# Manufactured Spending
Guide to Third-Party Gift Cards Sold by Merchants [7/12 Update: Amazon Starts Selling VGCs]
Amazon is now selling Visa gift cards! Unfortunately, you still can’t pay for them with Amazon gift cards. These Visa gift cards can be used for manufactured spending, so they’re s...
Apple Pay Will Launch Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Transfers
Apple recently announced that person-to-person transfers will be introduced in iOS 11 in fall 2017. Apple is partnering with the “well-known” Green Dot to make this feature work. I...
Latest Visa Gift Card Deal Roundup [4/3 Update: $20 off $100 at OM/OD, Q2 Credit Card 5x]
A killer OM/OD deal: get $20 off $100 and come out ahead, plus an analysis of earning 5%/5x on Visa gift card purchases with Q2 bonus-category credit cards....
"8/25 Update: The Final Shutdown Wave?" The Death of the Bird Cards (Serve, Bluebird, Redcard)
Redbird is already dead, and Serve and Bluebird are barely hanging on. Who killed them, and how should we respond?...
[Dead] Pay Rent with a Credit Card via RadPad + Android Pay with No Fee and Earn Points for Free
RadPad has announced (link) that this deal is dead because too many people jumped on it. Going forward, rent payments will incur a fee again, so don’t forget to stop your payments!...
Bad News: Rite Aid Now Only Allows Cash Reloads for Serve
As a nearly ubiquitous drugstore chain, Rite Aid had been a very convenient place for manufactured spending, since it allowed Visa gift cards to be used to reload Serve. Unfortunat...
Bad News: Citigold Credit-Card Account-Opening Funding Is Dead
Another year has arrived, but unfortunately the first piece of news this New Year is not good. Back then, after opening a Citigold account, you could complete the initial funding w...
PayPal Class Action Over Unreasonable Account Freezes: You May Be Eligible for the $4,000,000 Settlement
(Disclaimer: This article is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult an attorney.) Using a credit card to buy a PayPal MyCash reload card, loading it to a PayPal...
Meet Your Minimum Spending Requirement with Money Orders
We’ve just entered 2016, and before everyone had even fully recovered from the holiday season, another major event hit the credit card world. Early in the morning on January 8, man...
Some Bluebird/Serve Accounts Shut Down by AMEX
Many people who frequently used AMEX Bluebird or AMEX Serve to load Visa gift cards at major grocery stores have received emails. There have been quite a few unlucky shutdowns repo...
Account Shutdowns and Risk Control at U.S. Credit Card Companies (3): How I Use My Cards
So how exactly should we use credit cards to maximize rewards while avoiding unwanted attention from banks or getting put in the penalty box? This article gives a general overview...