And now for the cherry on top
As if the dwindling of Moneypaks, and the shutdown of Loyal3 weren’t enough, we find out that the lowest of low hanging fruits has started to rot on the vine.
Amazon payments checked most of the boxes for an ideal manufactured spending vehicle.
It was easy, lucrative, and free. (The only downside is that it was not scalable.)
Every month one could send $1000 of credit card spending to a friend or spouse’s account for free. Said money could then be whisked right into a bank account with a few key strokes.
There were no fees associated with it and the manufactured spender never even had to leave his house.
It was a terrific way to liquidate gift cards that had suddenly become obsolete (like when Onevanilla cards stopped being able to be swipe-loaded onto Bluebird Cards at Walmart.)
But the news spread like wild fire across the travel hacking blogosphere. As of October 13th you will no longer be able to send money between accounts using Amazon payments.
Such is the miles game.
And the reason why I felt this depressing news was worth a separate post was simple.
I believe the advanced warning of Amazon payment’s demise constitutes actionable intelligence.
Since the game is up on October 13 there is but one logical next step: Round trip Amazon payments for September and October.
I will be sending $1000 to my wife who will be sending $1000 back to me each of the next two months.
After all $4000 of manufactured spending for free is better than $2000 of manufactured spending for free.
And since Amazon payments is dead anyway on October 13 there is literally nothing to lose by getting a little bit more aggressive with it.
Amazonia, you were fun while you lasted. And frankly, I’m suprised you lasted this long.
