Search Results for: plastiq

So, I started out with a Weekend Wisdom post but then got excited by item #1 when I found it on FlyerTalk, then I got excited that I found a useful piece of info on FlyerTalk for the first time in years, and then finally I felt like I had to throw a few other things along with it to fill out your weekend. Here’s my disconnected result:

1. Did you pound the Discover Q2 5% bonus at Warehouse Clubs? Yeah, neither did I. But, there’s a reason to step foot in a Sam’s Club again: $500 Vanilla Visa and Mastercard gift cards are coming back to Sam’s brick and mortar stores. The fee on these is $4.95, so an all around good deal. In case you’re not a Sam’s Club member, you can join for $45 and get a $45 Sam’s Club gift card either online or in store. If you do it online, go through a shopping portal — it may work.

2. Now let’s talk about easy minimum spend from home for a moment, especially given all this week’s American Express offers. Good options are: Plastiq, Bravo, and Fluz. With Bravo, you can do some archeology on older APK files and find a way to get the fee down to 2%, but it’s not for the feint of heart. With the right options on Fluz, you can approach 0%. On Plastiq, you’ll pay 2.85%, but you can be really creative with your targets to get your money right back in your pockets. There are other payment processors too; if/when you find one, try small charges on Visa, Mastercard, and American Express because often you’ll get different results with each.

Of course these aren’t the only at-home options. There are others that you’re no doubt passingly familiar with like gift card reselling, buyer’s clubs, Kiva, and online arbitrage (that last one is a ton of work though, but you can do really well if you’ve got the stomach for it).

3. Starter Bros locations in California are offering $10 off when you buy a $50 gift card and $10 in groceries. This might seem like a sleeper but you can scale it. Side note: Until very recently I just assumed Starter Bros was like AutoZone, O’Reilly Auto, or Pep Boys. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

This post posing as an electrical circuit.

In this hobby we’re really good at moving money around from bank a, to credit card b, to debit card c, then maybe back to bank a. We’re also good at parking money in accounts for a $750 bonus at Bank of the West or a $600 bonus at HSBC. If you’re like me, that means large sums of money are occasionally sitting in bank accounts, partially as a cushion for lax record keeping in order to avoid overdrafts in case you forget about a pending ACH or charge, and partially as a holding pen for sign-up bonuses or other perks. (And let’s not talk about the stack of gift cards waiting to be liquidated on my desk on any given day.)

When you’re letting money sit you’re subject to the opportunity cost of what that cash could earn if you didn’t leave it parked in some rando bank account. That money could instead be invested in high interest checking accounts (3-5% APR can be had with just a little bit of effort and some scheduled Plastiq $1.00 payments or with Debbit), maybe in US Treasury bills, perhaps you could be putting your money into buying Playstation 5s or graphics cards for resale, or you could be actively or passively investing in the stock market. All of those things will (hopefully) earn you money, and it’s quite likely that you’ll earn more money in those vehicles than the almost nil interest rate your bank probably pays. You’ll potentially earn more than you’re getting with sign-up bonuses too.

MilesEarnAndBurn Case Study: I’m a 90% passive index fund investor (VTI and VEU if you must know) with the other 10% being my own active stock picking based on fundamental market value and a very small smidge of speculation. I’m often right enough about my active stock picks that my 10% allocation grows to be 12% or 14%, so I rebalance back to the 90/10 split and keep going. What does that tell me? If I had a smaller cushion in my bank accounts and better record keeping about money flowing around, I’d have more money for investing, which will almost certainly outperform my stupid 0.005% APR checking account returns in the long run. I’m costing myself real money with my current strategies. I can and will do better.

Takeaway: Pease take a few minutes this weekend to think about your cash, how it sits and how it flows, and whether you’re using it in a way that you’re happy with. Don’t discount that there’s inherent value in simplicity too, if it’s just easier to let an extra $10,000 sit at a bank account to avoid the mental load of more strenuous record keeping, so be it. To be sure, I’m not suggesting any one particular investment vehicle or investment strategy — do what works for you, but please make sure what you’re doing is intentional.

A picture of quite a few US Dollar bills frozen in a large cube of ice.
A representation of how I’ve failed my bank account.

It’s a good week to be hacking:

  • Get a free year of TripIt Pro and access to an $800 First Republic checking account bonus ($50,000 deposit, 90 day lifecycle) by signing up for a free year of Founders Card, which is a glorified coupon book for … people. They have other coupons of dubious value in case you want to poke around too. Sign up with code VIPTRIALRIUN12, and use a burnt out gift card or a virtual credit card number when you sign up so they can’t charge you in renewal fee in a year.

    For what it’s worth, I really like TripIt and use it weekly despite its old, clunky, IE6 era interface. Deal from Holly at DoC.

  • Check your Southwest Rapid Rewards profile page for a few great earnings bonuses. So far, I’ve seen or heard of:
    • 10,000 points toward the companion pass
    • 10,000 points toward elite status (A-List or A-List Preferred)
    • 3x bonus Rapid Rewards points one or more flights, depending on the offer
    • 2x bonus points on flights to and from Southwest hub cities (I saw Houston)
  • Plastiq is offering a widely targeted offer for $10 in gift cards for each $1,000 in payments sent, up to $3,000 in total spend. Look for an email with the subject “Earn up to $30 when you make a payment this month”. Hint: If this feels like a snoozer, honestly it’s actually not. Try a few things!

Hack away!

A black and white photo of a woman in overalls with an axe slung over her shoulder, smiling.
Getting ready to hack away at Plastiq.

I have a travel hacking thought for you to mull over during the weekend: Inertia kills. Inertia kills deals, accounts, stores, good cashiers, loopholes, and redemptions. It’s easy to fall into a rut and ignore this but you really shouldn’t. What do I mean?

First a little refresher: Inertia is the tendency for something to continue as it has been, to avoid change*. In travel hacking, having big inertia means hitting the same technique over and over again. If your game is just buying a gift card every day and turning it into a money order, you’re in the rut I’m talking about. The same goes for singular focus on sign-up bonuses, or focusing on just gift card reselling, or sticking to cell phone burners. Or it could be using the same bank account for every single money order deposit.

When you’re singularly focused you’ve got massive inertia. The means you’re not:

  • Diversifying risk
  • Diversifying earning
  • Spreading spend
  • Exercising new techniques
  • Preventing burnout

If your bank decides they’ve had enough of your shenanigans, a shutdown there could cause a grinding halt to everything if you don’t have other bank accounts. If you visit the same grocery store every single day you’re going to stand out and you’ll be remembered. All it takes for the grocery axe to come down is a decision from an assistant-manager having a bad day that they don’t like what you’re up to. They may hold a store meeting to tell everyone to not sell to you, call the police, or you may even find your picture on the wall behind the customer service counter. Believe me, it happens.

When you’re constantly changing your game by switching your activities, stores, and techniques, you’re less likely to be noticed. As an added bonus your credit card company is less likely to be suspicious over buying “$506.95 worth of gas” every day when you call for a retention bonus after the annual fee posts. Frankly you’ll earn more and play more in the long run.

The same principle applies to the whole community; when everyone pounded uncle Tio, he passed away. When Plastiq‘s compliance team figured out why nearly every single account was sending $500 payments, they put a quick end to it. When Kroger awarded fuel points on variable load gift cards and watched their profit and loss statement explode, they stopped it. When the community collectively pounded the British Airways 4,500 mile partner redemption in the US for city pairs less than 650 miles apart, the chart changed.

Moral of the story: Keep your accounts, your methods, and your targets diverse and changing, and they’ll all live longer. You’ll probably end up earning and burning more too.

An unfortunate self-commentary.

* Yes, there’s a scientific definition too, you may have heard of it. It’s called “Newton’s First Law”. However my very real physicist hat is off right now and yours should be too.

In another part of my online life that’s not travel hacking related, the community has a tradition of summarizing the year in GIFs. It’s glorious my friends, trust me. Here’s my attempt for the us. Maybe this will be a New Years Eve tradition? Without further ado, here is travel hacking in 2020 in GIF form:

AA Shuts Down Mailer Churners

The AA Playbook:

  1. Suspend your account, but don’t tell you (whack)
  2. Error when you try and book a ticket, with no reason given (whack)
  3. Corporate didn’t tell CS agents what’s up, so they couldn’t help you (whack)
  4. Finally, they kill your account right before you’re scheduled to fly (big whack)

PayPal Key

PPK runs as a debit card pretty much everywhere, works with AmEx backed card, and worked with Plastiq, Melio, and tax payments.

Rakuten Pays out 15x on GiftCards.com

The 15x deal that lasted for a few hours was clearly not intentional, but Rakuten paid at the end of Q1 2020.

Brian Kelly/TPG Expose in Business Insider

Cocaine, harassment, intrigue? No one, I mean, no one saw this coming.

Citi ThankYou Points can be Redeemed for Gift Cards

Get your $25 Walmart gift cards here I guess. But only if they’re in stock, and only if the system is working, and only if you have the right type of ThankYou Points.

FQF Launches a Podcast

Now when does the IndyFinance alter ego come out? That’s where the literal money is.

George Popadopoulis is Pardoned

Ok, so the TravelBloggerBuzz supreme overlord wasn’t that George, but still.

Vinh Sells a Garage Full of Kayaks

Literally a garage full. Vinh shows us that there’s always someone reaching further than you.

Being lol/24 when Chase Offers are at an All-Time High, Watching Newbies get the Bonuses

It sure looks warm inside the Chase house, with their Freedom Flexes, World of Hyatts, and Sapphire Reserves.

Amex Unicorn Platinum

  • 10x at Gas and Grocery
  • 100,000 point sign up bonus, even for people who already had the bonus in the past

I still can’t believe that deal.

Air Canada Refuses Refunds for Cancelled Flights

They even ignored the DOT for a moment.

US Mint WWII Gold Coins Resells for over $1,000 Profit

… and $1,000 is on the low end of the spectrum. The flip side of the coin (hah!) is you probably couldn’t buy them because their website was running on a Raspberry Pi 3 which was spec’d to handle approximately 12 requests per minute.

Saverocity Observation Deck Records its Last Episode

I was late to the game on this podcast for no good reason, but I’m still sad none-the-less. At least there are the archives.

BestBuy Gift Cards Reselling Magic, until Black Friday

You could sell BestBuy gift cards for most of the year at 98% or more of face value. That is, until the Black Friday hiccup smacked us in the face. The market was performing so perfectly until…

… at least now it’s going again, but we’ve all got a black eye and a bruised ego.

Cancelling a Dozen Trips due to COVID

Shoot ’em down, one right after the other.

Road Trips are the new Black

Corona meant more time on the road with the family, in makeshift RVs (or real RVs if you’re bougie).

I get my First PingBack to a Blog Post

Sorry, you’ll have to find it yourself. I guess if someone links to you on the internet it means you’ve arrived though, right?

Alaska Airlines Travel Bank to Miles

Alaska Airlines let you convert banked travel wallet funds to miles twice this year.

AmEx RAT Seeing Plastiq Payments with PPK/AmEx

Yo dawg, I heard you like AmEx, so I let you pay your AmEx with an Amex, so you could earn points while you get shutdown. Bad news though, the Rewards Abuse Team (RAT) didn’t like it.

I have to summarize 2020 travel hacking in about a dozen GIFs.

I didn’t plan on this until last minute, and I had no notes about what happened in 2020.

I’m sure I missed plenty of significant 2020 events, but hey, this was a last minute post that ended up taking a few hours to put together, so hard cheese if I missed your favorite. Next year I’ll take notes though.