I find Mr. Pickles' antics and posts wildly entertaining-that FT post Rick mentioned ended with "You have to have a goal so you know when to stop".

Much as I'm amused by Mr. Pickles, about the last thing I'd want to do is go into (big box store) every day to buy money orders, and then schlep them over to my bank. I look at it this way: by using maybe 75% of the easily found schemes to get FF miles, I'll be flying free for a long time, even with the inevitable increases in award costs. This takes very little time and effort.

Rick always says that one's credit is a very valuable asset, and it is. But a far more valuable asset is the time-the minutes, hours and days-we have to live. I have long list of things I want to do in however many minutes I have, and churning money orders pales in comparison.

I have checking/savings/credit card/mortgage with this bank and already ordered the debit card. I don't particularly care for the bank so I'd be fine with them banning me for life, but how do you think they'd handle my mortgage? I think they could be incompetent enough for them to just waive the lien on the house, but I'm not that lucky. jk

Buying money orders and redepositing the money is really no different than buying coins from US Mint and redepositing the money. I think both are crossing the line, and do not participate in either. I just find it funny how you claim to be taking the high road on this, yet turn around and do the exact same thing with the coins. The only difference between the two things is that in one case you are screwing a bank, in the other the US taxpayers.

I just find it funny how you claim to be taking the high road on this, yet turn around and do the exact same thing with the coins. The only difference between the two things is that in one case you are screwing a bank, in the other the US taxpayers.

Coins are cash. What better way to put coins into circulation than to deposit them **properly** in a bank, an institution that has to accept and use the cash that they receive…….duh.

Maybe if people redeposit coins from the mint without using them—like depositing the coins still in their gift boxes—yeah, I can see the issue there.

US taxpayers are not screwed either way. That's not a logical statement.

"The only difference between the two things is that in one case you are screwing a bank, in the other the US taxpayers."
The US Mint is the only government agency that turns a profit. It costs approximately $.21… that's twenty one cents… to create a one dollar coin. We buy those coins for a dollar each. The mint gets $.79 gross margin. The employees of the mint have been kept busy filling our transaction.

Worst case scenario, we deposit them in the bank. The UPS driver gets paid to do his job delivering them; the bank employee earns money executing our transaction; the bank uses that money that we just deposited to make a short-term loan, making a profit in the process; we get miles, which we use to fly on an airplane, creating work for the pilots, gate agents, flight attendants, and the workers at our destination. Just like I'm going to do this weekend.

Don't kid yourself– churning coins is probably the best way ever to lubricate and fuel the U.S. economy.

This "deal" comes up on milesbuzz every few months but is usually squashed by pgary pretty quickly. Small group of people trying to keep a deal secret as long as possible before the masses jump in and abuse it.

This process would be a great way to top off an account but would get old quickly if trying to reach a business or first class award ticket.

You run the risk of potentially losing "that bank" has an option your entire lifespan, risk a nosy "that store" employee contacting law enforcement or filling out fraud paperwork, or "that airline" closing your account? If it's worth it, go for it!

The people stating that "churning coins is probably the best way ever to lubricate and fuel the U.S. economy", and that a bank is "an institution that has to accept and use the cash that they receive…….duh", clearly don't understand how it works in practice.
As Rick (and many others) has pointed out in his blog, he brings the coins all rolled up and packaged to the bank. The bank, which doesn't have any use for thousands of dollar coins sitting around (how many people really go to the bank to get thousands worth of dollar coins?) swiftly ship the coins back to the US Mint. Why is the taxpayer screwed? Because all this shipping around of coins that do not end up in circulation comes out of the US Mint profit, which reduces the money available for bridges, schools, military, what have you.

If anyone is actually using the coins in stores and for the intended purposes, kudos to them. I doubt ANY of the US Mint churners do this, instead they just redeposit them into the bank, and they get shipped back to the US Mint again.