And what might the links to these forums be? My Google-fu seems to be weak.

This link has a few more details on the process: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/1008566-us-mint-presidential-native-american-dollar-coin-faq.html

I also found where you can buy the coins: http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&identifier=8100

They mention in the forums that the boxes of presidential coins are limited to 2 of each president per order, but I guess previously you could order up to 99 of the Sacagwea dollars. According to the forums, this is apparently necessary for the US Mint to distribute the dollar coins from an act passed in 2005. The main benefit is that dollar coins last longer than paper dollars.

The forums list a few other ways it's possible to make a zero-sum purchase, but they're significantly more difficult. I wonder if it would be possible to purchase pre-paid credit cards and pay off the credit card bills with them.

Dollar coins save the country money because they can last 30 years or more and can be recycled, the Mint says. A paper dollar in circulation lasts only about 21 months, says the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The free-shipping program is meant to put more coins into day-to-day use.

So stop printing dollar bills and only issue dollar coins. Presumably it's cheaper to ship tons of coins in bulk to banks than it is to ship them to individuals.

Oh, and ditch the penny.

I love dollar coins so much better than bills. Just stop printing the bills already. People will complain for about 6 months and then they'll forget what all the fuss was about.

That being said, the Presidential Dollar Coin series is weak. The portraits look a little cartoony, and with so much info pushed onto the edge of the coin, the faces are so bare that they look like tokens.

The Sacagawea dollars are much better, and the ones with the Three Sisters agriculture on the reverse are cool.

This is like those stories about coupon commanders who pull off insane savings at the grocery store: I believe it. I just don't see myself pulling it off any time soon.

Does anyone know if there are similar hacks for the UK?

Is it normal for US credit cards not to charge for cash?

My UK credit card has no charge for using it for purchases, but if I get cash -- from at ATM, or in a more inventive way -- I get charged an extra fee.

xaxa,

They aren't using the cash advance feature of their cards - they are going to the mint's web site and ordering boxes of coins.

"I love hanging out in airmile hacker forums -- these folks are insane. My favorite is the British Airways "Lisbon Loop.""

Ugh. Why didn't you post about these forums a year ago??

It's the same in the US if you are getting cash directly from an ATM or a bank, but for some reason I guess the dollar coins count as goods. I would expect that this will be changed very soon.

XAXA: The reason they're ordering the coins this way is for some reason it doesn't count as cash.

"Just stop printing the bills already. People will complain for about 6 months and then they'll forget what all the fuss was about."

What will we stuff into lady's g-strings? FIVE dollar bills!? Sheesh.

When I heard about "cashback on purchases" credit card, the first thing I thought about was whether I could use one to essentially buy money on credit, use it to pay back the credit card bill, and pocket the cashback.

I never gave it much thought, since I figured that the T&C's would allow the bank to cancel the card. Or else, that there would be some weasel way of giving cashback that limited the total amount you could get.

I then realised that buying money with a credit card is much more difficult than you would think. I wonder if you can use a credit card to buy a stable, liquid, near-cash financial instrument, like a government bond.

You all say dollar coins are fine, but only a Canadian could understand the hardships of coins. We have $1 and $2 coins, the smallest bill being $5. Store nsver have the $10 bills, and when they run out of $5 bills, you're often left getting $7 in change from some purchases. This can build up really fast if you don't keep it in check. It's not uncommon that I end up with a kilo of change sitting in my bike panier from various purchases.

Also, the latest hack I've though of. I know a guy who gets air miles on all his debit card transactions. And Walmart and many other stores give cashback option when you buy something. So go out and buy a loaf of bread, and get $100 cash back. Then drop the $100 directly into your account. Free airmiles. You could probably do this every day, if you use the self checkout, and nobody would notice.

They had a story about this on the Consumerist a while back, except instead of air miles it was about cash-back awards.

The most glaring problem was that you need to have a pretty big credit limit in order for this to work.

Also, they say that a box of $2500 weighs 50 lbs. That means that 70,000 weighs 1,400 lbs!!!

What will we stuff into lady's g-strings? FIVE dollar bills!? Sheesh.

Canadian stripclubs have mostly solved this problem by changing the etiquette. You do indeed use a 5$ bill, or even a 10$ or 20$ - just not on every dance.

Although I'm sort of surprised that some clubs haven't introduced a "house currency" like casino tokens (but paper) that you buy at the door and use. I'd make them out of plastic, so they're more durable.

If Canadian Tire can do it for cash transactions in the 5c and 10c range...

Saw a report once where people bought no fee travellers checks at AAA with credit cards, then deposited them and paid the credit card bill. Said the biggest problem was writers cramp from signing all the travellers checks.

1 and 2 euros coins are a good thing, eurois bills have an holographic band and a metallic wire, somethin that is not possible smaller bills.
an more, coins are not damaged by laundry..... ;)

That depends where in Canada you are visiting a strip club. In Alberta they have this whole routine where the dancer mopes around the stage for a song or two, then approaches customers in "Pervert's Row" for the coin game. The coin game varies, but essentially it involves men tossing coins at a sticker or business card located in a provocative area of the dancer's body. If the customer can hit the target with their coin, they can receive a prize, such as a poster of the dancer, or a novelty lighter or something.
There are few things more depressing than watching a group of guys hooting and hollering while whipping loonies at a disinterested stripper.

There are few things more depressing than watching a group of guys hooting and hollering while whipping loonies at a disinterested stripper.

Because you start wondering what you yourself are doing there in the first place?

I would assume he's playing the piano.

Aren't "provocative areas" generally also fairly sensitive areas? Loonies have some heft to 'em. Which is to say, ouch.

Actually yeah, you hit the nail on the head. I used to travel a lot for work, and every once in a while my colleagues would get all riled up and need to look at some boobies. Now I love boobs, but strip clubs aren't really my thing. But sometimes you have to be a "Team Player" and tag along on those kind of outings. Strip clubs in general are kinda depressing, but that coin game, WTF?

Depositing $70,000 worth of US currency in small batches to avoid reporting requirements is a crime called 'structuring'. Title 31 USC section 5324. Wonder how many suspicious activity reports have already been filed about him.

And since nothing is truly free, other fliers are essentially footing the bill for these maniacal flier mile folks. It's like the whole taxpayer-welfare argument, only applied to travelers.

Or am I misunderstanding how these miles are paid for?

The miles are paid for by the credit card companies in order to boost card usage, not by the airlines.

So it would be more accurate to say that you will be paying for these with steeper fees and rates for your credit cards, but that's probably pretty unlikely as well.

"The miles are paid for by the credit card companies in order to boost card usage, not by the airlines."

Oh, good! We don't pay any interest on our cards, so no foul there.

I remember hearing about a similar hack many years ago: A guy went to his bank and used an air miles credit card to buy a $10,000 money order. He then deposited the money order into his checking account and wrote a check to pay off his credit card. He did this a number of times and racked up tons of free air miles. From what I remember, the bank/airlines put a stop to this pretty quickly.

9 years ago it was pudding. 50 free miles on each 25 cent pudding cup during a 2 for 1 miles period. These people are a particular brand of crazy.

http://www.frequentflier.com/ff022200.htm

"In the end, he was able to buy 12,000 cups of pudding, for $3,000. That translates into more than 1.2 million miles, redeemable for 48 free domestic tickets, worth approximately $20,000. Parlaying $3,000 worth of pudding into $20,000 worth of travel is a nice bit of arbitrage, in anybody's book."

People complain about frequent flier programs and similar, but this is why I like them. A simple "We're just going to give you 10% off" program would be almost impossible to legally hack. Businesses start a points program, think "oh geez, this is too easy to use, we're losing money!" so they change it to make it complicated. (See Starbucks recent change from "10% off" to "You magically earn fairy dust" program.) But when they make it more complex they lose their ability to successfully track how it's used. Which opens up unlimited opportunities like this. The more obscure and labyrinthine 'reward' systems that companies put in place, the more reason and ability customers have to take advantage of them.

These miles are being paid for by the US tax payer. As the Mint will have to pay the merchant fee of 1-3% on the transaction, this fee is what pays for the miles.

The first thing I did after reading this was check out the Canadian mints website. No luck there.

"Oh, good! We don't pay any interest on our cards, so no foul there."

No, someone gets screwed... and it's not the airline, the bank, or the person... it's (you guessed it) the American taxpayer. So here's how it works. When you buys something with a credit card, the person selling the item only gets about 97% of the revenue. The other 3% goes to the processor and the card issuer. The card issuers are paying for the airline mileage out of the 3%, the airlines are getting paid whatever they negotiated per mile, the purchaser is getting their airline miles... and the US Mint is selling $1 for 97 cents.

I went to the mint's site and it says

"The purchase of $1 coins under the Circulating $1 Coin Direct Ship Program is a cash equivalent or cash-like transaction. Ordinarily, such purchases are not eligible for credit card rewards, cash-back, cash rebate, and similar programs. Check with your card issuer for its terms and conditions."

Which is a bummer, I'm always a day late and dollar (or point) short.

http://bit.ly/6Mp5vD

Well the Mint is getting screwed regardless of who buys them. Presumably the 97 cents on the dollar is worthwhile to get paper dollars out of circulation.

As long as the mint isn't taking them back from the banks (i.e. taking the paper and leaving the coin) then it makes sense. (Or might make sense if selling the dollar at 97 cents could make sense in any event.)

Scott that real frequent flyer program hack inspired a plot element in the 2002 Adam Sandler movie Punch Drunk Love.

Yeah, it's a dehumanizing activity from the coin throwing to watching a girl on stage collect all of the loonies right before she goes off-stage. Lap dances are illegal in Alberta, so the loonie throwing thing was supposed to be a compromise.

The US Treasury Dept used to allow a similar, though not so cool hack. They would allow you to buy I-Bonds, up to $30k a year with your plastic. In two years I bought $50k, or two round trip tickets from JFK to YVR.

Are you saying, cantfight, that the whole experience of a strip club from entry to exit is dehumanising? In which case I agree with you.

These miles are being paid for by the US tax payer.... the US Mint is selling $1 for 97 cents.

Yes, but they are letting people do this anyway, regardless of the airmiles scam. If they chose to allow people to buy money at face-value using credit cards, then they know what their doing -- whether what they're doing makes any sense or not.

My guess is that they decided that the cost-benefit to the American economy of having money that didn't disintegrate was worth it to them. Either way, apparently it's required by a 2005 Act of Congress, according to Dean Putney above.

Plastic money is the way to go, just like Australia and New Zealand use. It's very durable!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_dollar#Banknotes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_dollar#Polymer_series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=YTggA4jVPj0

Fascinating process of production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=YTggA4jVPj0

Well yes, but I meant that the coin-throwing was more dehumanizing than the usual fare.

The mint is so not getting screwed. The mint could, in theory, stamp as many coins as it liked. Even if it sold them for $.50, the money they receive would still be mostly profit. This is called seignorage and it is one of the ways that governments get revenue.

"What will we stuff into lady's g-strings? FIVE dollar bills!? Sheesh."

I've heard that a number of strip clubs will give change in $2 bills. Seems like a reasonable compromise, and the girls get a raise.

Why is the US Govt paying 3% merchant fee. With their volume, they should be able to negotiate down to less than 1%.

It's much easier to make fake coins than paper money. Over here in Malaysia, our government had the same idea. The $1 was introduced because the $1 note was not lasting long enough. However, it was withdrawn after only a few years. There were too many fake coins in circulation. There's now talk of fake $0.50 and $0.20 coins. The exchange rate being $3.4 to US$1, I'm sure it would be very worthwhile to make fake US$1 coins.

Oh, and people depositing thousands of coins in banks may not normally attract attention. Some businesses do that, like car park and vending machine operators.

They closed the traveler's check loophole YEARS ago.

Its really awful to see that crimes has increased a lot. People are being fooled and then they are looted. Credit card frauds are really increased. There should be a check on these things.

The US Mint ship all coins Fed-X next Day Air, yes you get them before 10:30

Are we still using paper and metal money? Doesn't everyone have an iphone by now? Just get the chip implant and join the rest of the world, ass...