How To Manufacture Spend

Manufactured Spend is the process of using your credit card to purchase items that can easily be converted back into cash. This allows you to meet spending requirements and to earn rewards without actually spending any real money, or at least spending very little money.

Plastiq (Codes as Travel for Chase Ultimate Rewards or Citi ThankYou Points)

Volume: Your rent or mortgage payment
Fees: 2.5%
Limits: Monthly, or however often you pay your rent or mortgage

Plastiq is a billpay service that allows you to pay virtually any business with a credit card. There is a 2.5% fee, though, which means that in most cases, the service is too expensive. An exception to this is using a credit card that earns greater than 2.5% cash back or its equivalent in points (BankAmericard Travel Rewards Card w/ Platinum Honors, Alliant Visa Signature Credit Card – first year only, Discover it Miles Credit Card – first year only).

Another exception, which is the main point of this section, is that rent and mortgage payments have been triggering category bonus points for many cards, usually due to being coded as travel. While not quite manufactured spending due to the need for legitimate billers to send payments to, this is still a useful strategy for racking up Ultimate Rewards or ThankYou Points if you use one of the cards below:

3x: Chase Sapphire Reserve (Ultimate Rewards) 3x: Chase Ink Preferred (Ultimate Rewards) 3x: Citi AT&T Access More (ThankYou Points)

2x: Chase Sapphire Preferred (Ultimate Rewards)

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