This is the monthly post on how many points I collected in the previous month. This is NOT a brag and moan post. This was the impetus of this entire blog; so I could track how many miles and points I earn in a year. Some of you may do a lot less than this; some may do a lot more. Do what you feel is comfortable. Don’t overextend yourself just so you get similar numbers or whatnot.
Anyway, April was especially good for shopping portals. I’m not sure why since you would think March with fiscal quarter end would have higher offers, but it seems companies saw how bad Q1 was, and so they wanted to book some early revenue for Q2. We saw some Sears and Staples 8X. There were some Kohl’s 6X and even a whopping Backcountry 15X (which by the way, I need to actually sell the inventory; been too lazy of late. That and the fact it’s summer, so I may just wait until fall to list the items.) April also saw my eBay and Kohl’s bannings. Pretty rough month on the reselling front.
I’ve slowly stopped buying money orders too just because my Walmarts near me have stopped taking gift cards. So I mainly just use Buxx, RB, and reselling to gain points. I’ve gotten to the point where I have more points than I can use, and so I’ll only resell when the portals are high. I’ve moved on to cashback (which I’ll write a post later), but even then, I get lazy having to drive 30 minutes to a Walmart that may or may not let me buy MO’s and load Serve. The Krogers stores have also cut down on usage of gift cards. The Seattle area is getting to be a pretty bad MS city.
Anyway, here’s the April recap. I’d explain the sources of each point, but I think you can figure it out for yourself. Cashback numbers are also gross, not net. I’ve also updated the year to date view.
| AIR | 292,583 |
| Alaska | 160,909 |
| American | 85,815 |
| Southwest | 17,385 |
| United | 28,475 |
| Virgin America | 0 |
| HOTEL | 28,055 |
| Club Carlson | 0 |
| Hilton | 0 |
| Hyatt | 0 |
| Starwoods | 28,055 |
| BANK | 124,876 |
| AMEX MR | 0 |
| Barclay Arrival | 55,932 |
| Chase UR | 68,944 |
| CASHBACK | $2,459 |
| Befrugal | $280 |
| Cashback Card | $20 |
| Discover | $289 |
| Ebates | $921 |
| Citi Double Cash | $259 |
| Savingstar | $0 |
| Topcashback | $690 |
what is RB?
Target Redbird
Did all your United and discover orders pay out? I got less then half of my united and discover points I was expecting. It seems like only a few orders were actually tracked.
This is a real drag for me, I am not sure if its safe to make purchases through them any more… United is 8% at sears today lol.
Nick, it depends on what site you bought it from and what you bought right? I know my Sears EGC reloads took a little over 2 months for Cartera to pay out, so be patient.
Sears, Kohls, dell, samsclub, staples for both discover and united. Its been about 2-3 weeks now, usually if they are in by now I don’t believe they ever will be.
Discover has been finnicky with me, but United has been fine. Maybe you have a browser/cookies issue?
I did suspect that, but nothings really changed on my end, Im gonna test the different browsers, I agree Discover has not been reliable lately.
Wow, that’s pretty darn impressive. I’d be happy building to 1/10th of your monthly haul. Do you have any estimate of time spent?
Great question. Let me make a post about that tomorrow.
Great – looking forward to it!
I would benefit from reading the source points breakdown you mention. 🙂
Now now, you know I don’t give out fish on my site. Read, follow along, and it’ll all make sense.
You typed ”
“Anyway, here’s the April recap. I’d explain the sources of each point”
After you wrote you willingness to explain, I wrote I would be interested in learning and reading how you did it. So not looking for anything more than you put out there,
John
Well the full sentence was, “I’d explain the sources of each point, but I think you can figure it out for yourself.” If you have specific questions about my methods, shoot me an email. I don’t want to publish it online.
Is your email address on your site because I thought this was and the I noticed comments are public…
John
If you don’t mind me asking, what is the limit on your BA+? To do 56k arrival pts, you would have to do 28k of spending. I have 11k on mine, and want to churn it, but afraid of shutdown risk so I just do about 12-13k on it every month.
KP, it’s around 12K. I read 2-3X is borderline, so I wouldn’t go higher than 3X. I’m beginning to favor Citi DC over Arrival anyway since I don’t have that many travel charges.
Thanks.. I am going to PC my Citi aa exec to DC next month to avoid the annual fee. Have heard that Citi is much more tolerant with churning of cl.
Yeah that’s what I did a couple of months ago. My Exec card at the time had $30K CL, which is more than enough.