A $15,000 per Month MS Play at 0.5% from Home

Thanks again for being a Miles Earn and Burn subscriber. I wanted to share another technique which isn't really public, but is a bastion of at home manufactured spend and has been for several years.

Have you heard of Western Union? I'm assuming the answer is a resounding "yes".  They've been around for literally 170 years, and their presence is global. There are MS techniques head on with Western Union, but generally they're harder and less lucrative than other plays and it's only tangentially related to the actual subject of this method.

Have you heard of Vigo? Here, I'm guessing the answer is mostly "no". For whatever reason, a few years ago Western Union decided that it wanted to get into the more modern, mobile-app based person-to-person payment game, and they decided that it had to be marketed under a name other than Western Union because reasons. You can find this mobile app on both the Google Play store and Apple App Store.

So, what's the nitty gritty? Vigo will let you send payments of up to $999 a whack to another person via ACH with a credit card for a flat fee of $4.99. (0.5%) Great! But, there are a few things to watch out for:

• If you scale this play too quickly, you'll get a "know your customer/KYC" request from WU and it can be difficult to avoid a shutdown when this happens
• American Express cards aren't accepted at all
• Some Visas cash advance
• I don't know of any Mastercards that cash advance
• Mastercard gift cards can be cashed out using this platform
• You can only switch your payment method three times every 30 days
• There is a limit of $7,500 per recipient per month, and a total limit of $15,000 per month

If you can work within that framework, this can be a goldmine. I would suggest spinning up a few local credit union bank accounts as your ACH targets. I'd pay each of them no more than once or twice during your first month, and slowly scale that up over the course of six months. 

How do I handle the recipients? In case WU/Vigo ever asks I use real names in my household for the payees, though so far they've never asked after more than a year of hitting it. By the way, the bank accounts are in my name but I certainly don't tell that to WU/Vigo. If they ever ask for validation on the bank side, I'd add my P2/P3 to the account and then send in a statement.

One final caveat: it is possible to pay yourself through Vigo, but I personally think that's a bit too risky if you ever get eyes on the account. I'm sure I could make something up about business expenses or budgeting if they questioned me about it, but it's a hard sell in my mind. Keeping eyes off of the account seems more valuable than the ease of putting my own name in the app.

Thanks for all your support, and there are more plays out there, don't assume this is the only. one!

Matt