I haven’t done one of these weekly manufactured spending posts in a couple of weeks. Mainly because they get pretty repetitive. I’ve written about my current approach to manufactured spending, which is basically just liquidating a larger number of gift cards during fewer runs. Well, this weekend was particularly productive, for several reasons. First, I … Read more
I haven’t been writing about my manufactured spending routine lately, but I have been pretty active. If you follow me on Snapchat (username: Pointchaser), you’ve probably seen some evidence of this. In the past few weeks, I’ve changed my approach a bit. I don’t go out on my daily runs anymore, stocking up on $9,500 … Read more
Here’s some unexpected good news for the day: Chase has just added Air France/KLM Flying Blue as an Ultimate Rewards transfer partner! Why is this good news? For starters, Ultimate Rewards needed a new transfer partner. After the removal of Amtrak and the devaluation of British Airways Avios, it was time to adda new travel … Read more
The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos has a nine restaurants and seven bars. The dress code at most places is casual, though the dinner restaurants will require you to wear long pants/dress and closed-toed shoes. They didn’t seem to enforce this rule, but I’d go along with it anyway. When it came to dining at an … Read more
It’s been a year and a half since my last post in the Best Starwood hotel redemption series. These posts take a long time to research and write, so I kind of half-assed the last one by not including any descriptive information about my picks and then decided to abandon the project until I had more … Read more
The days of free manufactured spending are indeed over and the cost of accruing points and miles can be substantial. At the moment, some of the credit cards I’m using to earn miles don’t earn category bonuses, which can really add up if you’re not doing things to off-set the fees. I largely depend on … Read more
I was browsing through the SPG Moments website when I came across a recently ended auction that caught my attention. Someone spent 230,500 Starpoints on an AUDITION to sing the National Anthem at a Chicago Cubs vs. New York Mets game. And since this was for an audition that the top three bidder would be competing for, … Read more
This year, I’ve probably done more manufactured spending than ever. Even back in the day when I could walk across the street from my office to CVS and buy $5,000 worth of Vanilla Reloads per day, I don’t think I reached the numbers I’m pulling in now. On a daily basis, I do a minimum … Read more
Update: I’ve adjusted this post to reflect the fact that the cash back rate hasn’t increased for GiftCards.com but rather GiftCardMall.com. Yesterday I wrote about finally receiving my first cash back payout from iConsumer, which took about four months. Some people commented with their own negative stories of their transactions not being tracked or other reasons for … Read more
I started using the iConsumer cash back portal back in January, after they offered a particularly generous cash back offer of 1.6% at Giftcards.com. I was well aware that payouts took 90 days. But man was it hard to sit around and wait for it to come through! I continued using iConsumer for many more … Read more