Question
A long time ago, AAA allowed travelers check purchases to be "put through" as charge, rather than cash advance transactions. This allowed customers to earn miles for what were essentially cash advances. One person made this feature well publicized with his claim of earning over 1000000 miles using this procedure, then of course, AAA was told to stop doing this. They now only offer this for holders of their own cards, which do not offer any mileage affinities.
My question is does anyone know of any cards which allow the user to still earn miles for charges that may generally be considered cash..while not cash advances per say, but maybe cash transactions, such as purchasing travelers checks, money orders etc etc..
The Chase/Continental Debit card awards 1/2 mile per dollar spent, but I dont know if this is for real merchandise only or includes purchases of cash items (not cash withdrawls from ATMs)
Anyone have any feedback?
Thanks http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
Answer
Chase: purchase travelers cheques online @ www.currencytogo.com (http://www.currencytogo.com) or www.chase.com, (http://www.chase.com,) something like that. Charge to any Visa/MC Limit $1000 per transaction, 4 transaction per year.
These services let you e-mail money to someone. The cost gets charged to your credit card as a purchase:
paypal.com
payme.com
emoneymail.com (Visa only)
If you abuse these services, it could act like a cash advance. However, I do not recommend abuse.
Answer
Since the post about using PayPal to "email money to someone" (like yourself) and get it charged as a purchase to your credit card rather than a cash advance, PayPal has now tightened up its limitations on credit card transactions and the amount of money that you can debit to a card in a 6 month period to something like $1000 for "Premier account members". They don't like to deal with credit cards because, of course, it costs them more money. They really want you to email money to people that you have in your PayPal cash account and they are keeping interest free for you.
Answer
Welcome to FT, Glasair!
Since I wrote that post last year, payme.com has folded. As have other payment services.
Paypal is here to stay. But they have tightened their policy so tight, I can't use it on EBay any longer without signing up for their "premier" service and paying a fee. (I believe the cap for basic service is $1000 in charges and receiving $100, every 6 months.) However, you can store funds in your Paypal account and earn money market interest rates for free -- even with basic membership.
emoneymail.com has also tightened it's limits. It used to be $500/day, now it's $300/day, with monthly and annual limits.
Western Union has Moneyzap, but I have not tried it out: www.moneyzap.com (http://www.moneyzap.com)
Another service is Yahoo! Paydirect. Once again, I have not tried it out: http://paydirect.yahoo.com/
I believe sending money to yourself is a No-No with all these services. Still, they are great for paying for acutions or sending money to a friend or relative while earning miles.
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He who dies with the most miles ... is dead.
[This message has been edited by ontheroad (edited 03-10-2001).]
Answer
Yahoo PayDirect has a limit of $1000 per credit card per 6 months, so I guess you could use multiple credit cards??
They also have no maxmimum receiving limit (unlike PayPal).
NOTE: In order to get the $1000 sending limit, you have to confirm your email and physical addresses.
Answer
MoneyZap works well, but it is not as fast as PayPal. They also are tightening their limits March 25 I believe, but I think it is still going to be $1K per month. FWIW.
Answer
The fee structure and various tiers and levels in PayPal are very confusing, but I don't believe there are any fees for a Premier account if you only send payments. Also, if you become a "verified" user by having your bank account verified, you can send unlimited credit card payments to Businesses. The limit on credit card payments to personal accounts is $1000 every six months. Also, a "verified" user can send payments via an e-check out of their checking account rather than having to maintain cash in their PayPal account.
As a personal account holder, you can receive $100 in credit card payments every month.
As a Business account holder the fee for receiving credit card payments is 2.2% which would not make it cost effective to have a Business account and send money to yourself to get the miles on your credit card.