Meeting Minimum Spend Thresholds with Amazon Payments

Over the last week, I posted a few times on my latest round of credit card applications here, here, and here.  One of the common questions around periodically signing up for credit cards centers around the minimum spend thresholds (i.e. spend $3,000 in 90 days to get xyz).  At first, I had no idea how some people would obtain five new credit cards requiring them to spend $15,000 in 3 months.  Were they actually spending $5,000 per month or were they figuring out other ways to meet the threshold?

One trick I've learned over the last year is leveraging Amazon Payments.  Amazon has a payments service where they will allow you to send up to $1,000 in a calendar month to another person with their own (Amazon) account...on a credit card...for free.  So on the first of each month I send $1,000 to Emily and she sends $1,000 to me.  This process takes us about five minutes per month.

The money hits the Amazon Payments account pretty much instantly and then you can withdraw the money to your checking account. The withdrawal typically funds the next day.  Using this method, we can "manufacture" $2,000/month in spend which makes it far easier to hit some of the spend thresholds without spending more than we normally would.  This also represents $24,000 in incremental annual spend.  At one point per dollar, you're essentially earning a free domestic ticket (25,000 miles) on most major airlines each year.

Admittedly, this is more of an "intermediate" trick.  I have never had any issues but have read about people getting shutdown for abusing the platform.  For example, you wouldn't want to have two accounts yourself but from what I understand, it is within the rules for two people in the same household to each have an account.

If you are interested in a step-by-step guide on how to do this, just let me know in the comments below.  It is really pretty simple and a great tool to help reach minimum spend thresholds which ultimately leads to more points and miles and a great (and mostly free) trip!