As Good As Sherlock? Detective Work For More Points!

I recently watched this BBC series and I strongly suggest that you check it out. What does this series have to do with miles and points earning? If you have been keeping up with the blog, you would know from my Jump off it? post that the Vanilla Ink Bold strategy is dead. After some detective work of my own, I have found a possible way to collect Chase Ultimate Rewards points at almost the same cost as the Vanilla Ink bold strategy, with only a little more convenience. I'm not going to lie. I totally thought myself to be Sherlock when I was doing the research; albeit Asian, less smart, and less witty. But hey, who's judging?



Browsing the Flyer Talk forums, a poster mentioned that he/she found another way of leveraging Vanilla's costing $40 per 100k miles more then the OD, which was worth it due to the convenience. They would not divulge the strategy, but said it was right there in the Terms and Conditions of the Ink card, and we should be able to figure it out if we tried. So I consulted my cousin to solve the mystery out!

First we went to the terms and conditions, specifically the earning bonus's for the Ink Bold card. 5x on office supplies, phone, cable/tv, 2x on hotel and gas. So what did we deduce where the leverage was? The 2x bonus categories.

What popped out at me was "convenience" (told you, detective work). The Vanilla Ink Bold strategy turned people away due to its complexity; 2 different stores (Office Depot/CVS); not to mention, availability of those stores and finding a CVS that accepts credit for Vanilla purchases. Only two possible options were in front of us, hotel spend or gas spend. There are hotel gift cards, but we wouldn't be able to unload those. Gas stations on the other hand have "convenient" stores, with some of them listed as sellers at the Vanilla Reload website www.vanillareload.com. That was the answer!

The Math

If we were to load a Vanilla for $500 at CVS earning 1 pt/dollar, we would get 500 points for $3.95 (cost of activating the card). Or $3.95/500 = 0.79 of a penny per point.

But remember, with the Vanilla Ink Bold strategy of 5 pt/dollar, each point costs about 0.35 of a penny.

Now we will be earning 2x (instead of 5x) points per dollar. That sets us at $3.95/(500x2) = 0.39 cents a point. Exactly 0.04 of a penny more than the Vanilla ink bold strategy, or $40 more per 100k points bought.

In Other Words...

If the original Vanilla Ink Bold strategy allowed us to buy a Business Class roundtrip ticket for about $360 to Asia, this new strategy will cost us 40 bucks more—or a grand total of $400. But it is a heck of a lot more convenient.

This experience has really defined what miles and points collection has become to me, a game or mystery that needs to be solved! Next post, "The Great Game" of confirming this theory!

It really is just elementary.