March 7, 2013
576,000 points earned. 424,000 left to go.
Background: Million Mile Madness is the fun and foolish quest to earn a million points in one month. Throughout March, I’m doing everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. To keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000.
All points earned and expenses incurred are tracked via this Google Docs spreadsheet.
See all Million Mile Madness posts (in reverse order), by clicking here.
Weekend brownout
This weekend, beginning Friday morning, BoardingArea is planning to move to new servers. Friday and Saturday, this blog will be readable, but comments will be disabled and I won’t be able to publish new posts. The blog should be back to full working order by Sunday. In the meantime, if anything exciting comes up I’ll let you know via Twitter and Facebook (so make sure to follow and/or “like” me!)
Quick credit card update
So far, all of my new American Express and Chase cards have arrived (including my Freedom card which was a downgrade from my Sapphire Preferred), but I’m still waiting for Citibank, US Bank, and Barclays.
My time is spent…
What have I gotten myself into?!! I’m going through each day with nothing on my mind except how to earn points, lots of points. Aside from worrying about it, here are some specific things that I’ve been doing:
- I “liked” Club Carlson and Virgin Elevate on Facebook: 1500 points.
- I bought almost $1200 worth of Free after Rebate stuff from Staples: Almost 6000 points.
- I bought $4000 worth of Home Improvement cards at Office Depot: 20,000 points.
- I used those Home Improvement cards to buy $1800 worth of Sears and Lowes gift cards via the Ultimate Rewards Mall: Over 8500 points.
- I bought $500 worth of Kohl’s gift cards via the Ultimate Rewards Mall: Over 5000 points.
- I found a fantastic deal and bought over $2000 worth of stuff from Staples, which I then sent to Fulfillment by Amazon to sell. From this deal I hope to earn cash (to fund other point earning activities this month) and over 11,000 points.
- I’ve spent some time browsing online looking for resalable items from Sears, Kohl’s, Lowes, and elsewhere. I’ve found a number of good options so now I need to pull the trigger as soon as some of those gift cards arrive. And, I plan to buy more and more gift cards!
Reader suggestions
I’ve done all of the above point earning activities and more, but it’s not enough! I need to earn points more quickly to get to a million this month! Do you have ideas? Suggestions? Comment below!
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If you don’t mind sharing, what did you buy from staples for resale on Amazon? Will you also share what you end up buying from Sears, Kohls, Lowes, etc
I thought you only earned points when you USED the Kohl’s gift cards. You earn points for buying Kohl’s gift cards at Ultimate Rewards Mall?
@ jerry. No he wont share what he is buying until after he sells it. If he tells you then you and everyone else will buy it and give him competition when trying to sell it. Once he sells it you will have all the details.
What worries me is all the gift cards have to be paid for when the statement closes so your gunna have to have thousands laying around to float the money until you sell items or your just gunna use the cards for your own personal consumption in which these things have to paid for at some point.
You don’t mention the free La Quinta points or Asia miles promos going on. Not a lot but hey 300 or so points here and there might put you over the top. I wouldn’t waste much time on audience awards UNLESS you are buying tickets through that site which can add up.
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/pointmetotheplane/2013/03/01/free-points-1000-club-carlson-750-asia-miles-237-us-164-ua-131-aa-124-as-300-la-quinta/
Start your holiday shopping and purchase items at the stores with the highest extra points. You will need to do it anyway–might as well do it this month.
I’m curious about the Staples -> Amazon items myself. I don’t care WHAT the items are, I’m just wondering what his expected profit will be or if it will even be break-even.
Jerry: At Troy said, I won’t publish details until after I’ve sold the stuff. Not only don’t I want competition, but I also don’t want to get the unfair benefit of readers who might buy the stuff I’m selling.
Lively: In my (and other reader’s) experiments, physical gift cards bought from Kohl’s earn points via the UR Mall. YMMV
Troy: I plan (hope) to liquidate all of the gift cards through buy & sell techniques. Its true that I won’t see all of the money by the time I have to pay my credit card bills, but I should have enough savings to cover the difference.
DaninSTL: Thanks. Yeah, I should probably get those La Quinta miles. The problem is that my time is better spent searching for great buy/sell deals
Ollie: Good idea!
mrredskin: I found something that sold briefly at Staples for much less than the best available price via Amazon (or anywhere else I could find) so yes, I think I’ll make a profit here unless lots of other people got in on the same deal and start a price war.
Hi Greg,
I sent you this one via twitter, but will add it here also. It’s good for at least a free $100 from Amazon: http://first2board.com/thedealmommy/blazing-hot-amazon-giving-20-rebate-on-kindle-accessory-gift-cards/
Would you count anything earned by signing up for GreatBridgeGroup.com? Apparently they’ve started paying out. That’s an easy $60 for you for this month, which I suppose would count for 6,000 points.
Also, I got some junk mail from Allstate Insurance yesterday–you can get miles by requesting an auto/home insurance quote.
You’re gonna need stuff that can scale given limited time and need 20k/day. Besides the portal double/triple dip merch buy/sell deals you are already doing, you should also focus on the financial deals like Fido, TD, BD, etc.
VRs and MOs. You know the drill.
Do you already belong to every Rewards Network program? There are easy sign up bonus points.
which home improvement cards did you use to purchase Sears Gift Cards?
The Deal Mommy: Thanks. I think I need to concentrate more on point earning schemes than money making, but this could come in handy if I end up having to buy points!
Nick @ PFDigest: By the rules I set for myself, I won’t count cash equivalent points as points, but as money to help finance ways to get points. So, this could be helpful, but not directly for earning points (see my answer to The Deal Mommy)
Where are you buying your Lowe’s gift cards?
Eat out a lot at restaurants that earn mileage, buy their gift cards.
Hi FM,
I didn’t see it mentioned what are you valuing your Hilton points intake as? 1/2 or full?
Also how big are you going to go each month on the Citi 5%?
When I click through the UR mall to Lowes or Kohls it says in the blue box “Not eligible on gift cards….”. Have you seen the 5x points come through for you?
what is a home improvement gift card ? i never saw that in my OD
I did not receive UR points for a Kohl’s gift card purchase in January, for whatever it’s worth. I know there are different reports on this.
I haven’t had luck with kohls gift cards with the UR mall either
FM, thanks for the updates, I really enjoy watching you tackle this. Can you please explain how you plan to dispose of the $4000 of Home Improvement/Sear’s/Lowe’s cards without impacting your self imposed $1000 limit? The spreadsheet indicates you plan to recoup all $4000. I’m missing something there. Thanks and good luck!
You guys have to buy the PHYSICAL kohls gift cards (which works with UR). The e-ones do not work.
FM, you may want to buy the Kohls e-gcs from Staples via CashBack so you can take advantage of the 30% off going on now. It takes Kohls like 7-10 business days to mail out the gift cards, and so you may miss the deal. There are lots of things you can sell for a profit right now. I’m hoping to amass 200K of UR via Kohls this month.
greek2me: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about TD, etc. but it seems like I’d have to commit a huge amount of money to get much out of those this month. Isn’t that true? I’m not sure I can swing that considering that I’ll already be floating lots of money for purchases not yet sold.
MileageUpdate: Of course
rxgeek: Good idea. Yes, I do belong to most of them, but there are a few I could add on
traveller: See this post: The Home Improvement Gift Card
Matt: I buy the Lowe’s gift cards from Lowes.com after going through the UR Mall. I pay with the Home Improvement gift card
Pamela T: Good idea
Steven: I’ll probably value Hilton at full, but I don’t see myself earning many so it probably doesn’t matter. For the Citi 5% I’m sure I’ll do at least $5K. Not sure beyond that.
David: In my experiments, I got points when buying physical gift cards from Kohls (despite the T&C), but not when I bought e-gift cards.
amod: See this post
Larry, Cd: It’s definitely a YMMV situation. Did you buy physical gift cards or e-gift cards?
Jack L: My intent is to buy stuff with the gift cards (and earn even more points that way by going through a portal first) and then sell the stuff to get most of my money back
Vinh: Yep, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I went to buy e-gift cards first from Cardpool, but someone had cleared them out, so I went to Staples.com instead. I’ll do a mix of going through TCB and UR to get both extra points and cash back
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There is also https://www.plink.com/index.cfm/main/homepage/refer/495747/aid/1264.
This is a new website that lets you get points for fulfilling offers on your credit card you already use. You can then redeem them for points:
Redeem points for airline miles for any of the following airlines/points programs: American Airlines Advantage, Frontier Early Returns, US Airways Dividend Miles, and Best Buy Reward Zone.
Cameron Wilde: Thanks for the turbotax suggestion! Unfortunately my taxes are pretty complicated this year so I’m going to an accountant. Hopefully he’ll take Kohls gift cards for payment
As to plink, any ideas how to scale it up?
FM — I bought the e-gift card from Kohls. Next time I’ll do physical. Frankly, though, I didn’t see any great stuff worth buying. I’m not in the reselling game.
This might be targeted:
EARN 1,000 BONUS POINTS when you link your ThankYou® Rewards and Amazon.com accounts. Refer to the link on how to do and its T&C.
https://rewards.thankyou.com/b2r/merchandise/shopWithPoints.do?merchantId=AMZN
Unfortunately, I just found out about Plink and haven’t looked into scalability.
I’m trying to figure out your Lowe’s play. Let’s say you buy the Home Improvement card with Ink (5X) and then buy Lowe’s cards through the UR mall (5X). Can you then use the Lowe’s cards to go back through the UR mall (5X) to buy merchandise? Assuming you can, you’re at 15x. Maybe you stack another coupon to bring Lowe’s down another 10%. But you have to add back on sales tax. Am I warm? Are the margins good enough to buy at Lowe’s and then do Amazon fulfillment?
Valerie: thanks, I’ll try that tomorrow!
Piecerate: Yes,nyou have it exactly right. 15X if all goes well plus 10% off at Lowes. I’ll probably lose some money on the deal, but 15X is worth it.
Is there an easy way to find the FAR’s at Staples.com?
did you use your chase cc for part of the expenses on the lowes gc’s, or did you pay for it straight with the home improvement gc’s?
If you like wine you can buy 6 bottles for $42 and get 12500 club carlson. There are similar deals for aadvantage that I know of for fewer points
Just curious, on your chart where you have “Fullfillment by Amazon” are you putting what you expect to make from Amazon in the column titled “Expected Other Cash Back”?
If so, 2 questions. 1) are you figuring in amazon fees into that? and
2) you are assuming it sells?
@Dina – You earn 5,000 CC points with the first shipment and 7,500 for the second shipment. The second shipment is sold at their regular rate of $12-$15 per bottle plus shipping. That’s still 0.8c per point and you get some wine, but be sure to cancel before the second shipment.
@FM- yes, to take max advantage of TD, Fido, BD, etc you would have to lay out some big bucks and let it sit there awhile. But if you had 200k to park in a 2 yr CD at BD you could snag 200k AA in one fell swoop!
What is the highest points rate for sears.com through ultimate mall? I only see 3x.
karen: Through the Ultimate Rewards Mall you can only get 3X right now (it recently dropped from 5X). There is a short term special via the AAdvantage shopping portal for 6X.
UR Sears T&C says following.
-Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents as of 11/1/12.
Do you think you will get points for your gift card purchase from Sears using Home Improvement card?
SeanC: Yes, recent experiments have shown that you get points when buying physical gift cards at Sears. In fact, my points show up as pending already.