Please. Can we stop calling ‘reselling’ a manufactured spend method?

Introduction

There have been way too many posts lately about how reselling is the new go to MS method.  Can we please stop calling ‘reselling’ an MS method?  Because it by definition is NOT.

Let’s Google ‘What is manufactured spend?’ real fast.  Here’s what comes up:

I don’t know who that cat is, but I did click on his site and browsed it for literally 2 seconds (you’re welcome for the ad revenue.)  Regardless of the site, I think that’s as good a definition as any.  So by his definition, is an Apple Ipad a “cash equivalent?”  Can I go buy groceries with an iPad?  NO, it’s not a cash equivalent.  Can I ‘quickly and easily’ liquidate an Apple iPad?  Sure, I can, but I’d lose 25% of the value and now I’m in the hole.

Now let’s Google ‘What is reselling?’

Pretty good definition by Google – “Sell something you bought to someone else.”  There’s no added verbiage of “to rack up miles and points.”

Why reselling isn’t manufactured spend

Look, we all know what MS is.  Most people would say the GC/Serve/BB/MO route is manufactured spend.  Why?  Because it’s fairly quick and easy and you can rack up a huge mass of credit card points/miles fairly quickly.

Now let’s talk about reselling.  Most resellers are outside of the miles and points game.  They have no idea who Emirates and Etihad are.  They don’t care.  They are reselling TO MAKE MONEY!  They don’t try to figure out what credit card to use to squeak out 2% of margin when they are looking at products with 20%+ margin.  In the 15 years I was reselling on eBay before this hobby, I didn’t care what credit card I was using.  I was happy with my profit from the reselling!

The point is – the purpose of reselling isn’t to generate points and miles on your credit card.  It’s to MAKE MONEY!  Thus, you can’t call reselling an MS method.  What do you call it then?  I don’t know.  What do you call your friends on Facebook hocking Rodan Fields?  What do you call reselling concert tickets?  What do you call flipping houses?  Just because I can charge $25K at Home Depot for my building supplies doesn’t mean I can go around calling house flipping an MS method!

What would I categorize as manufactured spend?

If the primary purpose of the hobby/gig is to generate points, then it’s considered manufactured spend.  If the primary purpose is to make money, then it is NOT manufactured spend.

• The whole GC/Serve/BB/MO route = YES, manufactured spend
• Reselling gift cards = YES (since you are likely breaking even on the sale)
• Reselling products = NO (since the purpose is to MAKE CASH MONEY!)
• Flipping houses = NO (since the purpose is to MAKE BOATLOADS OF CASH MONEY!)
• Reselling concert tickets = NO (since the purpose is to HOPE TO MAKE MONEY)
• Signing up for credit cards = NO!  This is called signing up for credit cards for points.
• Funding gambling sites with credit cards = NO!  This is called gambling since you usually have to play the amount you loaded.  Now if I could fund $10K, play roulette, bet $5K on black and $5K on red, AND THERE’S NO GREEN ZERO or ZEROZERO slot, and they let me withdraw the $10K to my bank account immediately after, then YES, that would be MS.
• Funding stock purchases with credit cards (old Loyal3 model) – NO!  This is called stock investing.
• Putting a down payment on a Tesla with a credit card and canceling down the road to get a check – begrudingly…YES

So have I made my point?  Telling people to use reselling as an MS method would be like telling people to go flip houses as an MS method.  It’s not fair to the resellers.  There’s also a learning curve and customer service issues that most people don’t want to deal with, and that’s why some people don’t/can’t make the transition.  Feel free to tell them to churn GCs or go buy a Tesla though!