She’s got me spending…..Oh, spending all your money on me. And spending time on me – Black Eyed Peas

As a follow up to last week, just wanted to explain how I can get all the credit card minimum spend requirements when I opened so many cards at once.
So for reference: To get the sign up bonuses for the cards I signed up in last week’s post:

• P1: Capital One Venture: 75,000 points after $4000 spend (3 months to achieve)
• P2: Chase World of Hyatt Card: 30,000 Hyatt points after $3000 spend (3 months to achieve) plus 30,000 more after $15,000 total spend (within 6 months)
• P1: Chase Ink Business Cash: 90,000 UR points after $6000 spend (3 months to achieve)
• P2: Capital One Venture: 75,000 points after $4000 spend (3 months to achieve)
• P2: Citi Premier: 80,000 points after $4000 spend (3 months to achieve)

Update: Sure enough I signed up for another card. But this one has a purpose for this year! I swear I’m done now, maybe.

I signed up for the Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Business Mastercard. I’ll earn 80,000 AA miles after $2000 spend within 2 months.

I did somewhat space out these card sign ups but for the most part, that’s about $23,000 in spending within 6 months…. Or $35,000 if I want that Hyatt bonus *Gulp*
In the past, I really had one way to do it…

Any bill that could be paid by credit card, I was using. Now this isn’t to say I didn’t have the money to pay with debit. I also budget every paycheck and made sure to pay off the spend right away. But this was one of those scenarios where, if I already have the money, might as well benefit. I could pay water, electricity, DAYCARE, plus our gym membership all with credit cards. Also any groceries were bought with credit too.
This for sure takes care of the ‘$3000 minimum spend in 3 month’ tasks.
My husband’s new job also helps with reaching the spend on his cards. He’s able to reimburse all his business travel (hotels, gas, food, flights) all while spending on his own personal cards. (Hehehehe)
The tough one is the business card. Now I could probably make the spend with just bills. But if I ever want to apply for the “spend $15000 in 3 months” business cards, I needed to get creative. So thank you podcasts for always teaching me something new.

The “She has too much time on her hands” Strategies

One strategy I heard of was joining buying groups. You could buy 5 iPads and then send it to one of those ebay sellers who can’t obviously buy 500 iPad themselves. But I was afraid of getting scammed by strangers online. I’ve heard it’s “relatively safe” which is why many of the credit card enthusiasts do it, but I’ll work my way up to that if needed.

Update: Yeah I tried the buyer club too. Bought some random game system and shipped to a popular buyer club. Usually orders get cancelled being sent there because many people use the address and sure enough I was no exception. My order was cancelled the very next day.

So strategy #2: Manufactured Spending

Basically you just buy a bunch of gift cards, and liquidate it to cash to pay off what you spent. Sounds easy enough… or so I thought.
On the week of 1/8/2023, Staples was having a deal where you buy as much as eight $200 Visa Gift Cards a day without having to pay a $6.95 activation fee. So I went to Staples when they first opened. I proceeded to the gift card section in front of the register. I first saw the Mastercard gift cards, some Staples gift cards, oh look it’s Visa… oh but no $200 cards….

Well darn.

There goes that plan.

I stared at the gift card section for a good 5 minutes before I went to the back of the store with the office chairs to think. There’s not another office store nearby. I’ve heard of Target having no fee cards but then I wouldn’t get the 5× points. I can’t buy the gift cards online or I’d pay the fee.
I left Staples and went to another store to run a true errand. By the time I left, I was really determined to get those gift cards. I almost bought a $300 card online but that would’ve taken a week or two to get and I wanted to see if the liquidating part of this strategy really worked. And I wanted to see right away. So I went back to Staples with the plan to purchase a $100 card. When I got to the register to purchase, the same cashier from earlier looked at me and spoke:
“Are you by chance trying to get the $200 cards?”
“I actually am if you have them.”
SCORE
“Yeah we keep them in the back. People act all weird about them.”

*Me awkwardly standing there knowing I am one of these people*

“How many do you want?”
“Eight please”.
And from there, the cashier proceeded to scan my gift cards.
“Will that be cash or card?”
“Card” (Come to mama 5x points)

“Darn, I would love to see $1600 in cash”
(Not I, the woman always afraid of getting robbed. I like my money on plastic so as soon as I’m robbed, I can call my banks… I mean the cops)
I inserted my Chase Ink and then the cashier proceeded to hand me my cards.
Boom.

Getting my Cash Back

$1600 of plastic cards. Now the process of turning this into cash and paying off the $1600 I had no real desire to spend.
Went to my main Wal-Mart. Not selling Money Orders at the moment.

Darn.

Went to a Wal-Mart 5 min farther. They sell money orders. I originally asked for a $200 money order forgetting I’d have to pay a fee. The tell me the cost is $200.96. I asked if I could use 2 payments. The cashier wasn’t sure. So I asked for a $199 money order instead. I didn’t mind losing a few cents. Then as I prepared to swipe the first gift card, she did input 96 cents. It went through. I tried to swipe for $199. Denied. I tried my second card I brought. Denied. Screw this. So I left Wal-Mart.

Paypal Method

Plan B was PayPal. I was warned there would be a fee involved. But I didn’t care, I just wanted my money back quick. So I added the cards to my backup PayPal (not sure if you’re even allowed a backup but I have one), sent the amount minus the fee to my main one. Then repeated 3 more times. I was excited that it worked, but also a bit lazy and exhausted at the amount of “registering, adding a card, sending money, and deleting a card” that I had to do.
I then repeated the method again from my main PayPal to my husband’s, “just in case” some PayPal fraud police was going to catch on. All in all, I spent $47.44 in fees. But I gained 8,000 UR points which can turn into Hyatt points to help me achieve my dream of staying in a 5 star hotel in NYC in the near future. So I regret none of the “hard work.”

Update

It took about 3 days for the “PayPal to my bank account to paying off the actual credit card” process to complete. And my measly $3000 limit on the business credit card really prevents me from doing too much manufactured spending too quickly. Which is probably a good thing. However, I did end up going back to Staples one last time with the intent to purchase 3 more gift cards “just to finish booking next month’s stuff.” This time, the $200 cards actually were out on display so I grabbed “only six” just because. I also purchased some kid’s scissors to not get flagged by Chase “just in case”. (“Why does this crazy lady keep spending $1600 at Staples? We should probably make sure she’s not paying for some scammer Nigerian Prince”) . When I got to the register a new cashier told me “You know you can get 8 of these a day right?” to which I replied “well if you insist” as I grabbed 2 more.

I’ve also taken note of all the gift cards Staples has as I plan to start purchasing all my Airbnb, Southwest, and Delta gift cards from there. Staples really is a point lovers dream destination.