Virgin America Credit Card

Get 20,000 points after your first purchase here. Why would you care about a measly 20,000 points? One, because there’s no big spending needed. Two, because this card is from Barclays. As most of you know, the cards we usually like are from Citibank or Chase. Any other choices are HUGELY welcomed.

12,000 Southwest Airline Miles

Anyone who pays for hotels should go pick up miles here. It’s simple. Buy $100 in Marriott gift cards and get 1,200 Southwest miles. $1,000 in gift cards? 12,000 miles.

It’s a perfect example of how different mile nerds are than “regular” people. They just go and spend $1,000 on their hotel stay. No miles, no points. Nothing. We get the following:

  • Marriott points from the hotel stay
  • Upgrade, lounge/free breakfast, free internet for those with a Marriott or Ritz Carlton card
  • Miles (or points) from using one of our many credit cards
  • 12,000 Southwest Airline miles from using this promotion
Also, welcome to everyone who discovered MileNerd yesterday. There were a couple thousand of you! Look around and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Win A Giant Pile Of Marriott Points

For those of you who enter contests, this is a good one. You can enter here on Facebook and choose one of the 6 different packages. “Luxury Lover” seems like the best one with 500,000 points, a JW Marriott stay, and cash.

How To Meet Minimum Spends

Today, my friend Greg told me he needs to spend $17,000 in the next 4 months. Later in the day, a reader (Brendan from Brazil) emailed me for advice on the same subject. It’s coming up a lot lately.

When you apply for multiple cards, at some point you’ll wonder how to meet the minimum spends and collect your bonus miles. Here’s a dozen ways:

  1. This is the obvious one. All of your monthly expenses should be charged on credit cards. This includes things like:
    • Bills (TV, phone, internet, gym membership)
    • Groceries and extra miles at restaurants
    • Cars – gas, maintenance, registration/insurance, & even part of your purchase can go on a card
    • Tuition
    • Medical insurance and bills
    • Pay business expenses on your card and get reimbursed at work
  2. Amazon Payments and Venmo – Normally, you can safely send $1,000 a month through each. These work like Paypal without the fees. You could send money to a friend and just have them write you a check.  To be safe, vary the amount each month. If you get cocky and try to open multiple accounts, at least use different addresses and credit cards.
  3. American Express gift cards. They work just like credit cards. You can buy them through Big Crumbs or another shopping portal to get cash back. Be careful paying with Citibank cards (it can be counted as a cash advance). Before buying tons of gift cards, test it first to make sure everything goes smoothly. Right now, you can buy from Amex with no fee using code EMWISHCM.  
  4. Visa gift cards. When I’m desperate to meet a spend, I know I can always go into Office Depot and pay the $5 service fee for a $500 Visa gift card.
  5. Pay your mortgage/rent through WilliamPaid or ChargeSmart. Because of the fees, you don’t want to do this every month, but it’s a good way to meet spends. 
  6. Be early! Overpay your TV, phone, and internet bills. Pay your entire 6-month insurance premium. Buy Christmas and birthday gifts in advance.
  7. Student loans. If they don’t let you use a credit card, ChargeSmart will do it for a fee.
  8. Open credit union checking accounts. New accounts opened online can normally be funded with Chase cards
  9. Vanilla Reload cards. I’ll let Scott at MileValue explain this one.
  10. Staples constantly advertises Free After Rebate items. Their rebate process is easy, so this is a favorite for a lot of people with free time. Just buy an item, charge it on your card, and wait for the rebate to arrive.
  11. Pay taxes. A couple options are here and here.
  12. Shopping. Get the most extra miles through portals like TopCashBack, BigCrumbs, and Mr. Rebates. Again, people with free time (most of my readers) get very creative here. For example, when Delta has one of their 40 miles per dollar spent promos, people spend tons of money and re-sell the items on ebay.