One of my most loyal readers, Dan, helped me out as a guest writer today. Keep in mind that Bluebird is very new and a lot of things could still go wrong. On the other hand, I ordered dollar coins from the US Mint and made thousands of miles before that went away. You never know.
- What credit card do I need? You can use any mile or point credit card you want, but this process works best with a Chase Ink Bold or Ink Plus. If you don’t have either, it’s getting more and more important that your next Chase card be an Ink card.
- Why is it so important? Ink cards earn 5 times the points at office supply stores (including Office Depot). These Ultimate Rewards points are some of the most valuable points in the game (transfer to United, British, Southwest, Hyatt, Marriott, etc).
- Why do we care about office supply stores? At Office Depot, you can buy Vanilla Reload cards. These cool little cards cost $3.95 to “load” with $500.
- Why would I spend $3.95? Because you’re getting 500 miles. And if you’re using an Ink card, you’re getting 2,500 miles. See why the Ink cards are so important now? It’s a crazy cheap way to rack up miles. Plus, meeting your minimum spend is no longer a problem.
- How many miles are we talking about? If you have an Ink card and you’re doing $2,000 per month, it’s about 120,000 points in a year!
- So, what’s the deal with this Bluebird card? This is the really fun part. You can order it free from American Express online. Then you can easily load it with Vanilla Reload cards. You can use Bluebird to pay bills you never earned miles for before.
- What kinds of things? Mortgage payments, rent, maintenance guys working on your house, utilities, student loans, and pretty much anything you can think of! Even credit card bills!!!
- No way. How is that possible? Their billpay feature is GREAT. You just log in and they can mail a check to anyone you want. Again, if you have an Ink card, you’re getting 5 miles per dollar for EVERYTHING.
- You’re blowing my mind. Is anything else possible? Yes! You can also go to Walmart and use your mileage debit card (see yesterday) to load your Bluebird and rack up miles that way.
- I need to sit down. How about fees? No transaction fees, no fees for loading, and no fees for billpay! Ahhhhh! Ok MileNerd, calm down. There are some limits you should know:
- You can load $1,000 per day
- You can load $5,000 per month
- You can’t hold more than $10,000 on the card at one time
- Your limit for check payments per month is $5,000
Look guys, nobody is more excited about this than me. Playing this little game at $5,000 per month could be worth an extra 250,000+ miles per year. If you’re married, you could double that total. That being said, there’s a chance this will come to an end soon. And people who go absolutely crazy with it can have their Chase accounts closed. This should be obvious, but when you don’t use your Ink card for anything but buying Vanilla Reload cards, you’re shining a very bright light on your activities. Anyway, it’s really early in the game for this, so more updates to come.
**Edit: Vanilla Reload cards have been pulled from Office Depot but can be found at many CVS and Walgreens locations.**
