Kiva is a nonprofit organization that facilitates micro-loans to enterprising individuals around the world so that they may earn their own way out of poverty.  By making loans through the Kiva website, you can be part of the solution to poverty AND earn points and miles (because you can use your credit card to finance loans).

A little over two years ago, the Kiva Lending Team started up on Milepoint and quickly began breaking records left and right.  Despite our relatively small size, we are ranked 3rd among all Kiva teams in terms of amount loaned.  And, this month we’ve been racing to top 5 million dollars in loans!  In order to encourage extra loans this month, the team has been running its “Drive for Five (Million)” promotion.  Each week in April you can register a loan you’ve made for a chance to win one of several prizes. 

Even though we’ve almost reached $5 million in loans already (and may have reached the goal by the time you read this!), the contests continue.  Here’s how to enter:

1. If you haven’t already signed up with Kiva, you can do so through my link: www.kiva.org/invitedto/milepoint/by/FrequentMiler (By using my link, we each will get $25 free to loan, but unlike regular loans we will not be paid back for these).
2. If you belong to Kiva, but not to the Milepoint lending team, please join us here: http://www.kiva.org/team/milepoint
3. Find a loan and finance it here: www.kiva.org/lend
4. Once a week, use this Google Docs form to enter the contest.  There is still time to qualify for three entries with the following deadlines:
1. Sun Apr 21st at 11:59pm EDT
2. Sun April 28th at 11:59pm EDT
3. Tues April 30th at 11:59pm EDT

If your entry is selected as one of two weekly winners, you can choose from either of these prizes:

• A ticket to Frequent Traveler University (Sept 27-29 in Tampa FL), or
• Milepoint Premium Membership 2013 (when available)

At the end of the month, each week’s entry will be used for the grand prize drawing for:

• A GRAND PRIZE of an exclusive guaranteed early booking for the upcoming Star Alliance MegaDO 5 or EuroDO!

Note that this would simply guaranty you the ability to buy a ticket on the next Star Alliance MegaDO.  The winner would still be responsible for paying for the MegaDO ticket. 

If you don’t know what a MegaDO is or why you would want to win a chance to buy a ticket on one, you can read what the New York Times said about the last Star Alliance MegaDO: Test-Flying the 787 Dreamliner.

Good luck!

Kiva is a nonprofit organization that facilitates micro-loans to enterprising individuals around the world so that they may earn their own way out of poverty.  By making loans through the Kiva website, you can be part of the solution to poverty AND earn points and miles (because you can use your credit card to finance loans).

Two years ago, the Kiva Lending Team started up on Milepoint and quickly began breaking records left and right.  Despite our relatively small size, we are ranked 2nd among all Kiva teams in terms of amount loaned! 

You can help us celebrate our 2nd anniversary by joining the Milepoint team and making a loan on our anniversary date: Tuesday Feb 12.  The team captains have pledged to match every loan up to $17,500 made on this day.

Since we have members all around the world, we will use a Milepoint Kiva Day – starting at midnight Feb 12th Samoa time; ending at Feb 12th 11:59 p.m. Hawaii time. Regardless of your time zone, make a loan on Feb 12th and the Milepoint Kiva Captains will match these loans up to $17,500 in new money.

If you’re interested in joining us, click here to join the Milepoint team on Kiva, and make a loan on Feb 12!

Related Posts

• How to maximize points and virtue through Kiva loans
• Join the alliance!
• Minimum spend requirements? Kivalens to the rescue

I recently signed up for the US Bank Cash+ credit card.  The card is free, and it is very likely the best cash back card there is (see “The best cash back card?“).  I know that a lot of my readers care only for points & miles, not cash back, but I believe that’s a sub-optimal view.  Even if you value miles above cash, you can often end up with many more miles by getting cash back and then using that cash to buy miles cheaply (see “Giving Cash its Dukedom“).

What makes the Cash+ card exciting is that each quarter you get to pick one 2% cash back category and (more interestingly) two 5% cash back categories from a set list.  Even better, through a couple of tricks, it should be possible to increase that cash back to over 9%!

Here is an image of the current 2% and 5% categories:

Now that I have the Cash+ card, I’m excited to begin a series of experiments. Here is what I have going so far:

Verify that the cash back rate is 6.25% when redeeming rewards $100 at a time

This seems very clear from the online documentation, but I might as well double check this.  When you cash out your awards in $100 increments, US Bank promises to give you a $25 bonus.  That means that 5% cash back rewards are really 6.25%.  Sweet.

Verify that checking account bonuses stack with other bonuses for up to 9.375% cash back!

As a reader recently informed me, US Bank has two checking accounts that offer an automatic rewards bonus for Cash+ and FlexPerks cardholders.  The Gold account offers a 25% monthly bonus, and the Platinum account offers a 50% monthly bonus.  If these bonuses stack with the $25 bonus for each $100 withdrawn, then you can increase your 5% return to 7.8% or 9.375%, respectively!  Each account has fees that can be waived through various means.  See this page for details.

To see how this should work, consider a person with the Platinum checking account who spends $4000 in 5% cash back categories.  That person, will earn 5% cash back, which amounts to $200.  Then, at the end of the month, they should get a 50% bonus which would increase their total cash back to $300.  Then, if that person withdraws $100 at a time, he/she will get an extra $25 each time.  In total, this person should get $375 cash back.  $375 is 9.375% of $4000!

Check whether Kiva loans count as charity contributions

Many people have reported that Kiva loans are counted by US Bank as charity contributions with the FlexPerks card (see, for example, this Mommy Points post).  It will be very interesting to see if the same holds true with this card!

For more about Kiva, see “How to maximize points and virtue through Kiva loans,” and “Minimum spend requirements? Kivalens to the rescue.”

See what counts as Department Store purchases

Target: It’s very unlikely, but if Target counts as a department store, it would be awesome to get over 9% cash back for reloading the Target Amex card!  See “The 5X everywhere backup plan.” 

Sears: Sears is definitely listed as a department store.  I just need to verify that gift card purchases from Sears are counted as such.  If so, you can expect several posts about leveraging that opportunity!

Others?  Can you think of any other stores that might count as department stores and would be worth checking?  Ideal candidates are those that sell a variety of gift cards and/or those in which online portals tend to offer high payouts.

Reader Suggestions

There seems to be an endless number of ways to leverage this card.  Do you have ideas worth exploring?  Have you used this card?  If so, what have your experiences been so far?  More importantly, have you found a good way to figure out how your purchases are classified?  When I look at my transactions online, it doesn’t seem to indicate anything about this.  Do I need to wait for my statement?

This is a quick note for those interested in attending this year’s Star Mega DO (basically a big party on a chartered jet for frequent flier fanatics, hosted by United Airlines).  If you’re interested, you probably know that getting a spot on this DO is harder than finding and booking low level award availability on Delta.  Fortunately, the Milepoint Kiva team has come up with a chance to win a spot on the DO (note: this doesn’t pay for the DO, it just gives you a chance to pre-book (if you win) so that you can pay for the DO).  Here is the text taken from this Milepoint post:

Kiva to the DO: Win a SMD4 Pre-Booking Opportunity

Win a StarMegaDO 4 early bird booking opportunity** by supporting Milepoint Kiva group loans. Recently, friends of the Kiva Lending Team generously purchased TWO Pre-Booking slots for the SMD4 and are giving them away to interested members of the Milepoint Kiva Lending Team. A drawing will be held for these slots to any Milepoint Kiva member who supports one of our group loans — starting now through July 3rd (12 pm MT/Noon).

How to Enter
1) You must be or become a member of our Milepoint Kiva team; 2) Have a public profile so we can identify you; 3) Support one of our group loans on the Helping Each Other to Save Some More Loans thread by July 3rd (12 pm MT/Noon). Winners will be notified July 4/5.

Each member will get one entry, regardless of the number of loans they support. Two winners will be chosen.

This MegaDO is expected to be a quick sell-out, so this pre-booking opportunity is sure to be … priceless.

** pre-booking opportunity does not include the actual cost of the MegaDO event.

This Mega DO runs during my son’s birthday so I’m not planning to attend.  That makes one less competitor for those valuable seats…

One of the problems with credit card sign-up bonuses is that many have large spend requirements.  For example, the current public offer for the Ink Bold requires $10K in spend in 3 months to get the full 50K bonus (half of the bonus is given when you first use the card).  Most cards have more modest requirements, but even those can be a challenge.

For a high level overview of ways to meet minimum spend, see my post from last year “Top 10 ways to spend a lot of money and get most of it back”.  In that post, the #2 option I listed was to make loans via Kiva.  You can read more about Kiva here “How to maximize points and virtue through Kiva loans”.

Kiva is a nonprofit organization that facilitates micro-loans to enterprising individuals around the world so that they may earn their own way out of poverty.  By making loans through the Kiva website, you can be part of the solution to poverty AND earn points and miles.  You can use your credit card to make loans (that’s how you earn points and miles) and you will get paid back over time.  A typical loan takes about a year to pay off fully, but you will usually begin to see partial repayments in a month or two.  Kiva’s default rate is barely over 1% (1.06%).  Personally I have not yet had a single loan default.

If you’re new to Kiva, you can try it risk-free by signing up through this link: http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/FrequentMiler.  This will give you $25 that you can loan to get a feel for the process.  Just note that this loan is different than ones you fund yourself in that when it is repaid you will not get the money back.  Also, while you’re in the process of joining Kiva, consider joining the Milepoint Lending Team on Kiva.  It’s a fun group of like-minded micro-loaners.

The only problem I have with Kiva is that their web site can be a challenge if your goal is to loan a lot of money all at once.  Kiva.org is setup for the average person who browses through prospective borrowers one at a time to find the ideal candidate for a $25 (or so) loan.  Suppose, though, you want to loan thousands of dollars all at once?

Kivalens is a web app that makes it easy to loan lots of money all at once.  The web site uses a technology called SilverLight so it may not load on your favorite smart phone or tablet, but it should work with most full fledged laptops.  Browse to kivalens.org and you’ll see a screen like this:

On the left side are filters.  In the “Loan” section you can pick characteristics of the loans.  For example, if you want to be repaid quickly, you can filter out loans with greater than, say, 8 months before they are repaid. 

On the left side, you will also see a “Partner” section.  Kiva loans are managed by field partners.  These are the organizations made up of people who actually live and work in the region being served by the loans, and who provide bank-like services to people seeking loans.  In this section of the screen, you can filter to highly rated partners with low default rates in order to ensure you make only relatively safe loans.

In the middle of the screen are the loans that meet the criteria from the left side.  When you click on a loan, more information is given to the right (not show above).

What I really like is the little “++” button at the bottom of the screen.  When you click it, the following dialog box appears:

Let’s say you need to spend $3K on a credit card to meet it’s minimum spend requirements.  Assuming you have enough money in the bank to cover the credit card bill, you can use this “Bulk Add” tool to spend $3K all at once.  Simply slide the “Max Basket Amount” slider to the right until the total comes to $3000.  You can also increase the max amount per loan if you want to.  Personally I like to keep it at $25 in order to spread my risk as much as possible.  Click OK, and then click the “Checkout!” button at the bottom of the screen.  This will move all of your selected loans to the Kiva.org website where you can then pay for the loans by credit card.

For details about how to use a credit card to pay loans on Kiva.org, please see “How to maximize points and virtue through Kiva loans”.

Stay informed:
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If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here

I’m posting now from the KivaDO in San Francisco.  The Milepoint Lending team is here to meet with Kiva staff, learn more about Kiva and the good we do as Kiva lenders, and to participate in a Money Bomb.  A Money Bomb is a one day (or in this case, two day) period of time in which we try to loan as much as possible as a group (no loan is too small!).

Here’s how you can participate in the Money Bomb and get $25 free.  The $25 is not for you, though!  The $25 dollars are for you to make your first Kiva loan:

Step 1: Follow this link to signup for Kiva and get $25 to apply to a loan

http://t.co/CnFmNDy7

Step 2: Pick a loan

This image is just an example of a loan, you can pick any.  When you find one you like, press “Lend Now”:

Step 3: Register with Kiva

Step 4: Join the Milepoint team and assign you loan to our team!

I can’t get a screen shot of this because I’m not a new member, but I’m hoping you can figure this part out yourself.

Please help us make this Money Bomb successful.  There’s no risk to you! 

Note that unlike regular Kiva loans, when the free $25 loans are paid back, you will not get the money for yourself.

Follow the DO on Twitter with hashtag #kivado.

I thought I’d let everyone know about the frequent flyer related trips I have coming up.  Hopefully some of us can meet in person at one or more of these events:

• Kiva DO, San Francisco, March 9-11

• Frequent Traveler University, Newark NJ, April 27-29

• BlogWorld, NYC, June 5-7

• Chicago Seminars, Chicago, Oct 12-14

It turns out that I’ll be speaking about Gift Card Churning at the Chicago Seminars!  As the event gets closer, I’ll write more about it, but if you’re interested make sure to sign up soon.  It looks like the main hotel is already full, but the overflow hotel still has rooms available.

So, which of these are you going to?  Are there any good events I’m missing?

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook

Yesterday I wrote about how writers in the Write a Book, Win a Nook contest had formed an alliance against those who’s goal was death and destruction.  In that case, of course, all of the good and evil-doing was fictional.  Here, however, is a chance to join a real alliance.  An alliance who’s goal is to help people across the world and, incidentally, to achieve world domination!

The alliance I’m talking about is the Milepoint Lending Team on Kiva.  Kiva is a nonprofit organization that facilitates micro-loans to enterprising individuals around the world so that they may earn their own way out of poverty.  By making loans through the Kiva website, you can be part of the solution to poverty AND earn points and miles (because you can use your credit card to finance loans). 

As of today, 2/12/12, the Milepoint Lending Team is 1 year old!  I’m writing this post to celebrate the team’s 1 year anniversary and to ask readers to consider joining us.  You can follow the team’s many discussions on Milepoint here.  Or, simply go the the group’s page on Kiva, here, and join.

So, what is this about “world domination”?  Despite our group’s young age and relatively small membership, we have recently passed up Team Obama, and the team named Belgium in terms of all time amount loaned, and established our place firmly in the top ten lending teams.  We are currently ranked 7th and will achieve world domination when we, someday, make it all the way to number 1!  This competition is, of course, all in fun.  If it motivates other teams to lend more to stay ahead of us, so much the better!

Two Winners!

To celebrate the lending team’s birthday, I’m giving away two $25 Kiva gift certificates to story authors in the Win a Nook contest.  One certificate is funded by yours truly, and the other by a member of the Milepoint Lending Team (most likely by Randy Petersen himself).

So, I rolled the internet dice and found two winners: Mr H and Zach!  Congratulations guys!  You will receive your gift certificates via email soon.  Please consider joining our team prior to choosing your loans.

Another chance to win Kiva gift certificates

Fellow blogger, MichaelW Travels is also giving away Kiva gift cards.  Check out his site and add a comment to this page for a chance to win.

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

The contest to Win a Nook is now in the home stretch. Until Tuesday (Feb 14th), all you have to do to enter is add a single line to the ever growing story and become one its many authors. 

Since I last gave an update, here is what has gone on in the Nook story contest:

There has been an uprising – a mighty clash between authors!  A few, on the dark side, have taken it upon themselves to quickly kill each and every character that appears in the story. Opposing the dark forces are numerous authors who have formed an alliance.  The alliance has taken on the job of defending story characters from early, un-storied deaths.  Frequent Miler, Granny, and a mysterious cat all owe their lives to these forces of good.

Sadly, though, the clash between dark and light was so powerful that it pulled some of the authors right into the story.  As a result, some authors met untimely deaths themselves.  And some have come dangerously close to joining the dark side.

So tune in, and join the fight!  Pick a side and help move the story forward.  Help decide the fate of Frequent Miler, Granny, and the cat.  What will become of the giant Silly Putty ball?  Where did the talking dolphins go?  Why is Gilligan missing his second “g”?  Will Jean-Claude Van Damme ever put on clothes?  These are the questions you can help answer as you help craft the story! 

Final Interim Contest with two prizes!

On Sunday (2/12/12), I will randomly pick a story author to win a $25 Kiva.org e-gift certificate. With the gift certificate you can give a micro-loan to your choice of borrowers across the world. Once the loan is repaid (and they almost all do fully repay), you can choose to withdraw the money for yourself or make more loans. If you’d like to learn more, please visit the Milepoint Lending Team.

But wait, that’s not all!  Generous folks on the Milepoint Lending Team have offered to match this prize!  So, I will pick not just one, but two winners!

To learn more about Kiva, and for 3 more chances to win a Kiva gift certificate, please checkout Mommy Point’s post here.

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

The contest to Win a Nook continues! Until Feb 14th, all you have to do to enter is add a single line to the ever growing story. Over the weekend, though, I announced an interim prize: a $25 Kiva Gift Card.

So, at 6:41 PM EST, I found a total of 1,079 comments had been posted so far. I then generated a random number from 1 to 1079:

And, the winner is… Mike, who wrote entry 436! In that comment he wrote “Only if Gary would stop giving it to her” referring, I believe, to a character named Daisy who could fly when taking certain drugs.

Mike, congratulations!  Look for an email soon with your $25 Kiva e-gift card!

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!