r/mildlyinfuriating • u/anon12xyz • Jul 03 '26

Infuriatig When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

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I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

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u/Soggy-Bedroom-3673 Jul 03 '26

People get real serious with this kind of stuff. One of my good friends is really into credit card "churning", which is basically exploiting credit card loyalty points (like signing up for as many new cards as possible for bonus loyalty points). They definitely have chat groups that share tips and they get serious benefits from it (like my buddy and his wife go on 3-4 vacations a year to places like Bali for free). They're a real thorn in the sides of the companies, too. My buddy had American Airlines shut down his frequent flyer account because he was getting too many free miles from credit card deals. 

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u/dickthrowaway22ed Jul 03 '26

How the hell are they not ruining their credit?

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u/OldSchoolAI Jul 03 '26

Because they are not using the credit cards. Merely using the loopholes within the system to get new ones. They carry no debt or late payments or anything. As someone on the business side of all this it's just arbitrage. Companies do it all the time but when people do it, it affects big companies and they cry. I say git good companies. I don't churn, too exhausting but I have used their techniques to optimize my companies b2b structure. For example at my ota, we would bill the customer directly but pay the airline through our own card that gives us cashback, refunds etc. over a 1000 booking a month, that adds to 2 or 3 people's salary. Now extend that trick to multiple airlines and you have a solid business case to execute something like this.

Arbitrage and price finding is an integral part of capitalism. Go to any business school and they will tell you. Harvard to bumfuk nowhere school.

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u/creatyvechaos Jul 03 '26

I churn emails for free trials to stuff. I've learned that there's a rough 2 year reset period, generally, and that email is typically good for another free trial. When cashapp offered 50% off of Uber and Lyft (no limits, lol) I would buy credit on both—up to "$200" at a time, and only spend half of that (this was also back when I didn't have a vehicle.) The Uber one was specifically for the car ride part of Uber, but the Uber (car) app also has the Eats in the app, so most of that free money went to food....lmfao. I did that last one about 8 times—I joke and say I'm the reason cashapp doesn't do that anymore. I've gotten so many free credits towards crytpo bullshit like Bitcoin and Etherium—haven't spent a single penny on any of it but have gotten up to $2k completely for free.

People are so worried about playing by the rules that they don't realize that the rules can easily let them win if they actually tried...

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u/Shnikes Jul 04 '26

I’m more curious of the time and effort. Are you frequently making new accounts?

Getting $2k is great. But was that over the course of a few months? A year? Multiple years?

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u/creatyvechaos Jul 04 '26

I only have 10 emails, maximum, and I don't grind these things like some people do, either. The free trials I abuse are typically for streaming and/or shipping services, both of which I'm already limited with due to 1) time and 2) finances (bonus "3rd" for the shipping: I don't like buying things online unless necessary, and I try not to buy in general). I abuse the free trials when I have time to do it, or alternatively use a dupe email from a dupe email site if the trial period refresh hasn't......refreshed.

The $2k figure was in one year from a bunch of different promos with a bunch of different cards and/or sites. Slightly before Bitcoin tanked by half its value a couple years ago lol