Pump up Ink Spend

18

Yesterday, I showed how to increase credit card spend by buying EBay gift cards, using them to buy Walmart gift cards, and then selling the cards. That approach can work well to increase spend and earn points, but it also has some serious downsides.  For one, Walmart gift cards are not always available on EBay.  Another, more serious issue, is that you run the risk of losing your money to unscrupulous EBay sellers.  See the comments section of the previous post for more information.

If you have a Chase Ink card which gives 5 points per dollar for office supplies, here is a better option to increase spend.   A reader who goes by Piecerate came up with this little gem.  Buy gas gift cards at an office supply store and sell them by going through MyDealsAndCoupons to PlasticJungle.  This technique will let you buy Ultimate Rewards points for just over a penny each.

Here’s an example of how it works:

  • Buy $100 worth of gas gift cards at an office supply store such as Staples or Office Depot.
  • From your Ink card you will get 500 Ultimate Rewards points.
  • Next, go through MyDealsAndCoupons to PlasticJungle to sell the card. 
  • From PlasticJungle you will get $92 cash.
  • From MyDealsAndCoupons you will get 3% of $92 = $2.76
  • Your total cost will be $100 – $92 – $2.76 = $5.24
  • Your cost per Ultimate Rewards point will be $5.24 / 500 = 1.05 cents per point.

If you were to spend $5000 in this way, your total cost would be $262.  In return, you would get 25,000 Ultimate Rewards points.  At the fair trading price of 1.31 cents each, this is a value of $327.50.  Of course, you would do even better by buying gift cards that you can actually use, but if you need to increase spending (to get your signup bonus, for example), this can be an excellent option.

BEFORE YOU BUY: Check the current sell rates for the gift cards in question.  You can find PlasticJungle’s price list (the amount they’ll pay you) here.  Or, go to GiftCardGranny.com to see sell prices at various resellers.

Amex OPEN

This technique would be even more lucrative for increasing spend on business Amex cards if only OfficeMax carried gas gift cards!  Has anyone seen one at OfficeMax?  I’ve looked a few times in my local store, but there were none to be found.

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