Manufactured Spending

     Even dilletantes in the miles & points world know that the big points offers come from credit card signups.  However, these offers often come with sizable spending requirements.  A couple of years ago, I signed up for an Amex Business PRG card for a 75,000 MR point bonus.  That card required $10,000 in spend over 3 or 4 months.  Others may require $5-10,000.  That's a lot of money for the average household.  Even putting as much ordinary spending as possible on cards, many folks might struggle to reach $2,000 in monthly spending.  That's where "manufactured spending" comes in.

     "Manufactured Spending" is a term-of-art that's arisen in the miles & points world to denote various techniques for artificially inflating the amount that you spend on credit cards in a given month.  There's a whole forum devoted to it over at Flyertalk.  "Manufactured Spending" can take several forms, from "moving forward" spending by purchasing gift cards that you intend to use later to buying cash equivalents and using them to pay off your credit card bills.

     The single most useful tool for the beginning points-seeker is Amazon Payments.  A few years ago, Amazon introduced "Amazon Payments" in a move to compete with Paypal.  AP will allow you to send money (using your credit card) to anyone else who has an AP account.  You can send up to $1,000 per month without paying any fee at all.  I've heard that some people even have "AP clubs" in which someone sends a payment to a friend, that friend sends a payment to a third friend, and the third friend sends a payment to the first friend.  All-in-all, AP is very simple way to manufacture spending to meet credit card sign-up offer requirements.

     Other methods are more esoteric and are discussed at great length on Flyertalk.  One that recently ended was Wells Fargo's Prepaid Visa card.  Wells Fargo allowed the card to be funded up to $2500 with a credit card.  They charged a $5 fee to do so.  That worked out to a 0.2% fee.  Since the card was a debit card, the loaded funds could be quickly liquidated through ATM withdrawals and money order purchases.  Sadly, Wells Fargo changed the rules so that the card can now only be funded with Wells Fargo credit cards.

     The lesson to take from this is that you needn't be scared off from taking a card offer simply because the initial spending requirement is high.  Of course, before manufacturing any spending yourself, be sure that you have the discipline to pay off your cards every month.  The Banks count on CC users paying interest.  Once you start doing that, the points & miles game quickly becomes a losing one.

Amex Sync Offers

Amex has a new Sync offer @ Whole Foods:

"Get a one-time $10 statement credit by using your enrolled Card to make a single purchase of $75 or more at Whole Foods Market by 6/30/13."

The offer was available on my Amex account page, on Amex Sync's Facebook page, and on twitter:

"Tweet #AmexWholeFoods, get $10 back 1x on $75+ purch at Whole Foods w/synced Amex Card! (RegLtd, Exp 6/30) Terms: http://amex.co/17UI0rV"

If you shop at Whole Foods, this is a great offer!

Hilton Honors Amex AXON Award Chart Changes

     Lots of fun stuff in my mail today, euros bought at below face on ebay, my Royal Ambassador welcome kit (through a referral), and a letter from Amex detailing the new AXON award chart.  On second thought, that last one isn't so fun.

    As everyone in miles and points land knows, Hilton recently devalued their general award chart.  No announcement about AXON (multi-night rate for Amex HH cardholders) or GLON (multi-night rate for elites) was made, but we all knew changes were coming.  Well, they're here.

On June 15, 2013 AXON 4-night awards will be "enhanced" as follows:

Category 5- up by 5,000 points to 130,000
Category 6- up by 35,000! points to 160,000
Category 7- up by 45,000! points to 190,000

Of course, as part of the devaluation, Hilton Honors added three new hotel categories, Categories 8-10.  The AXON awards for those levels will be as follows:

Category 8- 220,000
Category 9- 260,000
Category 10- 300,000

     That means that a four night stay at Hilton's top level hotels will run you 75,000 points a night.  And that's the discounted rate.  The crazy thing is that Category 10 properties on Hilton's regular award chart run from 70,000 to 95,000 points per night.  So in some cases, AXON awards could end up costing you more!  Thanks, Hilton.

Trip Planning- Ireland

Mrs. Pointsninja & I will be travelling to Ireland next month, and I'm doing some furious last minute planning.  Ireland presents a special challenge for the points enthusiast, because (outside of Dublin) major chain properties are either thin on the ground or undesirable.  For instance, Priority Club only has   four properties there.  Hilton has a whopping five clustered in Dublin and Belfast.  So, my go-to programs don't do me much good.  In fact, we'll only be staying at one chain property, a Radisson Blu in Dublin (thanks to the Club Carlson card).

Ireland is, however, very heavy on B&Bs.  We found a number of interesting places through Hidden Ireland, a site that features historic and architecturally interesting B&Bs and self-catering houses.  I plan on doing stay reports for each of them, so that will hopefully make for some interesting reading.

Getting to Ireland isn't too hard.  Back in December when I started planning, I was able to find Delta business award seats into Dublin with pretty good availability in May.  Finding them at 100K Skypesos apiece made my day.  Unfortunately, Delta flies 767s with the old-style "recliner" business seats.  I suppose we'll have to make do.

So, look forward to some "off the beaten path" stay reports in a couple of months.

American Airlines Contest

FYI:  American is running a Facebook contest Here.  First prize is 100,000 AA miles.  Also offered are GoGo wifi passes and 100 mile prizes.  Naturally, I won the 100  mile prize.

(HT: Gary)

GOES Global Entry- Thank you Amex

Just recently I was approved for Global Entry after applying online and completing the in-person interview.  Global Entry is Customs and Border Protections "trusted traveler" program that provides "expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States."  In essence it allows pre-screened travelers to bypass long lines by using an electronic kiosk to clear customs and immigration.  Global Entry applications cost $100 and are valid for 5 years.

You start by opening a GOES account at the link above.  The site guides you through the process and at the end you select Global Entry as the program you're signing up for.  At that point you are prompted to pay the $100 fee that covers your application and membership for five years.  There is no refund if you are not approved for some reason.  Amex Platinum will reimburse you for one Global Entry application a year.  In my case the statement credit showed up 2 or 3 days after the payment posted.

After submitting the initial application you'll be notified by e-mail if you are "conditionally approved."  At this point you'll have to schedule an in-person interview at one of their enrollment centers.  Interviews are held during business hours on weekdays.  The interview covered my criminal history (happily old and extremely trivial) and included having a photograph taken for the Global Entry card and being fingerprinted.  From what I understand, even a misdemeanor arrest could result in disqualification if it occurred in the last ten years.

I was pleased with the efficiency of the CBP officer who conducted the interview.  After arriving early, I was called in before the scheduled time for my interview and didn't have to wait around.   The e-mail notification of my final approval arrived shortly after leaving the interview.

The first use of my newest "status" card will come during an upcoming trip to Ireland.  I'm really looking forward to dodging the long queue for immigration!

Amex Business OPEN Savings- Change to T&Cs

I logged into Amex today to check up on an OfficeMax purchase that I made with my Amex Business Platinum card.  As you may know, Amex OPEN offers 10% cashback on all purchases over $250 at OfficeMax.com.  Usually the credits post automatically a few days after the purchase.  Well, in this instance it didn't, so I decided to make sure that T&Cs of the OPEN savings program hadn't changed.

Well, they have.  But not necessarily for the worse.  Here are the new T&Cs for OfficeMax:

Automatically get up to a 10% discount OR up to 4 additional Membership Rewards^® points for each dollar spent on eligible purchases at OfficeMax^®.com

Get rewarded on office supplies, ink and toner, furniture, technology products and more. Use your Business Card from American Express OPEN on eligible purchases at OfficeMax.com and automatically get a 5% discount credited to your American Express statement or get 2 additional Membership Rewards points on every dollar spent of $250 or less and 10% or 4 additional points on every dollar spent more than $250.

So.  More options are usually better, but I'd have a pretty hard time choosing 4 MR points over 10% cashback.  That's valuing the MR points at 2.5CPP, which is about a penny too high in my estimation.  I haven't figured out how to "choose" the cashback yet, but I've sent in a Secure Message to find out.  I'll update this post with the answer.

UPDATE:

I received a response to my SM.  Here's the relevant portion:

"Yes, you are absolutely right! You can get up to 4 additional Membership Rewards points for each dollar spent on eligible purchases at OfficeMax.com.

As of February 22, 2013 OPEN MR enrolled accounts will have the option of selecting their OPEN Savings currency preference of additional Membership Rewards points or discount (statement credit). Cardmembers will be notified of the change in the April 2013 - Changes to the Cardmember Agreement.

Use a Business Card from American Express OPEN on eligible purchases at OfficeMax.com and automatically get the following:

- 2 additional Membership Rewards points on every purchase of $250.00 or less 
- 4 additional points on every purchase more than $250.00

However, I assure you that you will continue to receive statement credits (up to 10%) unless you switch to the Membership Rewards option. 

It looks like Amex is changing things up a bit with cashback remaining the default.  Bonus MR points are bound to be better for their bottom line than cash discounts, so we'll see how long that lasts.  At least the discounts aren't going away just yet.  Losing them would be a serious blow to the Amex business program.