Manufactured spend

I recently wrote about acquiring 2 more credit cards and the finessing I had to do with Chase in order to not be denied on my applications because I carry 6 active Chase cards (see post here).  The two cards I received require a total of $3000 in spends in 3 months, this is a relatively low spend for the amount of points.  The United Mileage Plus Explorer card came with a 55K bonus after a $1000 spend and the British Airways Visa 50K Avios points with a $2000 spend.

There are cards that come with $5000 spends and when you complete a round of applications where you are approved for 3 or more cards at one time you will have a hefty spend to complete in 3 months.  Right now I am helping Diva with her spends (for those not familiar with Diva, read here), my son with his and all the while trying to meet my own spends.  It can be overwhelming but there are ways to manufacture a spend.  The choice a new person to this hobby has to make is where their comfort level lies in the many ways these manufactured spends can be pulled off.  For todays post I will talk about a simple manufactured spend using Costo.com.  The objective is to meet your credit card spend to acquire the bonus points to enable you to book travel.  Let's say using my United Plus Explorer Card as the example I needed to spend $1000 to retrieve the 55K bonus and I need the points quickly.  If you are a Costco member you simply log into Costco.com and order $1000 worth of product, perhaps a TV, laptop, camera etc.,  you pay for the product online using the United Visa (yes, Visa).  Many of you know Costco only accepts American Express in store but online they accept Mastercard and Visa.  Wait for the product to arrive and when it does you return the product to your local store.  Since the local stores only take American Express the customer service representatives will offer an option of a Costco gift card for the amount or cash.  You will take the cash.  Then you will go straight to the bank deposit cash and pay your United Visa bill, end of story.  Spend met, wait for points.  This will not work to meet American Express related spends because Costco will simply credit back your credit card. As I said this is one method for manufacturing a spend, in future posts I will detail others and you as the reader need to decide what you are comfortable with.  Are there risks, of course, and with risk comes consequence so abusers to the system will most likely get caught and have their credit line frozen.  It's up to each individual to decide.  I only put forth the information.