Update on the e-miles Pimping

As noted in this post, e-miles wants to pimp people for miles and, miles-slut that I am, I thought it was worth it to get paid for what I was putting out for free.  Or something.  Having had an account with them for a little over a week, I thought I'd share the experience:

June 20: Earned 200 Miles 


When I first logged in, e-miles wanted to ask me lots of questions.  Worst.  First.  Date.  Ever.  There were four lengthy surveys, on which I said I was very wealthy and interested in EVERYTHING with the idea that these surveys help e-Miles target offers to you.

In addition, there were miles awarded for making e-miles a "trusted sender" in your email account (which I didn't bother to do but told e-Miles that I did) and for reading the e-Miles guidelines and then taking a quiz on them.

Interestingly, information about how easy it is to LOOSE miles was not in the quiz, but I found out that:

• e-miles are only transfered to your frequent flyer program in 500 mile increments.  Have 600 miles?  You can transfer 500, but need 400 more if you want the other 100.
•  e-miles expire one year from when they are earned.
• e-miles can suspend your account if you do not respond to one marketing message per month.
• e-miles has the right to terminate your account or deduct e-Miles if its rules change in the future

Big daddy can be mean to his children.  :-(

I also watched/read ads for Travel + Leisure, Disney and Zales to earn some extra points.

Click "Read More" to read about getting another 595 miles.

June 24: Earned 595 Miles


When I logged in, I saw that I had a number of offers that were 5 + 250, 5 + 100, etc.  What this meant is that if I looked at the ad, I could get 5 miles, but if I signed up for something, I could earn an additional 250 miles, etc.

Well, it turned out that some companies that I had abused before happened to be on the list.  For example, ING was offering 250 extra miles if I signed up for their ShareBuilder account, and they were also offering their usual $25 bonus.  I'd gotten that bonus probably a year ago and had never canceled my account.  I thought that would make me ineligible to open a new account, but I clicked on the ad anyway.

Sharebuilder asked if I already had an account and then asked me to log in.  I did, awaiting the rejection page, but suddenly they were giving me a second account under the same login and it was still good for the $25 bonus.  The bonus appeared in my new account a few days later.  So I just got 255 miles and $25.  Sweet.

Experian was offering 255 miles as well for signing up for a "free" credit score.  You have to give a credit card because, of course, if you do not cancel your account within 7 days, they start charging you monthly.  I've done the dance with Experian a number of times before, so it took just a quick phone call and repeatedly saying "No" to a customer representative to get them to cancel the membership.

I did a few more ad-looks and even applied for a "Free 2GB Flashdrive", only to be told that "We will contact you to let you know if you were one of the first 500 respondents" eligible to get the flashdrive.  Sigh.

When it was said and done, I had 795 miles in the account and asked for 500 to be transfered to Delta.


Final analysis: If you have free time, it's an easy way to juice your frequent flyer account, but considering it took two hours to get miles worth only $6.00, it's not the best if you consider your time to be valuable.  

Banks that Will Count Paypal or a Bank Transfer as a Direct Deposit

Chasing bank bonuses often requires jumping through hoops, and one of those biggest hoops is a direct deposit requirement.  They put it in there specifically do discourage bonus hunting, because if your paycheck is going to their bank, you're more likely to use their services and stick with them (that, and they get to earn interest by loaning out your money).

The little known way around that is by "pushing" money in from another institution (Paypal and ING are two of the more popular), which the bank's computers see as a direct deposit.  Since not all banks count those, though, the members of the FatWallet.com message boards have been steadily compiling a list of which banks do and which banks don't.

ACH, in case you didn't know, stands for Automatic Clearing House, which is the system banks use to transfer money.  When you set up a transfer from one bank to get money from another bank, that's considered a "pull" and does not count as direct deposit.  When you send the money from one institution to go into another, though, that's considered a "push".  Many banks do pulls for free (after all, the money is going into their coffers), but often charge for pushes.  You should read the fine print before you do a push from a bank to make sure you don't pay a fee.  

If you find any others, please leave a comment and let me know.

Click "Read More" to see the full list.

Banks that people have had success pushing into:

1. Bank of America (ING, Paypal, ACH push)
2. Bank of the West (ING, Paypal)
3. Bank One (ING, Paypal, ACH push)
4. Bank of New York (ACH push)
5. Capital One (ING)
6. Charter One (ING, ACH push)
7. Chase (ING, Paypal, Etrade, ACH push) 
8. Citibank (ING, Paypal, ACH push)
9. Citizens Bank (ING)
10. Columbia Bank (Paypal)
11. Commerce Bank (ING, Paypal) - refers to one in the northeast
12. Compass Bank (ING)
13. E-Trade Bank (ING, ACH push)
14. HSBC (ING, Paypal, ACH push)
15. Huntington National Bank (ING, PayPal, ACH push)
16. KeyBank (Paypal, ACH push)
17. LaSalle (ACH push, Etrade)
18. M&I Bank (Paypal)
19. M&T Bank (ACH push)
20. PNC Bank (Paypal, ACH push, ING)
21. Principal Bank (ING)
22. Salem Five (ACH push)
23. Sovereign (ACH push, ING)
24. SunTrust (ING, Paypal)
25. TD Banknorth (ACH push)
26. UFBDirect (ACH push)
27. USAA (ING)
28. US Bank (Paypal, ACH push)
29. Valley National Bank (ING)
30. Wachovia (ING, ACH push)
31. Washington Mutual (ING, ED, Paypal)

Banks that don't count ING/Paypal/ACH push transfers as direct deposits:

1. Charter One 
2. Chase  
3. MeadowsCU 
4. Metropolitan National Bank 
5. PNC Bank 
6. Presidential Bank
7. Salem Five
8. Sovereign 
9. Wachovia 
10. Wells Fargo 

$250 from M&T Bank

I just got off the phone with one of M and T Bank's representatives about their new bonus offer.  She didn't know much about it, so I educated her instead of the other way around.  After she asked a manger a couple of questions, though, we got it sorted out.

Here's the deal:

1. Open a checking account
2. Sign up for direct deposit: get $25-$150 depending on the account type.
3. Sign up for overdraft protection: get $50
4. Make three bill pays in the first month of opening the account: get $50

Click Here to Go to M and T's Bonus Page

Now here is the fine print:

1. MyChoice Checking has the lowest minimum balance while still qualifying for the bonus.  You are must either make 10 check card transactions per month OR  have at least $500 in the account to avoid fees.  This account gives you a $25 bonus with direct deposit.
2. Select Checking and Power Checking also qualify for the bonuses, giving you $50 and $150 respectively, but also requiring a $5,000 or $50,000 balance respectively.  
3. The bonuses take 90 days to be deposited, so you much have the account open for at least three months.

I opened a MyChoice checking account, using Paypal to do the direct deposit, and then signed up for overdraft protection as well as bill pay.

I'm only getting $125 instead of the potential $150, but since my commitment is only $500, this means I made a 25% gain for letting them hold my money for a few months.

e-Miles Wants to be Your Pimp

e-Miles wants to pimp you out for miles, as illustrated by this photograph of a statue called "The White Slave".  e-Miles is the yelling man on the right and you are the naked, supple, firm, slightly sad and submissive woman on the...  Goddamit, where's my wallet? 

The gist is that e-Miles sends you emails with marketing messages that you have to respond to, and in return they give you airline miles.  So far, showing you a one page advertisement and asking you three multiple choice questions is worth 5 miles, and asking a page of demographic questions is worth 15 miles.  Oh, you also get 200 miles just for signing up.

The catch?  E-miles only transfers your miles to your airline account in 500 mile batches, and you have to request the transfer.  So you would have to look at 60 of the one page ads in order to get your first batch of miles.  Considering that miles are valued at a penny a point, it's like an hour of your time just to get $5.00 worth of miles.    

E-miles, therefore, is your pimp, selling your eyes to abusive Johns like Zales and Disney (the first two ads I saw) while keeping the bulk of the cash for themselves.  I like being degraded, though (and have nothing else to do on a Friday night0, so I signed up with them.  Expect another post in a couple weeks about the experience.

So far, e-Miles works with Delta, Continental, US Airways, AirTran, Alaska Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Hilton HHonors®.

So if being a prostitute escort is what you've always wanted to be, click on this link to go to e-Mile's website.

Free Credits and Alcohol from Southwest

Southwest is currently offering up to 4 credits for signing up for their program.

Click Here for Information About their Program.

The Dealie-O:

1. Enroll in Southwest Rapid Rewards and 2 credits.

2. Sign up for  The Rapid Rewards Report and The Rapid Rewards E-mail Update and stay subscribed for three months to get two more bonus credits.

3.  The offer is only good for new Southwest Rapid Rewards members.

Click Here to go to the Offer Page 

As I was not yet a Southwest member, I decided to get the credits.  And then I noticed this on the bottom of the sign-up page:

Southwest is giving me gifts AND alcohol?  I know what this means...  Bow chika wow chika...

Most Complained about Domestic Airlines

Yahoo Travel just put out an article detailing the most complained about airlines.  For all the problems I've had with JetBlue, I would have thought they would have been #1.  Huh. 


The Top Offenders:

1. Delta
2. United Airlines
3. US Airways
4. Northwest Airlines
5. American Airlines
6. Comair
7. Continental Airlines
8. AirTran
9. Frontier Airlines
10. JetBlue Airways

American Airlines Helps Old Men Impregnate Women

American Airlines currently has a deal that feels more like progressive Vegas slots than anything else.  Biggest payout: 100,000 bonus miles.  Chances ANYONE will get those miles: 1 in Well, Think Back About the Hottest Person in Your High School that You Forever Crushed on But Never Got the Chance to Be With; Your Chances Are the Same.  


The Deal: Basically, you need to fly a round trip flight in or out of some of their less-traveled destinations.  Fly to 2 of them and you get 1,000 miles.  Fly to 3 cities and you've got 4,000 miles. Get to ten cities and you will net you the 100k.

I can't think of a single situation in which someone would fly to all these particular places (listed below).  I mean, Kentucky and China?  Seriously?  Well, maybe it could be done by an independently wealthy geezer (pictured at right) who has two months to live and wants to impregnate women in each of these cities.  You know, setting up franchises.

Have a better reason for why someone would? Leave it in the comments.

Tidbits:

• You have to register prior to travel using Promotion Code NEWAA.  
• Flights after July 31, 2010 don't count.
• 2 cities = 1,000 miles
• 3 cities = 4,000 miles
• 4 cities = 6,000 miles
• 5 cities = 10,000 miles
• 6 cities = 15,000 miles
• 7 cities = 25,000 miles
• 8 cities = 50,000 miles
• 9 cities = 75,000 miles
• 10 cities = 100,000 miles

Eligible cities:

• Allentown, PA
• Asheville, NC
• Augusta, GA
• Beijing, China
• Charleston, WV
• Cheyenne, WY
• Eleuthera, Bahamas
• Fargo, ND
• Fayetteville, NC
• Harrisburg, PA
• Lexington, KY
• Myrtle Beach, SC
• Rapid City, SD
• Scranton/Wilkes Barre, PA
• Sioux Falls, SD
• Treasure Cay, Bahamas
• Tri-cities, TN

$300 from Comerica Bank

Comerica Bank is offering a sort of a la carte bonus system at the moment.  It ends on June 30th.


Link: http://campaign.comerica.com/campaign/spring10

Notice: This promo is open only to new checking account customers.

You must open a new checking account (minimum $2,500) and add any of the following:

1.  $75 for Signing up for Bill Pay and Making 5 or More Bill Payments a Month for 6 Months
2.  $75 for getting a Comerica Check Card (free) and Making 5 or More Transactions With It for 6 Months
3.  $75 for setting up a direct deposit that deposits at least $150 a month
4.  $75 for opening up their Premiere ($5,000 minimum to avoid fees) or Platinum Circle Account ($50,000 minimum to avoid fees).  The account must stay open for six months.

It breaks down thusly:

1.  If you invest $2,500 for their free checking account and just do options 1-3, you earn $225, which works out as a 9% return on a six month investment.

2.  If you invest $5,000 to do all four options, you earn $300, which works out to a 6% return on a six month investment (although an extra $75 in your pocket).

The five bill payments and five check card transactions could be a little difficult to keep up with, but free money is free money...

Get 1,000 American Airlines Miles

If you've not done so, you can currently get 1,000 bonus American Airline miles by signing up for the AAdvantage eSummary.  Pretty much, they're paying you miles to save themselves postage.

To sign up for eSummary, click on the "Profile" link in the upper-right area of the home page and log in. Then scroll down and select the box "AAdvantage summary via E-mail instead of via the postal service" to subscribe.

Earn Up to 25,000 United Mileage Plus Bonus Miles

TD AMERITRADE has a new special going with United Airlines that gives you miles for opening an account with them.  You have to be a new customer and open an account by June 30, 2010.  

The amount you deposit determines your reward:

1.  $2,500=5,000 miles

2.  $10,000=15,000 miles

3.  $50,000=25,000

Here is the link 

Here is the fine print, with certain things bolded by me:

†Offer valid for new Individual or Joint accounts opened and funded by U.S. residents with $2,500 or more by 6/30/2010. Not transferable and not valid for IRA or other tax-exempt accounts, internal transfers, current TD AMERITRADE clients, or with other offers. Limit one offer per client. Offers are not valid for TD AMERITRADE Investing accounts using the Amerivest service. Offers are not valid for accounts managed by independent investment advisors and maintained by TD AMERITRADE Institutional. Account must remain open with minimum funding required for participating in the offer for 9 months, or TD AMERITRADE may charge the account for the cost of the miles. Allow 6 weeks from account funding for the first half of miles to appear in the Mileage Plus account. To qualify for the second half, TD AMERITRADE account must remain open with minimum funding required for participating in the offer for 6 months from the first posting date. Miles will be deposited in the Mileage Plus account within 6 weeks. TD AMERITRADE reserves the right to restrict or revoke this offer. Miles accrued and awards issued are subject to the rules of the United Mileage Plus Program. United, its subsidiaries, affiliates and agents are not responsible for any products and services of other participating companies and partners. The Mileage Plus Program, including accruals, awards and bonus miles, is subject to changes without notice. Taxes and fees related to award travel are the responsibility of the passenger. Bonus miles and miles earned through non-flight activity do not count toward elite status. United and Mileage Plus are registered service marks. For complete details about the Mileage Plus Program, visit united.com. United Saver Awards are currently redeemable at 25,000 miles within the U. S. (excluding Hawaii) and Canada. For more information on Mileage Plus Award Reservations, call 1-800-421-4655. TD AMERITRADE and United Air Lines, Inc. are separate, unaffiliated companies and are not responsible for one another's services and policies.


TD AMERITRADE has teamed up with United to bring you a special offer…
Open and fund a TD AMERITRADE account by June 30, 2010, and earn up to 25,000 United Mileage Plus bonus miles…
The more you deposit, the more miles you earn…


Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to find out how to Earn up to 25,000 United Mileage Plus bonus miles – Open and fund a TD AMERITRADE account by June 30, 2010

$300 in Bank Bonuses

I'm always on the lookout for bank bonuses that don't require a direct deposit.  This is just a little way to make money on the side, but I usually earn about $500-700 a year on this.  Here are $300 worth of current offers:
 
$150 from Suntrust Bank

Link 
1.  Open a checking account: Get $50
2.  Make three bill payments a month for three months: Get $100


$100 from Chase
Link
1.  Open a Chase Checking account
2.  Make 5 debit card purchases (or set up direct deposit): Get $100

$50 from ING
Link
1.  Open an Electric Orange Checking Account using code EM262
2.  Use your debit card 3 times within 45 days: get $50

Bonus Stacking: ThankYou Points

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The ThankYou rewards program is used by both Citi and Expedia (the two might be part of the same company; I'm too lazy to find out) and can be found at: http://www.thankyou.com/. There are thousands of ways for you to redeem ThankYou points (including cruises and hotel rooms), but I always head straight for the airline tickets.

Using your points to buy tickets is easy compared to using frequent flyer miles, which have blackout dates and limited seats per flight.  With Thankyou, you do a flight search that's similar to the one Kayak uses and looks through all the major airlines.  If you find a flight to your liking, you buy it at a penny a point.

Have 25,000 points? You can buy a $250 ticket. That simple. Even if it won't buy you a round trip ticket, you can still get it one way and pay cash for the return flight.

Bonus offers for ThankYou Points change frequently, but I'll post some recent ones:

Citi Forward (6,500 points after $250 in purchases and signing up for paperless statements; 100 points a month)

Citi Checking Account (16,000 points for opening an account and qualifying activities)

22,500 points right there.  Enough to get me from New York to Orlando and back, which I've done every month since September, most of it for free.  :-) 

It pays to Google "Thank You Bonus Points" frequently.

Happy stacking.

Bonus Stacking: The Basics

_
I can't claim credit for the idea, but I can claim credit for the term.

Bonus stacking.

It's the art of combining credit card and banking bonuses to rapidly (as in, by next month) earn free flights and hotel rooms. Not only is it completely legal, but in the long term it also helps your credit score.  I started doing this a year ago and have gotten four free domestic flights and a room at a five star hotel in Cancun. In all, I've have gotten well over $1,500 in travel savings for a few hours of effort. I cannot recommend bonus stacking enough.

The gist: in order to attract and retain customers, credit cards and banks offer reward programs. Almost across the board, the points (or miles) in these programs are worth a penny apiece and are usually given for each dollar spent. Which means for every $1,000 you spend, you'll get $10 in value. Racking up the $30,000 in purchases required to enough points for a $300 ticket could take most of us years, which is what the companies want, since in that time you'll likely have given them far more in finance charges and late fees. 

In order to get you going, though, the financial companies like to start you off with a sign-up bonus to lure you in, usually between 5,000 and 10,000 points. With a little organization, you can stack the sign-up bonuses from several cards to immediately earn enough points for flights and hotel rooms.

Here is the nitty-gritty:

1.  You need a decent credit score to even get the cards in the first place. This is good thing in my opinion because if you are bad at managing your credit to begin with, the last thing you need is is a half a dozen bright, shiny credit cards lying around asking to get used. Anything above 650 will usually start you off.  
2.  In the short term, this will hurt your credit.  From the companies' point of view,  if you are ordering a large number of cards, it's because you are about to fund a super-model, cocaine-filled orgy and then off yourself at the end. Or similar. So ordering a large number of cards will ding your score, probably 15-20 points.  Because of this, it is best to order a number of cards all at once, because the next month your score will drop.


3.  In the long term, this will help your credit. A significant bulk of your score is determined by your credit-utilization ratio. This is the dollar amount of credit you have versus the amount that you are using. If you are $9,000 in debt on $10,000 in credit, your score will be lower than if you are $20,000 in debt on $50,000 of credit. So adding another ten credit cards will actually inflate the amount of credit you have (because you are NOT going to start using your bonus stacking cards, right?) and month after month your credit score will go up. 

4.  You can use the credit building thing as an excuse.  I got greedy once and ordered six different American Express cards in a day and they called me to see what was up. I said I was trying to increase my score by increasing my available credit. They asked for proof of income, I faxed it to them and they approved all six cards. Those bonuses got me two free plane flights.

5.  Be organized. A simple spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, Open Office Calc or Google Docs (which I use) will do wonders for your sanity. This is because different cards require different hoops to jump through. Some require a single purchase, others require a certain dollar amount of purchases (say $250). Some have annual fees that are waived the first year, meaning you have to cancel them before the year isup. Some post their bonus points in four weeks, others in six to eight. In a future post I will give tips on free finance programs and provide a spreadsheet template to help minimize your Advil use.


And that's about it!  Future posts will cover different programs and how to get the most out of your points.

Make Thousands of Dollars by Converting an IRA While Traveling

If you plan (like me) to take significant time off of work for a long-term trip or you've been laid off for a significant amount of time or you're going to join Peace Corps, you can make thousands of dollars by converting an IRA when you're not generating income.


Don't know much about IRAs? Read here: All about IRAs

What I'm going to walk you through is slightly complex and would leave a lot of people shaking their heads, but since I'm actually doing it, I can assure you that it works.

1.Open a traditional IRA. If you already have one, this is going to benefit you beautifully.

2.Contribute as much as you can each year up to the legal limit of $5,000.  This will let you save a thousand dollars or more in taxes each year.

3.After a few years, take a year off to travel (using those tax savings to help pay your travel costs, of course) and convert your traditional IRA into a Roth IRA during the tax year that you are traveling.

4.After five years, take out the money tax and penalty free.

5.Need the money sooner? You can take it out penalty free if you A) buy a first home, B) pay un-reimbursed medical expenses, or C) become disabled (try not to do that).

EXAMPLE:

Bob already has $5,000 in a traditional IRA and will contribute $5,000 a year for 2009 and 2010. Since he's in a 25% tax bracket, every $5,000 that he puts in the IRA is an EXTRA $1,250 in his pocket because he's not paying that in taxes to the government.  As of 2010, Bob would have $3,750 more in his pocket to put towards travel than if he had not contributed to his IRA.

Now let's say it's 2011. Bob is chilling on a beach in Thailand after having emailed his mom and asking him to convert his IRA.  Since he gave his mom power of attorney before leaving on his trip, she is able to convert his traditional IRA into a Roth IRA.  Because Bob has been traveling for the year and has only been making a little money from passive income (more on that in future posts), his taxes are pretty much limited to the IRA he has just converted.  Let's say it's $15,000. 

The marginal tax rate for a single filer is 10% of the money between $0 and $8,350 and 15% of the money between $8,350 and $33,950. With basic deductions, Bob's taxes are $165. Already he's saved $3,585, but since Bob also take deductions for his travel-based business (more on that in future posts), Bob just gets to keep the full $3,750.

After five years, Bob can take out that $15,000 penalty and tax free, or can let it grow as long as he wants.  Even if he grew that money to $80,000 over 30 years, he won't even pay taxes on the $80,000.

And that is sweet.