Manufactured spending is constantly changing. Here is how to do manufactured spending right now.

How to do Credit Card Manufactured Spending in 2019

Manufactured spending is just a component of travel hacking. It is the most time-consuming aspect but can pay huge dividends over the long haul. I’ve been using travel hacking (along with other money hacks) to achieve financial freedom.

I launched a book that highlights how to invest for financial freedom called Dividend Investing Your Way to Financial Freedom. Credit card manufactured spending is only one component of travel hacking. It is a component that requires the most time.

Other parts of travel hacking include:

1. Booking award travel: Once you gain your credit card points, you’re gonna have to spend them efficiently. Here are some tools to book award travel.
2. Credit card churning: Credit card churning is the concept of opening credit cards solely for the sign-up bonus. Here is a churning guide to help you. Also, you’ll want to try to avoid these churning mistakes.
3. The small things of travel hacking: Travel hacking isn’t only about credit cards. You have to do the small things once you get there. Here are 21+ ways to travel hack without a credit card.

What is Credit Card Manufactured Spending?

Credit card manufactured spending in 2018 can be summarized as a credit card technique where you spend money in ways that allow you to get the money back as cash.

While these techniques are completely legal, they are often used by criminals to launder money or convert stolen card numbers into cash. This has led to many businesses to start blocking these techniques.

Another reason that made credit card manufactured spending options become nonexistent is that the organizations used to understand that they’re losing cash.

For instance, Citibank used to permit subsidizing new financial balances up to $100,000 with credit cards, for no fee.

In those cases, Citi was engrossing the charge card exchange expenses. Assume they needed to pay 1.5% in charges: When a man utilized a Visa to store $100,000, Citi was liable for $1,500 in expenses.

It’s no big surprise they began to curtail this. By manufacturing credit card spending, you can generate passive income or significant rewards points.

By earning rewards points, you enable yourself to travel the world for little to no cost or save big bucks for necessary travel expenses. Need to visit the in-laws for Christmas?

No problem. Have to spend a weekend in Seattle for a wedding? $0 cost. Let’s break down how you should think about manufacturing your credit card spending in 2019.

My Free Travel Hacking Spreadsheet Template

Well, the first tool that is a must-have is my travel hacking spreadsheet that is completely free to download. My travel hacking spreadsheet includes:

• Credit card churning tracker
• Manufactured spending tracking
• Hard pull credit inquiries

Download Now

Rules for Credit Card Manufactured Spending in 2019

Credit card manufactured spending is very fluid at the moment. Rules are ever changing and plenty of churners find themselves coming up with creative ways to manufacture spend. Here are some rules to live by for credit card manufactured spending in 2019.

1. Don’t spend more than you can afford

Start with a small amount to test the waters. For example, don’t start outright with $5,000 purchases on virtual gift cards if you can’t afford to spend that much.

Instead, you can start small and try it. It’s easy to lose track or get robbed if you’re handling that much money. Getting refunds is not always possible. Ensure you are monitoring your credit score and all of your credit accounts to ensure you are not tripping any utilization rates.

Try using Credit Sesame for monitoring your credit accounts. I love how they offer you $50,000 of free identity theft insurance. That’s better than anything I’ve ever seen in the marketplace. It’s completely free.

2. Don’t always expect success

It varies by manager, store, and cashier working at every possible moment. It’s always smart to stay polite in the face of rejection. The best possible advice is to stay calm so you can try again.

3. There’s never any guarantees

It’s very important to remember that there are no guarantees in life. You may buy thousands of dollars in gift cards only to discover that your method of liquidation has disappeared overnight.

Credit card manufactured spending is considered normal in terms of spending habits, so it can be perceived as suspicious, despite the fact that it’s legal.

4. Never underestimate criminal activity

Gift cards can be easily stolen or loaded onto a compromised account. They could be fraudulent as well, so there are a lot of factors.

When you participate in things that are seemingly suspicious, there are always risks of other malicious users that may try to take advantage of you.

5. Don’t ask employees for advice

Customer service representatives, cashiers and employees probably don’t know exactly how manufactured spending works. If you ask them, you’ll most likely get false or incorrect information, and create a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings.

Just stay quiet and follow your formula. There is no need to draw attention to your secret if you don’t have to. Also, customer service representatives will typically give you inconsistent information, so if you get a response to something.

It likely isn’t the end all be all option.

Types of Gift Cards That Can Be Used for Credit Card Manufactured Spending in 2019

Outside of funding bank accounts with credit cards, credit card manufactured spending has been mainly limited to buying gift cards with credit cards. This can still be a very lucrative proposition for any churner.

There are currently three kinds of gift cards available to the public. Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx. Preference will always go to Visa since these are the easiest to liquidate due to the fact that they’re coded as debit cards, and by law, they’re pin-enabled cards.

You can purchase these cards with your credit card and then turn that money into cash by liquidating the gift card and depositing the money into your bank account. One method you can use is money orders.

Most grocery stores sell money orders with debit cards with a specific maximum value, typically $500 to $1000, with fees as low as 70-75 cents.

Walmart is one of the most popular stores and sells money orders up to $1000. It’s important to note that money orders create an extra trip to the bank, and making tons of trips with a lot of money orders will eventually draw a lot of attention to yourself.

With the Chase Freedom card, you should be able to get at least $75 in points each month. Here’s our review of the Chase Freedom card for manufacturing credit card spending.

Another method you can use is called Evolve Money. This neat online tool allows you to pay bills directly using cards, saving you a trip to Walmart. However, Evolve doesn’t allow you to pay card companies.

Some uses for Evolve Money are paying rent, student loans, or making mortgage payments. The challenge is that their current merchant list isn’t as big as some of the other options available. Their database is growing and you’ll always be able to request them to add more merchants.

Liquidate Vanilla One Gift Cards through Local Grocery Store

For a data point, I just liquidated a Vanilla One gift card purchased at Walgreen’s for the Chase Freedom 5% cash back through Apple Pay. I went to my local grocery store and liquidated the gift card via money order.

The local grocery store uses MoneyGram services for money orders. The cost was $0.79 to purchase the money order and the fee for purchasing the gift card was $5.95.

However, for $500 of manufactured spending, I was able to generate $25 in cash back rewards for a fee of $6.74 in total. I am fine with that. Time to go do it again!

Additionally, check out a Meijer nearby for money orders. These continue to work great for liquidating virtual gift cards to the money order.

Liquidating a Vanilla One gift card (or VGC) is the best way to manufacture spend without significant risks. Remember there are limited options for you to load your Vanilla One virtual gift card onto such as Venmo, so you will likely need to liquidate it via money order.

Here are other places to cash a personal check.

Fund Bank Accounts with Credit Cards

There is a comprehensive list of bank accounts that can be funded via credit card. Think of these options like a silver bullet. You only get a few shots at these, so it is not that scalable.

However, by funding bank accounts with credit cards, you can literally hit the minimum spending requirement right off the gate by funding one account.

I love this method and wish it were more scalable. By funding a bank account with a credit card, you are in the most liquid position possible. After one or two days, you can payoff your credit card balance and close the account.

Track Your Manufactured Spending Efficiently

Personal Capital has been a great way to track manufactured spending. The intuitive dashboard allows you to see your income and expenses all in one place. This has helped me stay organized with my spending.

The platform ensures that I won’t miss a payment or that I will manufacture spending on all my active cards. It’s super easy to link all of your accounts and get started. It’s completely free!

Points to Remember with Credit Card Manufactured Spending in 2019

There is a learning curve. This may be stressful for a rookie, so taking things very slowly will help you understand how the game works, and lets you get your feet wet. Also, it’s very important to always have a backup plan. Nobody wants to be stuck with tons of high spend requirement credit cards but your go-to liquidation method being shut down.

Make it a habit to liquidate your current cards before buying more, otherwise, you’ll be left with no way to liquid huge amounts of floating money.

Also, never put all your eggs in one basket. Buying large amounts of gift cards from one store. Suspiciously large amounts of money orders from one place will most certainly draw a lot of unwanted attention.

Stores have in the past stopped allowing credit cards to purchase gift cards, and this can happen at any time. Credit card manufactured spending is a great way to increase your income without working more.

Remember that credit card manufactured spending is gaming the system, but it is not illegal. The most important idea with manufactured spending is to spend as much as you can on credit cards to earn cash back or miles.

What have you done with credit card manufactured spending in 2019? We’ve been using credit card manufactured spending in 2019 to build a balance of travel rewards and benefits. Please let us know in the comments below.

Through our credit card churning and manufactured spending, we have earned the Southwest Companion Pass for 2019 and all of 2019!

Related Resources

• How to Save Money for Travel
• Free Credit Card Tracker
• Best Credit Cards to Churn

Check out our guide on how you too can earn the Southwest Companion Pass. Subscribe to our newsletter for more fantastic updates like the above (we do not send spam).

Here’s how to do manufactured spending in 2019