Luckily this friendly churning contest amongst bloggers fell on a weekend so I had time to finalize my plan/spreadsheet and drive around to do some spending. My strategy for the month is to use my United card to spend $25k to get the 10k miles bonus that comes with the card. Other credit cards will be used as seen fit. Today I went out strong and this is what I spent my 5k on today.
Amazon Payments: $1,000
Costs $0
Card used: United
Miles: 1,000
Purchased Visa GC and unloaded via Bluebird: $1,000
Costs $5.90
Card used: United
Miles: 1,000
Purchased Hyatt Gift Cards on Milepoint for a friend: $2,000 less 10% discount =$1,800
Costs $6 in shipping
Card used: Amex Simply Cash
Stmt credit of 5% for the Open Saving Benefit (assumed to post for purposes of the game since it has been shown to work and will be included in the bank roll: $90.30
Cash Back of 3% for category of “hotel” picked (this is also assumed to post but this will be added at the end of the month according to the game rules): $54.18
Purchased Money orders at Walmart: $1,186
Costs: $1.36
Card used: Suntrust debit that earns Delta miles
Miles: 1,187
.
Bank Roll Recap:
Beginning amount: $5,000
Total spent including all costs: $4,999.26
Funded back: $4,986
Stmt credit added: $90.30
Bank roll for tomorrow: $5,077.04
Some of my strategies can only be used once or twice but wanted to get them out of the way and the Amex Simply Cash credit will help subsidize the costs of this game.
Tomorrow starts the Office Max deal where I could break even and earn tons of Ultimate Reward points by using my Chase Ink Card. This deal may only last a few days but I have 3 stores close by so need to maximize while I can.
I may do post on my daily runs if I feel they are interesting enough but just wanted to give y’all an idea of my strategy. If interested in following along then you can follow me on twitter @giddyforpoints or follow the hashtag #milemadness to see how the other bloggers did. Some did very well!