Essential Blogs & Forums To Read If You Manufacture Spend Or Want To Learn

Manufactured spending (purchasing cash equivalents like gift cards and then unloading them into cash) is something that a lot of people want to learn about or increase their volume/profit if they already know the basics, it makes hitting sign up bonuses on credit cards much easier and there is also a lot of profit to be made on cards with category bonuses. I thought it’d be useful to list a number of blogs, forums & newsletters that post information in regards to this topic.

Disclaimer: I no longer subscribe to any newsletters or participate in private forums. While I could undoubtedly learn a lot from these resources, I made the decision to remove myself from them to avoid any accusations of stolen content. That being said, I highly recommend that you participate.

Blogs

To get the most out of the following blogs, I’d recommend that you add them to an RSS reader (like Feedly) and also follow them on Twitter. I’ve include the URLs to the homepage’s of the blogs below (just click the blog name) and also their Twitter accounts.

  • Frequent Miler/Twitter. Greg is the Godfather of manufactured spending and somebody I’ve personally learned a lot from. If you’re just starting out, then he has an amazing resource page that I can highly recommend. If you’re only going to follow one blog, this is the one you should be following.
  • Miles to Memories/Twitter. Shawn posts a lot of good information about manufactured spending on a consistent basis.
  • Saverocity Blogs/Twitter. There are a number of blogs on the Saverocity platform, not all of them post about manufactured spending regularly but the content quality is usually high. You can grab the RSS feed of the main site, or just focus on the blogs listed below.
    • Chasing The Points/Twitter. Main focus now is on Gift card reselling, but often posts other cryptic information which usually isn’t too hard to figure out.
    • Big Habitat/Twitter. Isn’t a true manufactured spending website, real focus is on reselling but if that’s your thing or you want to find some good deals here is the site for you.
  • Freequent Flyer/Twitter. Most of the good information is contained to his paid newsletter (see below), but there is still a lot of good information that can be found publicly on his blog.
  • Travel With Grant/Twitter. Grant doesn’t post as much as he used to, but there are still plenty of good nuggets to find when he does post. He also often holds free meet ups (usually around San Francisco).
  • Money Metagame/Twitter. A new comer in the blogging world, but really knows his stuff when it comes to gift card reselling.

Forums

  • Flyertalk Manufactured spending forum. This is a public forum with a lot of information and data points, there isn’t as many new unloading methods post as there were previously, but for existing methods there is a lot of information. The only problem is wading through all this info for what you really want.
  • Reddit.com/r/churning. Another free forum, doesn’t focus solely on manufactured spending (it’s on all aspects of credit card churning) but there are often really good pieces of advice and walk throughs for the bigger manufactured spending methods. Spend some time reading through the linked items in the side bar before getting started. If you have a stupid question or two, you can always ask those in ‘Moronic Monday’ threads.
  • Saverocity forums. Saverocity offers a public forum and also a level two forum, almost all of the manufactured spending information is found in level two. Start with the Bootcamp and then you should be able to graduate to level two.
  • Travel Codex forums. Similar to Saverocity, there are two levels (one is public and the other is private, you’re automatically upgraded to the private forum after a certain level of participation). Lots of good information is shared here.

In addition to the forums listed above, there are also a bunch of other ‘secret’/’private’ forums, these are usually invitation only. The best way to get invited is to find deals yourself and post useful information in the more public forums.

Newsletters

  • Freequent Flyer. As mentioned previously Freequent Flyer offers a paid newsletter with a lot of information regarding manufactured spending. It costs $10 a month, but I found the information it contained well worth it. If you’re just starting out, use the free resources first because there will be more than enough to keep you busy (reading, learning, testing slowly).

Final Thoughts

To get the most out of manufactured spending, it’s a good idea to also attend various events (I’ve had nothing but positive reports about the DO’s that Saverocity put on) and meet up with people in real life. Generally the really good information is shared in person.

It’s really important that you put effort into manufactured spending, don’t just ask questions without doing some research first. People are usually happy to help, but it’s always easier to help somebody that has done their research first rather than asking basic questions that have already been answered. If you can start finding your own deals/opportunities as well, then people are more likely to share deals that they’ve also found.

We typically don’t post about manufactured spending on this blog anymore, but we often post about opportunities in our free newsletter so if you haven’t already signed up I’d recommend doing so.

I’m 100% certain that I’ve left out several good resources and I’m relying on you my trusty readers to let me know what they are. If you think a forum/blog/newsletter is useful, then please let me know in the comments and if I agree I’ll add it.

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14 Comments
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P916
P916 (@guest_1249120)
September 6, 2021 10:44

All of the forums are dead. Is MS done, or has it gone into private forums? I started in 2009, and never thought MS would completely disappear. 🙁

Abey
Abey (@guest_335347)
January 7, 2017 17:33

Glad i found this post.
Thank you very much.

Roland - Mutschleredgetech.com
October 13, 2015 01:24

I am agree with you. In manufacture spending, our knowledge resources play an essensial part on our success, and your lists are being helpful certainly. I will check them out. Thank you William.

Dave
Dave (@guest_154486)
August 3, 2015 13:27

Freequent Flyer newsletter is $15 per month, not $10.

Peter
Peter (@guest_152630)
July 30, 2015 10:17

Miles per day is a good one too!

NetSpender
NetSpender (@guest_151913)
July 29, 2015 02:17

If you are following Freq Miler and/or Miles to Memories then youve already lost. Godfather of MS? Utterly stupefying.

Pats
Pats (@guest_151817)
July 28, 2015 21:51

This is a great post. DoC is a must read and is the first blog I check each day!

Scottrick
Scottrick (@guest_151805)
July 28, 2015 21:09

As a correction, an invitation is not required to access some of the “upgraded” areas of the Travel Codex forum. It’s a participation-based upgrade. Members earn points for posting comments and when those comments are posted by other members. Earn enough points at the system automatically assigns an upgrade. It’s about as unbiased as it gets.

VM
VM (@guest_151588)
July 28, 2015 11:37

I have subscribed to newsletter but never received anything other that daily blog posts!

Raj
Raj (@guest_151842)
July 28, 2015 22:57
  VM

Which newsletter are you talking about?

Oren
Oren (@guest_151584)
July 28, 2015 11:29

Great list. One day I hope to make it here!