Find the best credit card offers online.In a show of ingenuity which is fast becoming common as the economic crisis continues, consumers found a way to exploit a recent U.S. Mint program in order to earn frequent flier miles without having to spend a single cent. Unfortunately, the U.S. Mint got wise to the scheme quickly enough and blocked it.
In June 2008, the U.S. Mint launched their “direct ship” program to sell dollar coins directly to U.S. consumers. The goal was to increase the usage of the dollar coins which lasts longer than the traditional paper currency. The program allowed people to purchase a maximum of 500 coins of each of the five presidential dollar coins that the mint issued. The coins were available with the faces of presidents Jackson, Madison, John Adams, Jefferson and Washington. The U.S. Mint also offered a sixth coin which featured the image of Sacagaewa, the famous Shoshone woman who led Lewis and Clark in their expedition. The mint placed no limits on the purchasing of this coin. Consumers could buy the coins using their credit cards and the U.S. Mint even shipped the coins free of charge in the continental U.S.
Sharp thinking credit card holders who were subscribed to frequent flier programs soon got the idea to use the U.S. Mint’s program to earn themselves flier miles without having to spend a single cent. The idea was to buy the new coins with their credit cards so that they could accumulate reward points. After purchasing the coins, they would then deposit the coins in a bank and pay off the resulting balance from the deposit. In some cases, there were small charges for counting the coins but a lot of banks also offered the service for free.
The scheme is simple enough. By spending more on their credit cards, consumers got reward points. Since what they are purchasing is currency, consumers can use what they purchased to pay back the resulting credit card balance. The net effect was that credit card holders lost no money but gained rewards points.
The U.S. Mint has written letters to around seventy five credit card holders who may have used the scheme to collect reward points since November. According to Tom Jurkowsky, U.S. Mint spokesman, what the credit card holders are doing is not the right thing to do. He adds that it is not what the program was meant for.
Credit card holders who got into the scheme actually broke no laws, officials of the U.S. Mint said. However, the scheme directly conflicts with the intentions of the Mint’s program which was to increase the circulation of the coins. The U.S. Mint now has a program which distributes the dollar coins directly to banks.
