deals: Hiway Credit Union offers $5,000 in credit card funding for new accounts, but requires a hard pull, currently at TransUnion Evansville Federal Teachers Credit Union offers $1,200 in credit card funding for new accountsBoth credit unions allow fu...
Taking 4% off of your Credit Card Balances from Home
Right now, there's a nice opportunity for paying bills from home at a 4% discount, and it's less convoluted than many of the games we play. The ELI5: The Coinbase debit card gives 4% back in XLM crypto which you can sell immediately PayPal bill pay accepts the Coinbase debit card and doesn't charge feesTo get the Coinbase debit card, you first have to open a Coinbase account, and then you have to join a waitlist for the card (the waitlist currently clears in about 36 hours though, so it's not what you'd normally expect from ...
Fee-Free Mastercard Gift Cards from Home
For several years I've been chipping away at a not-well publicized source of Mastercard gift cards that you can buy online. These cards are interesting because they're a rare BIN, so they're less likely to be blocked than most other gift cards. That's interesting in-and-of-itself, but now the company is running a fee-free promotion as icing on the cake.Normally I'd post something like this on the blog and it's not exactly private per se, but as far as I can tell no one has ever written about this site and its promo codes...
Nearly Fee-Free Online Gift Card Liquidation
EDIT: This deal is unfortunately on life-support. Many cards aren't working any more, but a few still are. I think it's unfortunately not long for the world though. Additionally, Stockpile has implemented a $100 card load limit per 24 hours, which makes this a waste of time in my opinion.I was first introduced to Stockpile on black Friday 2020 when they ran a promotion for the holidays that let you buy stock gift cards with a limit of $10,000 per day using a credit card, all fee-free. I "only" spent $25,000 during the promotion ...
A $15,000 per Month MS Play at 0.5% from Home
Thanks again for being a Miles Earn and Burn subscriber. I wanted to share another technique which isn't really public, but is a bastion of at home manufactured spend and has been for several years.Have you heard of Western Union? I'm assuming the answer is a resounding "yes". They've been around for literally 170 years, and their presence is global. There are MS techniques head on with Western Union, but generally they're harder and less lucrative than other plays and it's only tangentially related to the actual sub...
Subscriber Newsletter: Fee free MS opportunity
Hey guys,I really appreciate the support you show, and I wanted to share something that I'm not going to put on the blog because it would die quickly if it got out there. Please keep this one to yourselves and your immediate family:One of the many stock trading apps that have come out of the woodwork is Public.app. I started prodding at this one back in June since it's not like your typical startup app, rather it is underwritten and processed by a big bank. When big banks are involved in the backend, you're often exposed to legacy s...
Thanks for subscribing
I will put tips and tricks here in the future, but for now, let me just express my thanks in the sincerest possible way. No jokes or comedy here, just a thank you.
