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!

Magazines.com

• My attempt to double dip by buying gift cards through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and then using the gift card through Big Crumbs failed.  Big Crumbs reported 0 cash back for the transaction.
• I was ready to throw in the towel on Magazines.com when a reader named Anita posted comments on several Frequent Miler pages.  She may have found a way to double dip: have one person buy a gift card for another person and have the second person buy magazines.  Both would go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to make these purchases.  I’ll try this myself soon and report back.
• Anita also reported a conversation with Chase in which they asserted that magazines that auto-renew will receive points (despite the T&C implying otherwise).  As others have speculated, Chase says that you will get bonus points for the original purchase, but when the magazines renew you won’t get additional bonus points.  This is great news since many magazines are set to automatically renew.

Nook Giveaway

• Look for a post on Monday detailing how to enter for a chance to win the Nook I wrote about!

Groupon

• Groupon seems to have disappeared from the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Suddenly those Groupon Getaways don’t look nearly as appealing as they did a few days ago.  Sigh.

Kiva DO

• If you’re interested in attending the Kiva DO March 9-12, please read about it here.  If you decide you want to attend, please post your decision to that thread as well.

Staples

• Has anyone received results yet from buying gift cards at Staples.com through the Ultimate Rewards Mall?  This can be a great triple dip opportunity if it works!  Dip 1 = UR Mall 5X points; Dip 2 = 5X for Chase Ink Bold; Dip 3 = Use the gift card for more purchases through an online Mall (multiplier would depend on which merchant you buy from)!

ABOUT KIVA

Kiva is a nonprofit organization that provides 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.  This post will show you how to do the most good and earn the most points and miles along the way.

The trick is simply to use a rewards credit card to “purchase” loans.  When you receive payments back from your loans, cash them out and make new loans of the same amount, but again with your credit card.  The following steps give more detail:

STEP 1: SIGN UP AT KIVA.ORG

Kiva loans are not tax deductible, but almost all loans pay back 100% of what you put in.

STEP 2: (OPTIONAL) JOIN THE KIVA MILEPOINT TEAM

This is a group of like-minded frequent travelers who are eager to pay it forward via Kiva.  By joining, you will help this group meet its ambitious donation goals, and you may even be rewarded with a team shirt!  For help with joining the team, check out this MilePoint link.

STEP 3: DECIDE HOW MUCH TO “BANK”

You can think of Kiva as a savings account where, instead of interest, you earn credit card rewards, and you help make the world a better place.  How many banks can offer that?  Note that, if you choose to, you will have the option to withdraw the money once the loans are repaid, but it can take as long as a year for all of the repayments to complete.

STEP 4: FIND THE “BEST” LOANS

Really, the best loans are the ones you feel best about giving!  However, it is a good idea to find loans that are safest (e.g. most likely to pay back) and pay back soonest.  The reason for preferring earlier payback is that the more often you are paid back, the more often you can use that same money to fund new loans.  This will both help more people and give you more chances to earn credit card rewards.  For many great tips on how to find the best loans, checkout this MilePoint forum.  If you’d prefer to figure it out on your own, this site will help: http://www.kivalens.org/.

STEP 5: FUND YOUR LOANS VIA REWARDS CREDIT CARD

After adding loans to your Kiva “shopping cart”, it is time to check out.  You might notice that Kiva will, by default, add a suggested donation amount to your tab to cover operational expenses.  Unlike the loans, this amount is truly a tax deductible donation (at least in the US), but it is up to you whether or not to donate this or any other amount.  If you have a US Bank Flexperks card, I’d suggest you decline giving a donation as part of this transaction and separately donate to Kiva (if you’re inclined to) via Flexperk’s charity link which will give you 3 Flexperks points per dollar.  See my related post Give to Charity, Fly Free.

In order to use your credit card to pay Kiva, click the link under “Don’t have a PayPal account?” (even if you do).  See below:

Then, if PayPal finds your account anyway, select “Continue to pay as guest and do not use my PayPal account”.  See below:

STEP 6: WITHDRAW AND RE-LOAN

As loans get paid back, you can keep the cash in your Kiva account and re-loan the money at any time.  This is the easiest way to do it, but it won’t earn you any more credit card rewards.  To maximize your credit card rewards, withdraw your funds each month and purchase new loans with your credit card.  Loans are paid back on the 15th of each month, so consider making this a monthly ritual and you will continually earn points for yourself and loans for those who need them.

FEEDBACK

Do you have other suggestions for maximizing rewards and virtue from Kiva loans?  If so, please comment below.  I would love to enhance this post over time with your best suggestions.

Using a travel rewards credit card to give to your favorite charities is a great way to do good in the world and earn points and miles.  With most cards, you will earn 1 point per dollar donated.  Depending on how much you value those points, that could mean more than 2 cents value per dollar donated. I recently discovered, though, that you can do even better with the FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature credit card.  With this card, you can earn 3 points per dollar when giving to charity!  Even better, FlexPerks points can be worth as much as 2 cents each when used for travel.  So, with this card, donate to charity and you can earn up to 6 cents per dollar in travel rewards! FlexPerks rewards works like this for travel rewards:  Go through the FlexPerks rewards site to search for travel (using Travelocity’s search engine) and it will let you know how many points are needed for your flight, hotel, or travel package.  For travel priced at $400 or less, you need 20,000 points; for $401 to $600, you need 30,000 points; for $601 to $800, you need 40,000 points; etc.  You also get $25 credit towards airline fees (such as checked bags). I expect that there are other cards with charitable donation bonuses.  Let me know if you find them! FYI, here are some of my favorite charities:

• Doctors Without Borders
• Habitat for Humanity
• Food Gatherers

Kiva (not technically a charity, but Kiva does great work by providing micro-loans to people around the world)