Manufacture spending online is incredibly easy and worth the time savings when done right. In this post, you’ll learn the best credit card minimum spend tricks without having to leave your home.
The best way to manufacture spend is with low effort and low costs. It’s not always possible, but there are ways to make money while completing your credit card minimum spend requirements.
Manufacture spending is a way of spending money without actually losing money. This is done to meet credit card bonus minimum spend and to take advantage of cashback promotions based on specific merchant categories. Many people want to learn how to manufacture spend because it saves them a lot of money instead of wasting it on useless purchases. By earning these bonuses at a low cost (or zero cost!), MS’ers benefit with bonuses like bank points, cashback, hotel points and frequent flyer miles. Each of those can vary in value, but by far your best deal is getting to fly in first class and staying in luxury hotel suites.
9 Ways to Manufacture Spend To Get Your Credit Card Bonus
#1 Rebate Key for free spend and free stuff
- Difficulty: Easy
- Costs: None
- Time: 35 days to get your money back
- Monthly Spend Amounts: $1000
- Sign Up: Rebate Key
What is Rebate Key? Rebate Key is a platform that helps Amazon sellers rank their products. Sellers want to get their product on the first page of the Amazon search results so they need to a lot of sales. They give their products away for free or discounted on Rebate Key.
How does Rebate Key work for manufactured spend? You will make a purchase using the links on the Rebate Key Platform. After the purchase, you will need to submit your order number. After 35 days, Rebate Key will send you the money for your purchases. The 35-day limit is because Amazon has a 30-day return policy. They don’t want to see you returning the product. You can help the sellers out by leaving them a review too.
What are the fees? There are no fees to use Rebate Key.
What are the limitations? If you need to complete a big credit card spend requirement, using Rebate Key will be time-consuming and slow for manufacture spending. You are limited to 5 purchases a day and a limit of 50 purchases per month. At an average of $20/purchase, that’s $1000 a month in manufactured spend. I just target the 100% discount offers with the highest prices for the best returns.
Overall Thoughts: Rebate Key is an easy way to rack up credit card spend with no fees. The only problem is that it can be time consuming to make a lot of little purchases and you’ll have a lot of stuff you don’t need. You can always give these products away, sell them or donate them. In the end, you’ll come out way ahead.
#2 Use PayPal and Venmo to indirectly send yourself money
- Difficulty: Easy
- Costs: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
- Time: 5 days to transfer your money back into your bank
- Monthly Spend Amounts: $1000
- Sign Up: PayPal / Venmo
What is PayPal/Venmo? PayPal is an online payment service used as a way to protect your purchases without revealing your credit card to merchants. Venmo is a subsidiary of PayPal and Venmo is marketed to a younger audience as a way to transfer money between friends. PayPal and Venmo work the same and are the same company.
How does PayPal work for manufactured spend? You can use PayPal to meet minimum spend requirements by sending money to a person you trust that will later give you cash. After sending the person you trust with money, they can then send you that money back. I send my brother money using PayPal and he sends it back using Chase’s Zelle money transfer app.
What are the fees? When you use PayPal to send money, make sure to select that you are “Paying for goods/services.” This will include a 2.9% merchant fee + $0.30 per transaction for the credit card transaction, but it will register as a purchase. If you select that you are sending money to a friend/family member, you may be charged a cash advance. The 2.9% merchant fee + $0.30 per transaction is unavoidable with PayPal if you want the transaction to registers as a purchase.
What are the limitations? PayPal constantly shuts down accounts for suspicious activity even if it’s a legitimate transaction. Many people don’t have much luck in reinstating their PayPal accounts and consider the money in their accounts as lost. With that said, you need to build a history of sending money with PayPal. Start with sending $200/month for several months before moving up to $500 and then $1000. I’ve had a long history with PayPal and have successfully transferred $3000 in one month using 3 $1000 payments.
Overall thoughts: Using PayPal to meet minimum spend is high risk, low reward but also very low effort. This is one of my favorite credit card minimum spend tricks because I’m lazy. Low effort it worth it to me. I only use PayPal for good credit card sign up bonuses because the 2.9% fee can eat into your bonus amount.
#3 Buy Cryptocurrency with your credit card then convert it to cash
- Difficulty: Easy
- Costs: 5% and can vary depending on when you sell
- Time: 5 days to transfer your money back to your bank
- Monthly Spend Amounts: Unlimited
- Sign up: Coinbase ($10 free in crypto)
What is cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency (also known as “crypto”) is a digital currency you can use online. All cryptocurrency is made on a blockchain which is a digital ledger of all the transactions that occur. The most popular cryptocurrency is Bitcoin follow by Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple. There are thousands of cryptocurrencies but you should only bother with the ones that you can buy with a credit card.
How does cryptocurrency work for manufactured spend? You can buy Bitcoin with a credit card (future post will go into great detail) and then sell that Bitcoin back into its digital USD cash value. Once you have converted the Bitcoin back into USD in your account, you can then transfer that money back into your bank account.
What are the fees? Fees for buying Bitcoin with a credit card can range anywhere from 3% to 10%. Coinbase is one of the easiest websites to use, but you’ll see a significant difference between their buy and sell price for Bitcoin when compared to the market rate. In addition to the purchase fees for Bitcoin, it’s a volatile currency that can go 5% up or down in a matter of minutes.
What are the limitations? Not all credit cards allow you to buy Bitcoin. It depends on the platform so if your transaction fails you might have better luck with different cryptocurrency exchanges. You’ll also need to make sure you don’t get charged a cash advance fee. If you do, you can call the bank to get it waived (one time). Some crypto exchanges operate internationally so you might also incur a foreign exchange fee if your credit card doesn’t already waive those.
Overall thoughts: Cryptocurrency is pretty dangerous to use for most people that aren’t tech friendly. It takes time to learn how to properly secure your account so you don’t get scammed. The safest way to manufacture spend with cryptocurrency is to buy in and cash out quickly. Never sell or buy at “market price” but always set a limit since the price can change wildly. Coinbase is easy and safe to use, but they charge high transaction fees with not the best buy/sell rates.
#4 Pay bills with Plastiq
- Difficulty: Easy
- Costs: 2.5% and can be lower depending on various promotions
- Time: You are only paying for services and not getting your money back
- Monthly Spend Amounts: Unlimited
- Sign up: Referral Link (get 100FFDs)
What is Plastiq? Plastiq is a payment platform that allows you to pay your rent, utility bills and/or loans with a credit card. You can’t actually convert your bill payments back into cash like other types of manufacture spend, but if you need to pay these bills anyway it’s an easy way to get more credit card spend.
How does Plastiq work? Plastiq allows you to pay a bill with a credit card (for a fee). After you make your payment through Plastiq, Plastiq will mail a physical check to the person you are paying off. Typically, this is done for loans, rent and utility bills. You can’t use Plastiq to directly pay your credit card bills and you cannot use Plastiq to send checks to unverified businesses.
What are the fees? Payments with Plastiq have a 2.5% fee for American Express, Mastercard, and Visa. Plastiq does have a referral system where you can reduce your fees by referring more people to the platform. This can help you bring down your manufacture spending costs.
What are the limitations? With Plastiq, you’re just paying bills with your credit card. You can’t actually convert your payments back into cash. Plastiq is only useful if you were going to make the payment anyway.
Overall thoughts: I’ve used Plastiq to pay my home mortgage to meet credit card minimum spend requirements. It’s a great way of meeting small spend requirements, but since you aren’t converting the payment back into cash, it’s not the best manufacturing method available.
#5 Fund Bank Accounts with your credit card
- Difficulty: Medium due to the amount of time, requirements and approval process
- Costs: None
- Time: 5 Days to transfer money back to your bank account
- Monthly Spend Amounts: Limited by each bank account terms
- Full list of banks: Doctor Of Credit
What is funding bank accounts with a credit card? Just like it sounds, you can actually fund a bank account with your credit card. Some banks range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars with no additional fees. Each bank may have different conditions for opening and keeping the account open. Here’s a detailed list of banks that allow you to fund them with a credit card: Doctor Of Credit
How do you fund a bank account with a credit card? You’ll first need to apply for a bank account and hopefully, they approve you. Many of the smaller banks may have limitations depending on your location. You can then fund your account without any fees using a credit card. Make sure to have your cash advance limit to $0 just in case it’s not charged as a purchase.
What are the fees? There are no fees to using a credit card to fund a bank account. You’ll only be charged a fee if your credit card reads the transaction as a cash advance. Make sure to set your card limits to $0 cash advance fees so it gets declined if the bank tries to run it as a cash advance.
What are the limitations? Funding a bank account with a credit card is limited by the amount that specifically allows you to deposit. The process of opening a bank account is time-consuming and there’s no guarantee you’ll be approved. Applying for most bank accounts (not credit cards) will result in a soft pull on your credit report. Moving money in and out of banks always takes several business days. You’ll also need to watch out for cash advance fees.
Overall Thoughts: I love opening up bank accounts that have a sign up bonus of at least $100. Free money is always good. Unfortunately, with these smaller banks that allow you to open a bank account with credit card funding, they will not have a sign up bonus in most cases. Since the application process is time consuming and your money can be held up for days, it might make more sense to just apply for bank accounts that give you a sign up bonus and take the free money. If you consider that $100 as profit, then use PayPal to send $3000 at a 2.9% fee, that’s going to cost you $87. That means any bank account you fund with a credit card should have an allowance of $3000 or more. If anything, it should at least cover the small spend credit card bonuses.
#6 GoFundYourself (GoFundMe)
- Difficulty: Medium, takes time to set up
- Costs: 2.5% and can be lower depending on various promotions
- Time: It could take a week or more to set up, fulfill and cash out a campaign.
- Monthly Spend Amounts: Unlimited
- Official Website: GoFundMe
What is GoFundMe? GoFundMe is a fundraising platform that allows you to fund ANY type of fundraiser. Many people use it to raise money for a cause, start a project, pay for a funeral, pay medical bills, and pretty much anything you would like to raise money for…even just for meeting a minimum spend requirement on a credit card.
How does GoFundMe work? GoFundMe is for raising money for different types of causes by sending in donations. Each donation has a fee but after that the money goes directly to the person who started the fundraiser. Manufacture spending with GoFundMe works a lot like PayPal, but will take a little more time to set up and might cost more as well.
What are the fees? GoFundMe likes to tell people they have a 0% platform fee, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have ANY fees to use them. Each transaction is automatically charge 2.9% and $0.30. So if you need to manufacture spend with GoFundMe $10,000 you would have incur $290.30 in transaction fees (if you did it in one transaction).
What are the limitations? I honestly have not tried this method to manufacture spend. I’ve always kept this option available to me in the event that I had to make a big spend and my usual MS routines were unavailable. For now, I’m still sticking to PayPal.
Overall Thoughts: Using GoFundMe definitely looks like a good option if you need to make a big spend requirement to meet your credit card minimum spend. I personally haven’t tried it yet but it’s not that difficult to try. Look forward to a future post where I try this out.
#7 Reselling for Manufacture Spending
- Difficulty: HARD
- Costs: Varies
- Time: Can take months to get your money back
- Monthly Spend Amounts: Unlimited
- Sign Up: Multiple ways depending on the platform
What is reselling? Reselling products is a very popular way to meet your credit card minimum spend. You can buy items that are on sale (think Black Friday and Amazon day) and then resell them when the prices go back to normal. Other things like sporting events, concerts and festivals are also popular to resell. I’ve reselling for popular concerts and music festivals to meet minimum spend requirements and have also made a little money in the process. You just need to target events that are very likely to sell out. Think of events like the Superbowl, Coachella, Olympics, Supreme drops, Nintendo Switch, and other highly sought after events.
How does reselling work? Just like it sounds, reselling is you buying a product and then selling it. Your money will be tied up in the purchase until you are able to sell it again. This comes with the chance of you not being able to sell it or possibly having to sell it for a lower value than what you had paid. BUT, if you happen to get tickets or a product that is sold out (think Nintendo Switch or Superbowl) then you can actually make money from reselling.
What are the fees? Reselling fees depends on the platform you are using. If you are reselling for a concert or sporting event, ticketing sites charge a lot of money in fees. For products being sold on Amazon or eBay, those also come with additional fees that can be in the 10-30% range. I highly recommend selling locally for CASH using Craigslist. Just be careful of scammers trying to get you to send them a “code” or sending you fake checks. There are A LOT of scams on Craigslist with ZERO buyer protection. That’s why you should only use it if you have educated yourself about all the common scams. Craigslist and Reddit have a running list of these and I HIGHLY recommend checking them out just for general safety when doing transactions online.
What are the limitations? You can do a lot of selling online when it comes to things like gift cards and concert/sports tickets, but your money might be tied up for days/weeks/months depending on how your pricing it. Some events always sell out so you could actually make money during the reselling process…but many platforms to sell items also take a percentage of the sale so you’ll have to look into how much money you’ll actually be making. If your reselling in a big city, you might also want to try Craigslist to sell the item locally for cash and you can avoid all the platform fees.
Overall Thoughts: I RARELY do any type of reselling just because it can be time consuming. Even though you can actually make money, it takes a lot of time to research items and events, try to be the first person who buys it, create sales pages, and set up the sale with the buyer. It’s great if that’s something you want to completely focus on, but if you’re in manufacture spending just to meet the bonus and move on, you don’t want to invest this much time and to have your money held up for long periods of time.
#8 Selling Amazon E-Gift Cards
- Difficulty: Medium
- Costs: Varies
- Time: Can take several weeks
- Monthly Spend Amounts: Probably $1000 (40 Amazon gift cards at $25 each) potentially higher
- Official Websites: Amazon / eBay
What are Amazon gift cards? You can buy digital gift cards directly from Amazon.com for the Amazon platform. Amazon sells a lot of different types of gift cards, but you want to only buy Amazon gift cards so you can sell them on eBay. You’ll want to buy Amazon gift cards between $25 to $100. You’ll notice that it’s much easier to sell the $25 and $50 gift cards. This makes manufacture spending with Amazon and eBay really time-consuming for multiple small amounts.
How does selling Amazon gift cards work? I know it sound strange to buy gift cards on eBay rather than just buying these gift cards directly from Amazon. You’ll even notice that these gift cards for sale cost even more than the value of the gift card. A $25 Amazon card can sell for $31 on eBay. The reason behind this is because eBay buyers gain a lot of “eBay Bucks” and want to spend it on something they’ll actually use. They are willing to take a small loss to have an Amazon gift card which is more useful to them. Basically, you just need to buy a gift card with your credit card on Amazon (no fees) then resell it on eBay.
What are the fees? There are no fees for buying gift cards on Amazon with a credit card but there are fees to sell products on eBay. Typically eBay takes 10% of the total sale (that’s a lot!). So you’ll need to sell a $100 gift card for $110 to break even.
What are the limitations? You’ll only be limited by the time it takes to sell the card and finding the right price you can sell your Amazon gift cards to at least break even.
Overall Thoughts: I think this is a great way to make a small amount of money slowly. Just by seeing the amount of listing for Amazon gift cards on eBay shows there's a lot of demand. Personally I haven't tried this because it seems to time consuming for small amounts of manufactured spending but I could be wrong. You'll need to be able to sell Amazon gift cards at 10% of their face value just to break even from the selling costs.
#9 Buying stocks with a credit card
- Difficulty: Easy (but high risk)
- Costs: 3% + $0.99 per transaction
- Time: 5-7 days
- Monthly Spend Amounts: Unlimited
- Sign Up: Full review here
What is Stockpile? Stockpile allow you to buy stocks with a credit card for a fee. The platform is super to be super easy to use which also means it comes with very limited features.
How does Stockpile work? To buy or sell a stock, all trades are completed at the end of the day. If you want to do a trade on the same day, you'll need to place your order in before 3pm EST otherwise the trade goes in the next day. This also means you have no price control. As for the time it takes, you'll spend 1 day buying a stock, 1 day to sell and then 3-5 days to transfer it to the bank. Potentially this can take up to 7 business days to get your money in and out of Stockpile to complete the manufacture spending process.
What are the fees? The fees vary depending on how you buy the stocks so I would recommend you just keep an account open for yourself. The lowest possible fees are 3% + $0.99 per trade. A trade is whenever you buy or sell a stock. If you are buying $1000 of stock, that's going to cost you $1030.99 to get $1000 of stock. Selling that stock at the same stock price will incur that $0.99 trade fee so you'll get back $999.01 (if you sell at the same price you bought the stock for). Of course, buying stocks can be VERY risky for your money.
TLDR
Manufacture spending online can vary depending on the process, fees, and time it takes to get your money back. There are many other ways to manufacture spend with western union, gift card churning, money orders, visa gift cards and so much more…but I don’t recommend any of those. They take a lot more physical effort and time because they involve you going to places to manufacture spend. I personally will take the easier route since you don’t have the risk of being robbed, denied, or scammed out of your belongings. I stopped doing manufacture spend in person due to these reasons. See: Credit card chargeback
Before using these manufacture spend strategies, I recommend looking at the credit tips you should know and credit mistakes you are making lessons before moving forward. You don't want to accidentally hurt your credit score when trying out these 8 ways to manufactures spend.
With each of these moderation is they key. Start with small amounts until you get comfortable with the process before moving on to larger amounts. There are still threshold to how much you can manufacture spend online, so read the tips above carefully so you don't end up with a frozen bank account an no money to payback your credit cards.
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