There are a lot of manufactured spend “secrets” that I don’t blog about for obvious reasons. And I’m even hesitant to even blog about this one since the last big “secret” that was blogged about, the Goodwill cards, literally died before it even got out (I didn’t have my blog at that time and wouldn’t have blogged about it anyway.)
The Unicorn
What if I told you that there exists a Visa Buxx – like card out there that lets you load thousands of dollars a month for a very marginal fee using any Visa/MC (makes the US Bank Buxx card look like Shrek). Would you believe me? Would you spend hours on hours searching for this unicorn? How long before you give up? I think the main reason why MS’ers hate bloggers is that bloggers “spoon feed” casual readers, who then all pounce on the deal, thus causing the deal to die. Then the people who knew about the trick get VERY UPSET, like road rage mad times ten! One reason they are mad is because this hobby requires a lot of time and reading and networking, and if someone just gets spoonfed without putting in the time, it’s “unfair” to the person who spent all that time figuring it out. Whether that’s right or wrong is up to you to decide. Eventually, you will know a secret one day, and when it dies because a blogger blogged about it, trust me, you won’t be happy about it. Check out what happens when you ask a stupid question on Flyertalk these days; you will get a quick nasty reply saying, “Read the wiki.” Or read the comments on Doctor of Credit’s post when he posted about the Evolve/USBank gift card “oopsy” and the UFB/Chime load. I actually knew about the Evolve trick before he posted it, and I wasn’t happy he posted about it, but I didn’t get angry at him. I just wished he hadn’t done it, and I think he’s decided to keep secret MS ideas to himself now.
I think this hobby has become hyper-local these days, and even then, it may even be more secretive than that. Even within your local area, if you know of a cashier at Safeway that lets you buy Reloadit’s with a credit card, you better not tell anyone else in the area either! There are talks about private forums like the Saverocity Level 2 forums or the Travelcodex ‘gots to have lots of reps’ secret forums. There are private email threads or private sub-forums that you probably don’t even know exist, like the Illuminati. These are secrets that will never see the light of day on Flyertalk. Or if it does, the person gets bombarded with death threats to take down the post (see the FT HELLO thread that was posted for a brief second). Deals are so fragile these days that bloggers will only blog about it if it’s a nationwide deal,and if they believe mass communication won’t kill the deal. I was a bit surprised that FM blogged about the GC->VGC at a certain store that we all loved as kids; that was a borderline deal there, and I’m surprised they haven’t fixed their system yet.
Anyway, back to the unicorn. It’s highly likely there are multiple unicorns out there too! Where am I going with this? I’ve put HOURS into finding this unicorn already, and it is elusive! I’ve come close a couple of times, where I thought I trapped it, but it would always just be a horse spray painted white! I’m looking for some people to help me wrangle this unicorn! If you’re already riding on this unicorn, and you think it has space for 1 more, shoot me an email vinh@milesperday.com, and I’ll trade you a leprechaun and Big Foot for a space on the unicorn. Trust me, this will be first, last, and only mention of said unicorn ever!
I went to that “store we all loved…” the other day and they told me they stopped carrying VGCs about a month ago due to fraud. 🙁 I ended up buying ebay GCs with my GC instead, and even then the register came up with a popup that said “no store GC allowed” but I kindly asked the cashier to try it anyways and it went through. I don’t like asking them to blatantly break a “rule”, so I think I’ll stop obtaining these GCs. I have one more to liquidate. I really need to liquidate $3k worth of AGCs in $100 denominations though… >_<
Forgot to subscribe (I wish there was a better way to get responses to comments!)
I changed my comments platform 2 days ago and now you should be able to see a button to ‘subscribe to replies’ when you reply. Let me know if you didn’t see that or if it’s not working.
Well the good news is that the register still accepts them. I did this once, but the store was too far away, so gave up on it.
Why do you need to liquidate AGC in $100 denominations? Oh you mean you have $3K worth of AGC all worth $100…YIKES! A GC churn may be your best bet here.