To start with, I don’t think there is any right or wrong answer, but more a matter of the circumstances we are each individually faced with. The ultimate goal of each activity is to generate as high a return on our time with the least amount of effort. I’m personally a credit card churner. Ariana is the manufactured spending Queen of the Game. And we both do very, very well.
My background
My background is credit. I owned a FNMA approved mortgage banking company in my former life. I spent most of my time looking at people’s credit files, life situations and deciding if I could grant them a home loan.
During those younger years, I never carried a credit card, because I just hated the idea of paying interest. Looking at other people’s credit card balances was terrifying to think about paying all that interest each month.
But once I saw the benefit of sign-up bonuses from multiple credit cards, I was on my way. I never was late on a payment and always paid in full each month. Some people’s circumstances just don’t allow that to happen.
I’m not a particularly organized person, but can keep track of a deadline and how much I’ve spent on a credit card. I pay my balances always on time, keep my utilization ratio under 40% and will pay mid-cycle if necessary to do so.
The advantage of credit card sign-up bonuses
I like the idea of reaching a goal and seeing the large addition of miles to my account. And most of all, I like the idea of earning so many miles for every dollar I spend.
I recently did a card sign-up bonus that paid 60,000 miles for $1000 in spend. That’s 60 miles per dollar! I know the annual fee cuts into that number, but it’s still considerably higher than the 6X Ariana tells me is pretty much max doing manufactured spending.
The cons of credit card sign-ups
The downfall of credit card sign-ups, particularly when you’ve been playing as long as I have? There is a point where you’ve had just about every card of value, and you are limited to finding new cards, that typically have less and less valuable sign-up bonuses.
Manufactured spending = more opportunities to earn
On the manufactured spending side, it appears that the sky is the limit. I hear MS’ers talking of depositing $50,000 worth of money orders per month on a given card. The limitations here seem to be not so much available products, but outlets in your region to perform the required tasks.
Also, I think it takes a gutsy individual to walk up to a service counter and ask for $8,000 of money orders. I get nervous at $2,500.
I happen to live in an area where those small numbers I play, have plenty of outlets. So I can skim along under the surface and pick up $40-$80 profit in an hour or so. I understand many areas seem to offer unlimited opportunities for manufactured spending and others almost nothing at all as far as liquidation sites.
Maximizing manufactured spending
I’m really glad that at this point in my travel hacking career Ariana has taken my under her wing to help with picking the right shopping portals to increase my yield and efforts in pajama MSing.
The idea of getting it all done, except for the liquidation from the couch, is very appealing. I’m still a little weak on monitoring my shopping portal payouts but am sure that will come with time.
In retrospect, I guess the ultimate answer is to do both activities to the best of your ability based on available credit and the manufactured spending market you live in. The more we diversify our earning opportunities, it seems the more we have to gain.
As always, your comments, suggestions and advice based on your particular set of circumstances are welcome here. We can all learn from what we all know.
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