{"id":2537,"date":"2021-09-10T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2023-04-18T12:18:10","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T18:18:10","slug":"weekend-post-mortem-no-fee-ms-with-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/10\/weekend-post-mortem-no-fee-ms-with-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Post Mortem: No-Fee MS with Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve talked about Point.app<\/a> on this blog more times than I\u2019m comfortable with (I don\u2019t think a single topic should get too much coverage), but given their<\/a> propensity<\/a> to transfer<\/a> money<\/a> from Venture Capitalists\u2019 funds to your wallet via their app, it\u2019s been a regular topic despite that discomfort.<\/p>\n

What never made it onto this site, or any other public site that I know of, is that for a brief, amazing, short window, Point let you fund your account with any credit card with no fees, and you could then withdraw your cash via ACH or through other easy manufactured spend right away, given that it\u2019s a debit card. The limits were high too at $10,000 per month, all fee free from Point. There was a rub though: while American Express cards didn\u2019t cash advance, some Mastercards and Visas did. <\/p>\n

How did it work? In April, they added an option to fund your account with Apple Pay, an option which still exists today with new restrictions. When that feature showed up in the app, they had language to the effect of \u201cInstantly transfer up to $2,500 per day using a debit or credit card from an existing bank \u2014 for no fee.\u201d They weren\u2019t even trying to hide it!<\/p>\n

With the help of a fellow hooligan, we tested several small loads with different credit cards and found which ones charged a cash advance for loading. Looking at the charge on American Express\u2019s activity view showed that they were using Stripe<\/a> to process payments, which is an interesting datapoint to keep in your pocket for looking at similar deals. After that, I maxed out the monthly limit and waited for the month roll-over for even more spend. Then sometime in June, credit card charges stopped working and eventually the language in the app was updated to remove \u201ccredit card\u201d from the Apple Pay description.<\/p>\n

Lessons to learn from this:<\/p>\n