Free points (almost).
Discuss Free points (almost), on the Travel Insider Tips forum of FrequentFlyer.com.au, the home of frequent flyers.
Welcome to Australia's leading independent Frequent Flyers resource! We hope you find the information useful and decide to join our online community. Its free to join, simply click on the register link. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
After some months of reading this board, I have noticed that nobody has mentioned a way that I use to get "free" points.
I am a member of two online betting companies. All I do is make deposits from my credit card into my betting account, and leave the money in for a month or so.
These deposits are NOT taken as cash advances by my c/c company (unlike in the US) but as purchases.
When you take the money from the betting account however, it is paid into a nominated bank account. Cost: 1% of your deposit amount.
Sponsored Links
Registered Users have the option of
removing this and all other advertisements.
More
Um, I hate to tell you this but that is far from free - or even "cheap". 1% over say 6 weeks that you have left the money in the account annualised is around 9%. Thats the same amount as if you took out an unsecured line of credit to do the same thing. So if you did that with $10,000 over the course of the year it would have cost you $869 to get 10,000 points. they're cheaper than that over at qantas.com.au
this is an odd $1000 I have, sitting in the bank in case I need it. Effectively I can't get interest on it as I can't leave it in for any length of time, so I just transfer it back and forth.
this is an odd $1000 I have, sitting in the bank in case I need it. Effectively I can't get interest on it as I can't leave it in for any length of time, so I just transfer it back and forth.
Ends up I efectively get 10000 points for $100.
Interesting idea, but I find for me, I am better off moving spare funds between the online accounts (5.5% interest) than trying to get points. In my calculations seemed to be a better approach.
Karen: I suspect the method employed by pomjim would work whether or not he left the funds in his online betting account for a month, six weeks or six months - the 1% fee would be charged on each withdrawal from the account. Your point about an annualised 9% rate doesn't apply here, I'd say.
Also, while some may prefer to leave their money in an online savings account and earn $550 interest over a year on a $10000 balance (less tax, no doubt at around 47% for most people on this forum), earning a quick 10000 points for a $100 cost seems a good deal. To earn them otherwise, even for a silver or gold frequent flyer, would cost substantially more. Some of the posts I've seen on this board (relating to points runs across the country) would doubtless be worse uses of funds!
Also, while some may prefer to leave their money in an online savings account and earn $550 interest over a year on a $10000 balance (less tax, no doubt at around 47% for most people on this forum), earning a quick 10000 points for a $100 cost seems a good deal. To earn them otherwise, even for a silver or gold frequent flyer, would cost substantially more. Some of the posts I've seen on this board (relating to points runs across the country) would doubtless be worse uses of funds!
I think you'll find that the 'points runs' aren't about the points.
Sponsored Links
Registered Users have the option of
removing this and all other advertisements.
More
Could you elaborate on your earlier comments? I definitely got the impression that points runs were all about ensuring either sufficient points or status credits were accrued to ensure status retention. Am I misinformed?
I think Mark may have been alluding to the idea that some people who do points runs get some (perverse?) pleasure out of visiting 10 airports and flying 10,000km in less than 24 hrs in addition to the status/mileage benefits.
There's a difference between a mileage run (extra travel to get extra points/miles) and a status run (extra travel to get extra status credits). Of course some runs can be both!
Extra travel doesnt necessarily mean pointless (oops wrong word!) trips, it could be simply taking a connecting flight instead of direct where the marginal benefit exceeds the marginal cost.
Could you elaborate on your earlier comments? I definitely got the impression that points runs were all about ensuring either sufficient points or status credits were accrued to ensure status retention. Am I misinformed?
Geoff.
I think yourself and others have covered what I was getting at:
The issue of retaining status
The 'perverse' ( I like that word - wouldn't have used it myself!) pleasure of visiting multiple airports in one day (not too mention the joy that goes into constructing the best value for money runs)
The downside of such runs are that you are often on separate bookings and problems can arise if a flight runs late in the middle of your run
Linear Mode
