Bonus Points - Cunning Plan

[Smithy789]

Fellow Frequent Flyers,

A credit card I use has me signed up on a deal offering me 3 FF points per dollar up to the first $10,000 that I spend. I'd like to rack up $5,000 by the end of this month in order to get the extra points - but I don't want to spend the money - if you know what I mean. I am thinking about purchasing a fully refundable ticket and then had it fully refunded at the end of a billing cycle or two.

Have any of you done this successfully? Do credit card companies reclaim the points?

What's the best way to achieve this without any problems?

I am platinum (thanks to the Challenge) with AA, and bronze with QF.

What's the best way to do this? Should I book it via AA or QF?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I ahte to dash your hopes......but yes ...at least in the case of Amex they reclaim the points.


You are not the first to have thought of it.

I recently had Jetstar refund me $200 18 months after expenditure and well after I had cancelled the QF card I bought it on.....

The $200 went into my new QF Card (I had doubled dipped for another 17500 points)....and I noticed that 250 points were reversed out of my QFFF account too!!!


I have however hada few occassions where I bougt something ona cc and have been refunded in cash. But normally they reverse on the cc.

 

[kpc]

I have however hada few occassions where I bougt something ona cc and have been refunded in cash. But normally they reverse on the cc.

I wonder how closely they check the credit card for refunds...you could try and get them to refund into a different credit card!

 

[thegurio]

From experience both from a shopfront and over the phone, They almost *always* refund to the same credit card and usually you need to have a PIN on it as well...

 

[Andyc]

In my experience, the best way to get a credit card refund made to another card is to tell them that the card you orginally booked it on has since been cancelled and then ask them to send it to your new card. Then just have the money refunded to a non-rewards card.

 

[Smithy789]

Hmmmm... I wonder what happens if the refund is made to a card such as ANZ's new balance visa card - (where you accrue points for paying off debt, not for accruing the debt in the first place...) Is that double dipping?

It would look like this:
1) Book a $5,000 ticket, say with AA MEL-LAX, business class (fully refundable tciket) on a credit card
2) move those points once in place from credit card to QFF program
3) close credit card and balance transfer $5,000 debt to a new ANZ balance visa card
4) cancel $5,000 ticket and request refund of $5,000 to ANZ card,
5) ANZ give you 5,000 pointsfor paying off your balance
6) Transfer points to QFF program.

Voila - 10,000 points for spending nothing. Or have I missed something???
I haven't done a balance transfer before, so I am not sure if you accrue points for balances that have been transferred out, and whether the ANZ's card would confer points for a re-credit of an amount from a retailer, rather than paying off the card in the usual way via my bank.

Any thoughts?

 

[Travel Guru]

You've got way too much time on your hands and way too little appreciation for the value of your time.

TG

 

[Smithy789]

Possibly - but that's the fun thing about spare time: I get to choose how to spend it. Any contribution on my cunning plan?

Smithy789

 

[simongr]

Just for the record as this was lost in the mini-crash I would reiterate my comment that this is essentially obtaining goods by deception - effectively fraud.

 

[Andyc]

Yeah I guess it may be fraud. But think about it, why would anyone care.

For the initial card issuer, they still earn their merchant fee for the first debit. And since you now have several grand outstanding, they may be secretly hoping that you'll leave/forget it and then owe interest. Either way, this transaction is no different to the standard transaction.

For Qantas, you're following all the conditions of the fare. They accept that they will be refunding a certain number of those tickets and price them accordingly. Your actions, while odd, are permissable. In fact, thats one of the reasons flexible tickets exit; so that you can refund them for any reason.

Lastly, refunding to another card should be ok. This second card issuer hasn't suffered any loss because you chose this as a way of paying down your balance, and more importantly, they allow the merchant to make they payments. In fact, you could argue that the credit card's function is to make and take payment; as this is a standard action common amongst all credit cards.

But I guess the most important thing is, who cares. What are the odds of somoneone from any of the businesses working it out. They ones most likely to care, the card issuers, prob wouldn't do anything about it anyway and if they did, they'd just take your points back. I like the plan and I think you should give it a go.

 

[simongr]

I didn't realise that whether you will get caught was a consideration on whether something was a fraud or not. I must go back and rewrite my Fraud Risk Assessments and Internal Audit plans noting that if the likelihood of being caught is small then it is not wrong.

The OP's original plan intentionally sets out a sequence of steps obtain points (and thus goods) with not intention of paying for the goods.

Effectively the card issuer to whom you refund the charges loses merchant's fees that are not offset by an original merchant fee being earned thus they are paying for your points.

I think is immoral at least and illegal at worst.

 

[NM]

and I doubt they would credit back to a different card. If the card no longer exists then I expect they will want to issue you a cheque and that could take some time to process.

Its certainly not a plan I would be willing to undertake myself.

 

[JohnK]

Is the 10,000 points really worth all the time and effort spent on this cunning plan?

QF Holidays is offering 5,000 bonus points for ~A$350 spend which will also get you ~350 points for the QF holiday spend, a minimum of 2,000 points for the flights and also 1,050 points from your credit card at the triple points promotion. I think 8,400 points is very good value for a ~$350 outlay and no headaches.

 

[Anna]

I know this is pedantic, but I think that it's not obtaining goods by deception, it's obtaining a benefit by deception. It's still in the nature of fraud though.

 

[Harpoon]

Yes I think what the OP suggested is essentially asking if it's okay to be fraudulent... Especially as it's intentional which makes it worse. Had the OP booked a trip and got it refunded, and unknowlingly kept the points then you could argue it's the credit cards fault for not getting their points reversed I suppose. However intentionally setting out to gain points like that would no doubt see some eyebrows raised...especially if you do it more than once.

(I'm no lawyer or police officer, just going by what my common sense tells me).

 

[Travel Guru]

I didn't realise that whether you will get caught was a consideration on whether something was a fraud or not. I must go back and rewrite my Fraud Risk Assessments and Internal Audit plans noting that if the likelihood of being caught is small then it is not wrong.

The OP's original plan intentionally sets out a sequence of steps obtain points (and thus goods) with not intention of paying for the goods.

Effectively the card issuer to whom you refund the charges loses merchant's fees that are not offset by an original merchant fee being earned thus they are paying for your points.

I think is immoral at least and illegal at worst.

I'd have to agree with you 100% Simon.

I must let my staff know that as long as I don't catch them it's ok to defraud or steal from me.

Why put such a small price on your integrity?

TG

 

[agedpom]

Why bother.
By the time you have got the measly number of points (about enough to get you one wau from Sydney to Melbourne - $100 worth). you will have incurred, or foregone that amount in interest.
That, plus all the phone calls and time wasted make it no no for me.

 

[Dougo]

Smithy789 - where to start???

I agree with other postings that your proposal is one of deliberate deception and frankly for me, I don't think that FF points are an issue that will ever be something that is worth getting caught and possibly being charged with fraud.

Yes I guess it's a fair enough question to pose to the FF community, but did you stop to think how many FF members and guests may actually work for the bank / FF Program mentioned in the your original posting?

My point is I can't tell the occupation and employer of any of the authors of FF postings and now "they" have it in writing from you. I would think that would be very useful to them in court if they ever went down that path.

Now here's a thought, you want the points so why not take a trip, enjoy yourself and get the points too? Win Win !!

 

[QuikSmart]

Yeah, sure, go ahead and do it. And while your at it, screw up the advantages of credit card award programs for the rest of us.

 

[bobbyjo_sing]

Hmmmm... I wonder what happens if the refund is made to a card such as ANZ's new balance visa card - (where you accrue points for paying off debt, not for accruing the debt in the first place...) Is that double dipping?

It would look like this:
1) Book a $5,000 ticket, say with AA MEL-LAX, business class (fully refundable tciket) on a credit card
2) move those points once in place from credit card to QFF program
3) close credit card and balance transfer $5,000 debt to a new ANZ balance visa card
4) cancel $5,000 ticket and request refund of $5,000 to ANZ card,
5) ANZ give you 5,000 pointsfor paying off your balance
6) Transfer points to QFF program.

Voila - 10,000 points for spending nothing. Or have I missed something???
I haven't done a balance transfer before, so I am not sure if you accrue points for balances that have been transferred out, and whether the ANZ's card would confer points for a re-credit of an amount from a retailer, rather than paying off the card in the usual way via my bank.

Any thoughts?

I think that amounts to triple dipping but a great idea and almost right, you need to time it well close the card just before the card annual fee is due, and don't forget that there are charges for joining both the new card and for the rewards programs so not quite for nothing, and make the ticket purchase somewhere you really want to go just in case the whole thing falls over.