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Free Manufactured Spending
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Buying points and miles at the lowest possible price is great, but it’s much better to get them for free! Here are some of the free MS methods we have available:
American Express Gift Cards
Amex gift cards are the most reliable way to make money by manufactured spending. These gift cards can be loaded up to $3,000 and cost $3.95 each + $8.95 to ship. That doesn’t load free right? Well, the idea is to go through a portal to buy the Amex gift cards and use a non-Amex card for the purchase. Currently TopCashBack is offering 3% cash back through their portal, however, it gets even better around the holidays (Easter, Christmas, ect.). Many portals will offer 4% or 4X points around the holidays for Amex gift card purchases.
Here’s the profit you can make:
$3,000 (Amex Gift Card) + $12.90 (Shipping/Fee) = $3012.90 (Total Cost)
3013 Points Earned With 1X Card
$120.52 Earned Through 4% Portal
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Profit: $107.62 + 3013 Points
If you used this gift card to buy 6 – $500 OneVanilla cards at CVS, your profit would still be $77.92.
It’s important to note that these gift cards do not have PINs, so you cannot buy money orders, load Bluebird, or use it for debit card only purchases. You can use these for many other manufactured spending methods, though. Also, you can buy up to $5,000 at once (1 – $3,000 and 1 – $2,000). If you do that you can save on fees, since you only have one shipping cost ($8.95).
Notes
- If you would like to know more about Amex gift cards, check out this post by FrequentMiler. He covers everything there is to know about these cards.
- You can purchase the gift cards here.
Paypal Cash
You can buy Paypal Cash cards for $500 with a $3.95. That works out to .78 cents per point if you use a 1X card. I would, of course, suggest using a higher earning card. But since this is a free method, you could use any card. The trick is to buy Paypal Cash cards to load to your Paypal account. Then, use your Paypal account to load Bluebird. When you use your Paypal debit card online, you get 1% cash back.
$500 (Cash Card) + $3.95 (Fee) = $503.95 (Total Cost)
504 Points Earned With 1X Card
———————————————-
Profit: $1.05 + 504 Points
As you can see this doesn’t earn you much money, but at least it earns you something.
Notes
- You will need a Paypal Business Debit Card, which is free.
- It may be a challenge to find Paypal Cash cards that can be purchased with a credit card, but check all your local stores. I have had luck at some gas stations and grocery stores. You can redeem the cash card here.
Serve
Serve can be loaded with $1,000 using a credit card online. If you sign-up for Serve using ISIS, you can load $1,500 via a credit card. This is not a manufactured spending machine, but it’s an easy way to add $1,000-$1,500 of MS a month for free! I have used Chase, Citi, and Barclay cards to load my Serve account and they all earned points. I’ve heard that Amex cards do not earn points when loading Serve.
Notes
- To sign-up for the ISIS version, you need to have a supported phone. I would suggest getting ISIS, because they have a Serve sign-up bonus going on right now.
T-Mobile Prepaid
T-Mobile’s prepaid card is relatively new in the MS world. They only came out with this product in late January. Basically, it works like any other prepaid card. You can reload it in store or with reload packs. This particular prepaid card can be loaded online with ReloadIts. ReloadIt packs that can be bought with a credit card. If you do find ReloadIts that can be purchased with a credit card at a store that gives you 5X points, you can easily manufacture a lot of points!
Notes
- Check out this Flyertalk thread/wiki to see what stores have been tested.
Amazon Payments
I realize Amazon Payments is talked about over and over, because everyone uses it and everyone loves it in this game! Mentioning it once more won’t hurt, right? AP is a very convenient free MS method. What I like best about AP is, you can use any type of card – gift card, credit card, debit card, whatever you want and they all work! Granted, you only can do $1,000 in and $1,000 out a month, but it works well for rebate gift cards and hitting minimum spending.
Notes
- You will need at least two AP accounts to use the service. If you can get more from your family members, I highly suggest it.
