State of the Game: Manufactured Spending?

February 7, 2013

Rick Ingersoll | Google+

It happened quietly within the last several weeks. I never saw it develop or was aware it was coming. On one of my visits to the MileBuzz forum on FlyerTalk, all of a sudden, there it was! The current state of the game… A new forum…

Manufactured Spending

What is it exactly? For our newbies and rookies, manufactured spending is purchasing cash equivalent items with a miles and or points earning credit card. The cash equivalent items, typically gift cards, are then liquidated through ATM withdrawals or other spending after earning the bonus points. It has been going on for years now, but now, it is the prevelant method of padding frequent flyer account balances.

In the past, many old timers will remember buying Amex money orders with their miles and points earning credit cards or coins from the US Mint, redepositing the money orders or coins in their bank accounts and then paying off their credit card accounts with the spending we just manufactured. I used to buy money orders from grocery stores when the Thank You points game was in full swing. I earned enough miles and points to fly for free for five years and parlayed those tickets into more free flights with the bump vouchers I could earn and customer service vouchers when the airlines gave them away like candy. Some scored heavily with the US Post Office. These deals have been around as long as I’ve been in the game. They will continue to pop up now and then.

When one of these golden opportunities ends in the current era, there is lots of hub bub about bloggers killing these bonanzas. People are truly angry that the newest gravy train is gone and take it out on us bloggers. That anger and almost hatred you see in blog comment sections, blogs that allow and actually appear to encourage those type of comments, and in the actual forums themselves are the new state of the game. The new state of the game is the reaction of the players. And a sad state it is…

I’m the old guy in this blogging community, and clearly remember that when a deal died in the past… well it just died and we moved on. When the Mint deal died, for the first time, many blamed the publicity in the papers and news reports. The blogs hadn’t come out yet in force, but that was the first sign of vocal dissatisfaction. Before the Mint deal, we just moved on when a deal went south.

Now we all have a scapegoat in the blogger and the opportunity to scream at somebody, usually anonymously. That seems to be the safest way. Is that new behavior caused by:

A new and increasingly vocal, in fact, rude at times, group of players that never lived in the old days when we were grateful for the big deals when they came along.
Some mystical belief that we are all “entitled” to these deals and they belong to us the “entitled ones”?
Is the landscape different now so that the airlines and hotels don’t need all the promotions they have had in the past? Their planes are now flying full. Hotel occupancy is increasing again and they don’t need to give away the store anymore. We need our fix and are angry when we don’t get it.
And lastly, that manufactured spend is all we have left for the big score. It even has its own forum now.

The new state of our game is not the manufactured spend, but the way many now play the game. Entitled, rude, and greedy… It is not a pretty sight, and at times, I’m ashamed to be part of it.

I’ll stand up and try to move us back in time to a softer more gentle era. But it will take more than me. Any of you other old timers care to join me?

Rick Ingersoll All Articles | Follow on Google+

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Deal Of The Day – FlyerTalk – February 7, 2013

Scottrick

I was struggling to come up with a name for this spending pattern. “Manufactured spending” seems to hit the nail on the head. As for all the ugly reactions, you’re right. I didn’t even see the glory days. I’m just glad for what I have.
BobChi

I am relatively new, though not brand new, to the hobby. I don’t remember the majority of the things in this post. I like the way you word #2. I see it so often when complainers berate the bloggers for disseminating word of an opportunity beyond their little entitled clique. They seem to feel news of an opportunity should spread exactly until it reaches them personally, but then it must stop.

If a “deal” will be killed if it gets out to a few thousand blog readers, then it wasn’t meant to be a “deal” in the first place. It was some greedy people finding loopholes. I think it is usually the “entitled” who kill deals with their lack of restraint, rather than the bloggers.

disqust101

Rubbish. The few who abuse deals usually get shut down themselves. But when the deals are exploited by thousands, many of them noobs who have no sense of proportion, then companies are forced to close the entire loophole rather than deal with a few individual abusers. That’s where bloggers get rightfully criticized.

BobChi

Probably the thing that annoys me most, however, is when there’s an obvious mistake (First class to Asia for 4 miles anyone?) and then the greedy run to governments and courts to try to force the mistake to be honored. There are some old time big names in the hobby who are very much guilty of that.

Jason

Plus 1… Everyone needs to look in the mirror. He who is without sin…
http://twitter.com/CoryStinebrink Cory Stinebrink

I thought the 4 miles to Asia and the 83,000 AA miles for headphones were the most eye opening to me about some of the people in the hobby. I was quite stunned by the reaction so many had when the deal didn’t go through.

BobChi

Probably the thing that annoys me most, however, is when there’s an obvious mistake (First class to Asia for 4 miles anyone?) and then the greedy run to governments and courts to try to force the mistake to be honored. There are some old time big names in the hobby who are very much guilty of that.
ChrisB

The self-entitled will always complain. Nothing is ever their fault. They are entitled to break/twist/sidestep the rules forever and never pay a price for anything. I hope you and the other fine writers of blogs can ignore these idiots. The rest of us appreciate anything we get.
Steve

Rick, Well said. The people who complain get their info from forums and bloggers. I don’t understand why they want to blame you guys. Thanks for all you do!
anon

The pros have moved on. It used to be speaking in code on FT as to only let the serious players in on the game but now it’s moved over to private bulletin boards. The travel hackers are still there and still getting deals and “manufactured spend” loopholes but we’re smarter about letting bloggers like you have access. The crumbs that you tell the unwashed masses without abandon are the tricks from which we’ve already moved past.

Sorry Rick, you’re on the outside now.

http://twitter.com/bkaellner Brad Kaellner

oh how smug. do you drive a prius?

Jason

I thought you were done with complaining about people who complain. The constant “woe is me, people don’t like me” blogger posts from different people get tiring too.

Bloggers want to go back in time, but they forget how little money they made back then. That part of that game changed. You all make WAY more money and will get way more criticism. That’s the trade off. Please, enough with this.
http://twitter.com/Mileage_Update Mileage Update

Rick I thought you would have thicker skin by now. This really seems to still bother you. I dont see the complaining about bloggers going away. Its part of the deal now. Whether anyone likes it or not.

Richard Ingersoll

I’m afraid you are probably Correct

DavidHAL

I think the issue at hand is the aggravation of us from bloggers promoting things for their own sole profit. In otherwords, talking about VR’s at OD to promote Ink Bolds/Ink Pluses so that said blogger will net over $200 per Chase application. Or growing membership of said blog at whatever cost to sell said blog for a hefty profit, while at the same time exposing tricks that die soon after. We aren’t mad that bloggers learn about different tricks (usually though from FT), we’re just mad when it starts to make it’s way into the large scale media (WSJ, USA Today, etc). In fact, isn’t that how the Mint died? Obviously there weren’t near as many bloggers in those days, nor was Chase paying huge commissions to bloggers for Chase apps, so the big thing that has changed since the Mint days was a) a ton more bloggers, and b) huge affliate commisions for different credit cards that are posted, and reposted by every blogger.

Tri

+1.
Tri

+1
Richard Ingersoll

that makes sense to me. I appreciate your perspective

Jamie

Here is my take: I frequent coupon/mom/frugal living blogs as well as miles/points/travel blogs. The couponers community seems to be much less skeptical and much more friendly. When one of those bloggers posts a deal from amazon and then someone comments about a cheaper place to get it, there isn’t an outcry from the community that the blogger highlighted the amazon deal that obviously gets that person a commission. Yeah, it’s smaller scale, but that’s just one example, and there is no one saying, “you only post the deals that make you money”. In fact, I’ve even heard people defend the blogger, like “I can’t believe B&N doesn’t give you a commission every time someone downloads a free nook book anymore, I guess that’s why you list free kindle books, but not free nook books”. I am not cynical at all, but even I think, “Oh come on, do they have to get paid for every little piece of information they give us.”
So, Rick… you’re writing for a tough audience, but there are many of us out here who are glad that the bloggers are helping us get into the game. And once we know the sort of thing we’re looking for, we become one of the experts and maybe even the sources of the latest scoop.

http://www.travelbloggerbuzz.com/ TravelBloggerBuzz

I loved this straight forward reply & will post in my blog. Catch me if you do NOT want it to appear there. And Bravo!

Paul

“The new state of the game is the reaction of the players. And a sad state it is”

After your reaction to the United 4 mile deal, your credibility on that front is less than zero

You do more complaining than anyone you criticize. Even TBB at most dedicates maybe 10% max of his post to criticizing (and he’s usually spot on) – meanwhile you make 1 post a day, and sometimes (like today) it’s just a bitter rant
http://twitter.com/Peachfront Peach Front

Rick, this behavior is not new at all. The whiners will always be with us. I will tell you a story. One day my mentor and I learned of a 2 to 1 promotion being held at a certain nearby casino. We showed up every day to play the promotion for the maximum amount. The “milkers” showed up and played $5 a hand and made nothing. The two of us made $13,000 and got kicked out of the casino and the promotion closed down. The milkers cried and whined on the internet. Poor babies. We were supposed to not earn a living because somebody wants to grind $2/hour? You’re a working blogger. Ignore the haters. They aren’t achieving anything, and they’re bitter that you got off your rear end and made something happen. By the way, that story I told about how I caught all kinds of hate on the internet? It happened in…wait for it…1995. People will always be hateful when they don’t have to say it to your face. Who cares. We don’t have time for hate.
http://twitter.com/bkaellner Brad Kaellner

I’m not sure where this sense of entitlement comes from, but it’s ridiculous. Quit complaining and man up people! The next deal is right around the corner.
gregorygrady

LOL, I can’t for the life of me understand why you keep bringing this topic up. You really want to give out that $50 Marriott gift card, don’t you? If so, I want to claim it. Last comment I made on this blog (Your question: What are you grateful for?) was that I was grateful that you finally realized that if you can’t take the heat then get out of the kitchen. Why are you back in the kitchen Rick?

Anyways, I will bite. I agree with DavidHAL. The problem is that all you greedy-a$$ bloggers just care about your own pockets. The reason you go and kill deals prematurely is to fill your pockets. I don’t blame you one bit for that becuase if I were in your shoes I would likely do the same thing, but you certainly can’t blame those of us on the other side of the fence for getting upset when you bloggers spoonfeed step-by-step details to every Tom, Dick, and Harry (and Bob) out there. It obviously hastens the demise of the deals when you do this, but you go on ahead and do it anyways, cuz it also fills your pockets.

Case in point: A few days before VRs at Office Depot died, you greedily posted on your blog bragging that you were going to get 960k Chase UR pts via Ink Bold/Plus products per year, and posting your affiliate links encouraging others to apply and do the same. Of course you did this cuz you get $200 for every successful Ink Bold/Plus application. Then just days later that deal died. Similarly, just a week or so ago you posted about how you have this great new technique to still get cheap UR pts, by going and buying $500 Visa gift cards at Office Depot and then taking those gift cards to CVS and buying VRs. And of course you again post all your affiliate links encouraging others to do the same thing. And then just a few days later THAT deal also dies!!! Coincidence? Who knows. But do you really think it is sustainable for EVERYBODY to earn 960k Chase UR pts per year for almost no cost? You are smart enough to know that is not sustainable, yet you push people to apply for an Ink Bold/Plus and try for it anyways, cuz doing so will line your pocket with far more affiliate referral income than any UR pts that you would have earned from the deal.

I find it absurd that there was a 5% Citi TYP CC (on grocery/drugstore/gas, basically 5% cashback for 12 months) offer out there up until just a few days ago. I saw mention of it in several different places in blog comments and FT, etc, so obviously you bloggers cannot pretend you didn’t know about it. It was a better deal than the 5x Ink Bold/Plus products because it did not require one to jump through so many hoops with Office Depot, yet you bloggers still continued to pump the Ink/Bold CCs and didn’t utter a peep about the 5% Citi TYP CC. Hmmmmm, very telling to say the least. The Ink Bold/Plus signups give you $200 a pop, whereas the Citi 5% TYP gives you nothing in terms of affiliate links. VERY TELLING how none of you mention the 5% Citi TYP CC. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you all will pretend like you knew nothing about it, I fully expect that from you. But it is truly pathetic how low you bloggers stoop.

So the summary is that you bloggers kill deals to line your own pockets, while we on the other side of the fence like the deals to last longer so we can get in on them longer and we simply wish you wouldn’t spoonfeed the deals to everybody. Basically in the end we are both guilty of being greedy, and both looking out for our own interests.
Please don’t get too bent out of shape for my calling you out here. I am not calling YOU out specifically, just MOST bloggers (you included obviously) who pump these CC links to line their pockets. Oh yeah, and if you do feel the need to get all bent out of shape and reply back with an irrational comment, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll give you my address to send the $50 Marriott gift card to. 😉

Jason

Comment of the year. Pay the man!
gregorygrady

I must say I’m awfully impressed at you Rick. You have shown remarkable restraint by not blowing up with a comeback rant (or deleting my comment like DeltaPoints or Gary Leff would have done) like you would have done in the past. I must say I gave it my best shot for that $50 Marriott GC, but it seems you really are growing a thicker skin. Job well done. Looks like you won the battle today. 😉
LlamaOfDoom

I know this is an old post, but…

Wasn’t the Citi 5% TYP card getting people’s cards and all their TYPoints taken away, even blacklisted from Citi?

iamamy

Very well said!!! As a newbie, I am scared to jump into the FT forums. I’m too soft to get beat up like that. Great job FTG!!

http://www.facebook.com/dave.larue.583 Dave LaRue

Don’t be scared newbee, get in there and read….its a daunting task to search and read and educate yourself. FT people don’t begrudge anyone who was willing to make the effort to learn these tricks by doing some amount of work….it eliminated the lazy, ignorant masses who found it too much of a bother……on the other hand they cant stand bloggers who do the work and find the deals posted on FT and then spoonfeed them to people who don’t care if the deals die as long as they get theirs. They get referral money the lazy get diagrams of how to make some miles and everyone is happy until the deal dies….the bloggers have to know they are killing the deals by spoonfeeding it to the masses, like others have said it suits them to have more readers and more referrals, so they do their part to kill the golden goose. If they talked about travel and mile programs and general topics and referred people to FT to look for exploits and loopholes their slack jawed readers would get bored and they would lose revenue…..It really doesnt matter if the deal would have died or not, all that matters is the $$$ they make from readers that shouldnt even have credit cards and are too lazy to ever think about doing research on a points program. Most of the blog readers want to cash their miles in on giftcards, because it’s easier than finding a blog that will tell them why thats a bad use for their easily gotten points.

disqust101

Amen.

Jason Steele

Great post Rick! As you have observed, manufactured spend is a new term for an old concept. You could argue that when you expense office supplies or pick up the company’s lunch check, you are manufacturing spend. Now that we have a term for it, and a forum, it is just that much easier to share our findings.

The bigger problem is the loss of civility as people use bloggers as scapegoats when the tragedy of the commons occurs and the deals are finite. As you have always demonstrated, bloggers are participants in these deals and have little interest seeing them go away. Whatever money I have made blogging about manufactured spend pales in comparison to the value of the free travel I have taken.

And finally, readers shouldn’t be too sure that the bloggers are actually divulging all of their best tricks. There is plenty of great stuff out there that hasn’t hit the FT or the blogs yet!

gregorygrady

Spoken like a true blogger! But:

1) Of course bloggers have little interest in seeing deals go away, however they plow ahead anyways without giving it a second thought cuz they want to pad their pockets to the max from CC signups before the deal dies. Definitely a conflict of interest here, and $$$$$ always seems to win out in the end. I don’t see many bloggers who don’t get CC affiliate income spewing on nonstop about deals trying to kill them.

2) Any tricks that bloggers are not divulging are most likely due to the fact that those tricks will not earn the blogger a CC affiliate referral kickback. Anything that remotely might get them another $200 Chase Ink Bold application though, they will pump away til it dies and they have gotten all they can get. This just shows their true greed.

3) You obviously must not be a very good blogger if the amount of money you make blogging pales in comparison to the value of free travel you have taken. I’m pretty sure the opposite is true of FTG and any halfway decent blogger out there.

Jason Steele

Bloggers make money by building their readership, not by pushing credit cards at every opportunity. All I said was that the money I make writing just about manufactured spend, not everything I write, is far smaller than the value of the travel I take from utilizing these tricks. I make a living blogging full time as a freelancer specializing in travel and credit cards, so I’ll let that speak for itself.

gregorygrady

Let me correct that first sentence for you as I think you made a one word error:

“Bloggers make money by building their readership, then pushing credit cards at every opportunity”.
There, all fixed.

disqust101

“Ashamed to be a part of it”. Well put your money where your mouth is – and walk away from the pimping, er, credit card referral game. Fat chance that will ever happen…

Richard Ingersoll

i did walk away. Sold the blog in January 2012

Buddha

saw the “jumping the shark” moment did ya–well good for you. But, still think u were in this to make some dime–hey, but that’s ok–aren’t we all wink-wink

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These responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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