T-Mobile Visa Prepaid Card

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Last weekend in Charlotte, a reader pulled me aside and asked, "Why haven't you written anything about the T-Mobile prepaid card?"

I tried to explain that here on the blog I report my own experiences, so that they can inform the efforts of my readers to achieve their travel goals. Since I don't have a T-Mobile prepaid card, I don't have any value to add to what my readers already know about the product.

The reader was not impressed with my explanation, so here we go.

Applying for the card

You can sign up for a T-Mobile Visa Prepaid Card online. It costs $4 to enroll, unless you're a current T-Mobile customer, in which case it's free.

Additionally, there's a $5 monthly maintenance fee each month in which you don't load at least $500 to the card.

Loading the card

If you load your T-Mobile Visa Prepaid Card with more than $300 using a Reloadit pack (so-called "retail" loads), the fee for purchasing the Reloadit pack is refunded to your card, making the card free to reload. If you can purchase Reloadit packs using credit cards, this means it's completely free to manufacture spend at any merchant that allows such purchases.

There are a number of other ways to load the card, none of with are particularly interesting: you can load cash at T-Mobile store locations or at Visa ReadyLink reload merchants.

Unloading the card

The T-Mobile Visa Prepaid Card has a built-in bill pay feature.

Don't use it.

The relevant FlyerTalk thread is full of reports of people having their accounts frozen or closed for exclusively using the built-in bill pay feature. Instead, use this card like you would any PIN-enabled debit card product: pay bills through Evolve Money or at Walmart, buy money orders, or pay off your Citi credit cards over the phone.

Conclusion

The T-Mobile Visa Prepaid card seems like a great tool, but only if you have access to Reloadit cards that can be consistently purchased with credit cards.

Additionally, the large number of reports of account freezes shutdowns would make me wary of scaling it up very fast, since if your account were closed you may lose access to the funds on the card for days or weeks.

Update: Emerald loads at Walmart

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Back in April I reminded my readers that under the right circumstances, it might be worth loading HR Block Emerald cards at Walmart, claiming that paying $3.74 per $999 load could be justified if your earning rate were high enough.

Since then, I've run several experiments with my trusty new Suntrust check card, and found that things aren't quite as rosy as I had hoped.

The terms and conditions

As I wrote in the comments to that earlier post:

"[The $999 load limit] is my belief based on the Emerald T&C's:

'The maximum amount of cash value you may load to your Card each day is $999.99.'

And this Green Dot website (among others): https://www.moneypak.com/page/rapidreload

'The cashier will swipe your card and add cash directly to your card (up to $1,000 at Walmart as long as you do not exceed the card load limits). A service fee of $3.74 applies.'

Unfortunately, I appear to have been overly optimistic.

My experience

My first attempt was to load $996 at a regular Walmart register. The register beeped and alerted the cashier that the maximum load was $500. I loaded that amount, and the cashier told me that if I wanted to load more than $500, I needed to do it at the Customer Service desk, which also functions as the Money Center at that Walmart location.

On my trip to Walmart today, I started off at the Customer Service center and had the same experience: I couldn't load more than $500 at a time. This Walmart, however, had a separate Money Center, and I asked the cashier there if she could load more than at the Customer Service center. She told me the limits were the same at both counters.

Since I had already loaded $500 I couldn't try and load another $996 today anyway, because of HR Block's daily load limits.

Conclusion

While it's certainly possible to conjecture that higher loads might be possible at the Money Center at Walmart locations that have both a Customer Service desk and Money Center, I'm personally inclined to doubt it.

My preliminary conclusion is that in fact the Emerald can only be loaded with up to $500 at a time, at a cost of $3.74.

What does that mean for us? Paying 0.748 cents per Skymile is pressing against the upper bound of what you should consider worth paying. Yes, Skymiles can be redeemed for 1 cent each against the revenue cost of Delta tickets, and when booked in First Class, such Pay With Miles tickets even earn Skymiles and Medallion Qualification Miles. If you book a lot of paid First Class tickets, this is a decent way to get a 25% discount on those reservations.

In general, however, I wouldn't consider this an opportunity worth scaling as long as there are so many other, cheaper ways to generate the same number of miles.

I fly Delta because flying United is very stressful

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Let me start off by apologizing to any readers who have contacted me in the last few days that I haven’t managed to respond to yet. I will get to everyone eventually, but I have had even less time than usual as my life has been consumed by wrapping up my responsibilities at work and planning my move.

Now that I’m safely ensconced in first on my last leg of the night, I have time to share today’s mini-travel-hacking saga.

My apartment is totally empty

If you’ve been following my adventures on Twitter, you know I had a lot of problems unloading my (very nice!) furniture at laughably low prices. Finally I broke down and sent out a blast e-mail to my company listserv offering it for free, and instantly had a dozen or so people willing to take it off my hands. The couple that ended up emptying my apartment even gave me some cash for the furniture, which I thought was nice of them since I’d offered it for free.

Ground stop in Chicago

On my way out the door to head to TF Green International Airport, I checked the status of my flight to Chicago and saw that it was both delayed 2 hours and cancelled. Quite an achievement, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

Crisis mode

United had already rebooked me on a two-stop itinerary arriving late tomorrow night, which didn’t work for two reasons: I’m going to a concert tomorrow night in my destination, and my apartment is totally empty, so I had nowhere to sleep (see above).

There were no more Delta flights out of Providence tonight, but I checked Boston and there was a 6:47 flight to Detroit which would allow me to connect on to my final destination.

I called United and was told there was a 45-minute wait to speak to an agent. While on hold, I quickly signed into my Alaska Airlines account and – incredibly – found there was low-level award space on the entire ex-Boston itinerary. Unfortunately, Delta still only allows round-trip award reservations – and that applies to reservations made through Alaska – so I booked a return flight in September at the low-level as well.

While still on hold with United, I packed up the last of my suitcases and headed out the door to the train station. When I finally reached an agent, I quickly explained the situation and asked him to book me on the same Delta flight I’d already made my award reservation on. He was happy to do it, but had to call in to Delta's reservations line, which meant another 10-minute hold.

Finally, he came back on and said he’d made my reservation on Delta and gave me a new Delta confirmation number.

On the train

Alaska allows free cancellations within 24 hours of booking on award bookings, so I refunded that ticket immediately just in case Delta cancelled one or both reservations as a double booking. Then I added my Delta Skymiles number to the new, paid reservation and selected my economy comfort seats.

One benefit of being rebooked onto a different carrier on the day of travel is that you’re typically booked into an expensive, last-minute fare bucket, in this case a full-fare economy “Y” fare. That meant that if there were any first class seats available on my Delta flights today, I’d be virtually guaranteed an upgrade as a Platinum Medallion, and also pick up a rack of bonus Skymiles and Medallion Qualifying Miles.

And indeed, my upgrades cleared first at the gate for both my flights today.

Things to follow up on

For reasons I can’t begin to understand, I decided to pay for my checked bag on United online at check-in, instead of at the airport. I never do this, so cannot begin to imagine why I thought it would be a good idea — it never is.

That means United now has $25 of my money that I’m going to have to request refunded, call, e-mail, and tweet about until they give it back, because they are just terrible about refunds.

Additionally, I’ll request original routing credit for my United itinerary, which they’ll hopefully credit to my Aegean Airlines account. While I’m fairly sure they’ll go along with that, this is one I’m not willing to go to the mat over, since while Star Alliance Gold is a fun travel hacking goal, to get the most benefit from it I would then subsequently have to fly United, and ensuring the original routing credit would require more interaction with United than I’m willing to commit to.

Conclusion

Since we're about to take off, here are my take-aways from today's little adventure:

  • Never pay for your checked bags online. Why would you?
  • Keep your eye on developing situations, like the today's radar-tower fire in Chicago.
  • Be proactive: know your options and book refundable backups, if necessary.
  • Ask the ticketing carrier to book you on other airlines, if they can get you where you're going.
  • Don't forget to add your frequent flyer number to the new reservations.
  • And ask for original routing credit from the ticketing carrier.

Charlotte DO in review

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First things first: our gathering, celebration, awards ceremony, conference, and party in Charlotte this weekend was incredible.

Now go read these takes on the event from around the blogosphere:

Smaller is better

I shared my frank disillusionment with the organization and presentations at the Seattle Frequent Traveler University two weeks ago. That event had over 400 attendees, while I believe the Charlotte DO had just a touch over 100, including presenters.

And even though I felt like I was constantly meeting readers, both long-time and first-time, I still didn't get a chance to meet everyone in attendance!

The smaller event and more relaxed atmosphere really contributed to making this a terrific relationship-building event for the attendees.

Travel hacking is alive and well

My overwhelming takeaway from the Charlotte event was that among the attendees, there was absolutely none of the sense of despair you sometimes see when reading reactions to, for example, the loss of Vanilla Reload Network reload cards at CVS.

These were not people who were lamenting the end of manufactured spend, these were people who were incredibly excited about the constantly expanding opportunities to see the world, visit friends and family, and make money using the techniques described here and elsewhere.

But discretion is important

I've tried to have a pretty consistent philosophy regarding the kinds of things I'll write about explicitly here on the blog, versus things that are better shared privately or through my subscribers-only newsletter. Basically, if a technique involves a publicly available, commercially offered service, I'm willing to write about it publicly.

For example, Walmart bill payments are available at, as far as I know, every Walmart in the country and there's a big sign behind the Customer Service or Money Center counter advertising the service. So I didn't have any compunctions about sharing the "missing link," the payees you have to designate in order to pay credit card bills at Walmart store locations.

Likewise, Evolve Money is trying hard to increase their market share in the bill payment space. So I wasn't burning any tricks by sharing my experiences and ideas for using their commercially-available service to pay bills online using debit cards.

On the other hand, when an airline has a long-standing and reproducible glitch that allows tickets to be priced differently than they should be (and from my understanding these glitches are legion across many, many airlines), I won't write about it publicly since writing about it instantly starts the clock ticking on the technique's demise.

There is no room for envy in this game

You are not playing against any other member of the community when you manufacture spend, book tickets, or sign up for credit cards. You are only playing against yourself (and the referees).

When people hear about the levels of manufactured spend being reached by others, their first, natural reaction is envy: why aren't I earning as much as they are?

And the answer is simple: they have a different credit history, different credit limits, different risk tolerance, different geographical restrictions, different ethical boundaries, and different knowledge.

And that's totally fine. It would be deeply weird (and not a little suspicious) if we all had exactly the same spend patterns, at the same merchants, all year every year. Instead, we're all different, and that's one of the things that makes it hard to pin any one of us down (our relatively small numbers help, too).

Ignore exhortations to more, more, more

Which brings me to one unpleasant reaction I had to some of the things people said in Charlotte, almost identical to my reaction to the FTU Seattle presentations: it is a sad but true fact that among certain participants in our hobby, there really is a palpable feeling of condescension or disbelief at members of the community who do less. Whether it's travel less, manufacture less, earn less, sign up for cards less, or whatever.

And it's wrong.

I have a vivid memory of one of the Seattle FTU presentations when a speaker (whose identity I'll protect since he really was out of line) asked:

"Who has signed up for an Citi Executive / AAdvantage 100,000 mile card? Who has signed up for two? Three? Why not?"

And that's the kind of attitude we, as responsible, mutually-dependent members of a community, should be shunning. Some people in Charlotte were uncomfortable that they were manufacturing just $25,000 per month. In other words, earning just one free round-trip domestic flight per month. What if you manufactured half that, just $150,000 per year, a mere two roundtrips to Europe? That is an amount of travel that is out of reach of huge swaths of the American population, not to mention the global population.

One of the great things about this game is that we aren't playing against each other, and I think it would benefit a lot of people to keep that in mind whenever possible.

Conclusion

I'll conclude with one note that came up repeatedly in Charlotte and comes up consistently in the comments to this blog.

There are two kinds of discretion: there's discretion aimed at keeping deals alive, and there's discretion aimed at keeping people out.

To the best of my ability, I'll try to exercise the former kind of discretion, but I started this blog in order to share with readers the incredible opportunities that exist out there, and I'll continue to do so until I can't afford to pay both my rent and my website hosting fees. In other words...

Support the site!

Charlotte preview: Miscellany

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Since I'm currently trying my best to move out of my current apartment, this will probably be my last full blog post before our get-together in Charlotte this weekend. Unless I change my mind. Do follow me on Twitter for live updates from the event, and because Twitter's fun.

This week, I explained how I used Vanilla-reloadables, Visa Buxx, and PayPal My Cash cards to manufacture the bulk of the $43,000 that ended up counting towards the manufactured spending competition I participated in this March. In addition, I did manufacture some spend in new or different ways than usual, and want to share some of that information here.

Staples Gift Cards

I hate the whole gift card racket, and resisted joining in it for a long time. A lot of people say they like spend they can manufacture sitting at their computer, but not me: I prefer to go out and buy something physical that I can keep track of and be responsible for depositing, liquidating, etc. The whole idea of relying on the US Postal Service or UPS for a smooth cycle of spend is antithetical to me.

But, it is very lucrative.

So in March I continued my experiments with Staples $100 gift cards, purchased using my US Bank Club Carlson Business card, which gives 1% cash back on Staples purchases over $200. Ultimately I ended up liquidating those gift cards by paying actual bills using Evolve Money, rather than turning them back into cash.

American Express Gift Cards

I also made my first American Express gift card purchases. I really dislike the whole rigamarole of clicking through portals, checking and double-checking address information, and then having to wait with bated breath to find out whether my order was even approved. If it is, terrific, I get to wait around at home so I can sign for the cards when they finally arrive.

But, it is very lucrative.

So I began experimenting with those, and ended up earning some points and cash back that way as well, although the long turnaround time made it next-to-useless for the purposes of the competition itself.

Alaska Airlines debit card

We found out earlier this year that the Bank of America Alaska Airlines debit card would be retired on May 31 (3 weeks left!). While I did have the card, and was already using it casually, the news that the card would be going away really inspired me to get as much value from the card as possible while it was still around.

I had previously split my Walmart activities between money orders and bill payments more or less randomly, depending on my mood and whether I had an upcoming payment due date. But in March, I resolved to push every single dollar of Walmart bill payments through my rewards-earning debit card, and ended up earning over 17,000 Alaska miles during the month, worth $265 at Frequent Miler's fair trading price of 1.56 cents each.

Unfortunately, as I explained during the competition, virtually none of those miles ended up counting towards my final score, since for any given dollar of "bankroll" remaining at the end of the day, I'd be better off counting credit card spend instead of debit card rewards.

Conclusion

The March manufactured spending competition was a very rewarding experience for me: it helped me raise my game, inspired me to try out some techniques I had only read about before, and introduced me to a lot of great bloggers off the beaten path.

Now I'm really looking forward to meeting some of those bloggers and many of our readers in Charlotte, where I hope to learn a whole lot more!

Charlotte preview: PayPal

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Besides the Vanilla-reloadable and Visa Buxx cards I talked about earlier this week, the remaining bulk of my manufactured spend in March was through PayPal My Cash cards.

Like Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, PayPal My Cash cards cost $3.95 each and could be purchased at many CVS locations. Unlike the Vanilla Reload Network cards, My Cash cards can only be loaded directly to a verified PayPal account.

Load Limits

You can load up to $4,000 per month to a PayPal account using My Cash cards, as long as you abide by the following limits:

  • $500 per calendar day, which resets at 12:01 am EST;
  • $4,000 per rolling 30-day period, which resets at 3:01 am EST.

And yes, this does create the situation where your daily load limit may have already reset but your monthly load limit has not. While with Bluebird you could stay up until midnight (or 9 pm on the West Coast!) to load because the limits reset simultaneously, with PayPal you may as well go to bed and load your account in the morning.

Account Limits

There are three "types" of PayPal account: personal, premier, and business. PayPal's rules allow one personal account and one of either the premier or business account type to be verified using a single valid Social Security number.

If you attempt to verify a business account when you already have a premier account, or verify a second personal account, or any other prohibited combination, PayPal will helpfully inform you of this restriction.

Unloading PayPal

If you ask 4 bloggers, you'll receive 5 answers to the question "what's the best way to unload a PayPal account?"

Here's mine: every penny I load using PayPal My Cash cards, I unload using a linked PayPal Business or Personal Debit MasterCard.

That's one extreme position, and I don't ask anybody to agree with me that it's the right one. However, it does have a number of advantages within my own strategy:

  • $10 per month loading Bluebird: the PayPal Business Debit MasterCard gives 1% cash back on all non-PIN transactions, including online Bluebird debit loads;
  • Allows large and "round" transactions: instead of making $1998.12 bill payments or buying $999.30 money orders, I can use my fourth Walmart swipe to both unload my PayPal account and round off those transactions.
  • And since the funds come from my PayPal account, I don't have to worry about "orphan" amounts on my debit cards – it's my money and it'll still be there when I need it next.

Category Bonuses

One of the best things about PayPal My Cash cards is that it's still possible to purchase them at merchants that give category bonuses. For example, many 7-11 store locations are coded by Visa and MasterCard as gas stations, and some still allow My Cash purchases.

Earlier this year I discovered a local gas station chain that sells My Cash cards and is coded properly by American Express, as well. Unfortunately, they quickly sold out and it's unclear to me whether they'll restock before I move!

These localized opportunities do still exist, and you'll need to experiment in your own neighborhood to see if you have access to any of them.

Charlotte preview: Visa Buxx

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It's no secret: I love my Visa Buxx cards. While Visa Buxx transactions aren't in any bonus category, they are a cheap and easy way to earn several thousand points or miles each month, as long as you have a non-Citi-issued rewards-earning Visa or MasterCard to use.

Nationwide ($1,000)

While the Nationwide Visa Buxx is the least lucrative of the 3 I carry, it's also the easiest to get, since there are no geographic restrictions and you can sign up for it using the same personal information for the "parent" and the "teen." And $1,000 in spend for $4 a month is nothing to sneeze at! Just keep the 7-day, $800 PIN-based transaction limit in mind.

US Bank ($2,000)

While the signup link for this card is no longer publicly available, those with already-existing accounts can continue to load up to $2,000 per month, per card. Back in October of last year, I ran an experiment to see if it was possible to sign up for more than one US Bank Visa Buxx account. It ended up being a somewhat stressful experience, and although I got my money back I ultimately decided not to color too far outside the lines with this product.

However, many people have reported much success signing up for multiple accounts and ordering multiple "teen" cards per account.

My favorite thing about the US Bank version is the free ATM withdrawals at US Bank ATMs. By avoiding additional unloading costs, you can reduce your cost per dollar of manufactured spend and/or preserve valuable Bluebird load capacity for other, less flexible products.

TD Go ($1,000)

Unfortunately, I was only able to use $1,000 of the $3,000 monthly TD Go load limit for the manufactured spending competition, since my last two loads of the month fell on the 29th and 30th of March – outside the timeframe of the 28-day competition!

Nonetheless, this is an amazing and amazingly cheap product, so if you live in one of the geographic regions served by TD Bank, it's a no-brainer to sign up as soon as possible.

If there's one thing I dislike about the TD Go, it's the rolling 7-day, $2,000 transaction limit. This month I did my first unloading transaction a few days later than usual, and when I went to Walmart for my second round of unloading, I realized I hadn't let the full 7 days elapse!

Conclusion

While they aren't massively scalable (unless you're willing to really work at it), the Visa Buxx line of products is an easy way to get $3,000-6,000 up on the board each month.

Charlotte preview: Vanilla Reloadables

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As readers know, there will be a gathering in Charlotte this weekend of some of the participants in the March manufactured spending competition (#milemadness) and readers who are interested in getting to know us better. Additionally, we'll be joined by some of the more, shall we say, reclusive members of the travel hacking community. I'm very excited to be presenting, and even more excited to be able to meet some folks I only know over e-mail or through enigmatic posts on FlyerTalk.

This week I though I'd share some reflections on my experience in the competition, and maybe elicit some subjects from readers and Charlotte attendees for further conversations.

I lost #milemadness – but that's ok

The manufactured spending competition privileged speed of liquidation, since you couldn't manufacture additional spend until you had liquidated an instrument, whether it was Vanilla Reload Network reload cards or electronics you bought for resale.

Additionally, all the spend we manufactured was "weighted" by the "Fair Trading Price" of the points currencies we earned. Whatever the advantages or disadvantages of FTP as a system for pricing points, it meant that those who were earning Ultimate Rewards points – especially at high multiples – were able to easily lap those of us stuck manufacturing almost any other points currency.

On the other hand, I ultimately manufactured about $43,000 in spend during the four weeks of the competition, or about $1,500 per day, an amount that I'm perfectly satisfied with. The ability to manufacture that much spend on a sustained basis puts all of my travel and financial goals within reach, which is one reason I finally became confident enough to decide to start blogging and writing full time.

Vanilla Reloadables

In today's Charlotte preview, I want to explain the reloadable prepaid debit cards I used to manufacture a big chunk of that $43,000.

"But FQF," you may well object, "Vanilla Reloads aren't a viable tool anymore! Why would anyone be interested in that?"

The answer, of course, is people who still have access to Vanilla Reloads.

Bluebird ($5,000)

Bluebird, and its cousin Serve, forms the hard core of most manufactured spending strategies.

  • Limits: $1,000 per day, $5,000 per calendar month;
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network, or in-store at any Walmart register;
  • Unloading: transfer to a linked bank account, or pay bills directly;
  • Adverse action: none.

JH Preferred ($11,000)

The JH Preferred card is a branded clone of the generic MyVanilla Debit cards. However, it's still possible to sign up for a JH Preferred card even if you've already used up all 3 of your MyVanilla Debit shutdowns.

  • Limits: $2,500 per day, $5,000 per month published, limits only loosely enforced in practice;
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network;
  • Unloading: PIN-based transactions at Walmart;
  • Adverse action: Many reports of shutdowns for over-the-counter bank cash disbursements.

Momentum ($4,000)

The Momentum prepaid card can only be applied for in-person at a limited number of check-cashing establishments. It's a very expensive and abusive product, with a high risk of shutdown.

  • Limits: $2,500 per day (5 loads);
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network;
  • Unloading: $1 over-the-counter bank cash disbursement for the entire card balance;
  • Adverse action: closed after third cash withdrawal.

HR Block Emerald ($5,000)

This is a great product that can be a bit tricky to sign up for, since you need to either have your taxes done in-branch at a HR Block location, or convince them to give you a card without having your taxes done. It is similar to Bluebird, but cost $3.74 to load at Walmart registers.

  • Limits: $1,000 per day, $5,000 per rolling 30-day period;
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network or in-person at any Walmart register (costs $3.74);
  • Unloading: ACH pull directly from the account;
  • Adverse action: none.

Conclusion

There you have it: a full $25,000 of my total manufactured spend during the competition was through Vanilla reloadable prepaid debit cards.

On the one hand, that's not a terribly creative approach to manufacturing spend. On the other hand, even if I were earning at a rate of one mile per dollar, that means I could have spent $197.50 (plus unloading costs, plus time) for enough miles to fly roundtrip anywhere in the continental US.

Do this now? Summer Hyatt promo is way too complicated

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While I was updating my hotel promotions page this afternoon with the Hyatt summer promotion, I was trying to decide if I have anything to say about it. And I decided: not really.

Triple miles on 2nd through 15th eligible stays when you choose to earn miles

Between May 1 and August 31, 2014, Hyatt is offering triple miles with 8 of their partner airlines on the 2nd-15th eligible stays made during the promotional period (there is no bonus for the first eligible stay). Each partner airline has its own registration link (you can only register with one partner airline):

Who came up with this?

For the first, non-bonused miles-earning stay, you would have to consider 500 miles worth more than the Gold Passport Points you would earn for that stay. Then, having triggered the bonus, you can receive 1,500 airline miles per stay.

For the sake of simplicity, suppose you consider each Gold Passport point to be worth the same as one airline mile in a participating mileage program. Then this promotion is profitable only if the room rate (excluding taxes) on your first stay is less than $100, $87, or $77, depending on your elite status, and on subsequent stays is less than $300, $261, or $230.

On some blogs this is being parsed as "this is a nice promotion for someone that frequently makes short and cheap stays," and "this promo especially good for inexpensive and short Hyatt stays."

But I actually don't think that does justice to how bad this promotion is: if you have frequent, sub-$300 stays between May 1 and August 31, 2014, why on earth are you staying at Hyatts?