Free Frequent Flyer Miles courtesy of the U.S. Mint

One of my favorite things to read about is how people find a loophole in a system to get what they want. A coworker of mine told me about this at our holiday party this past weekend, so I decided I would investigate further.

Individuals used the “free shipping” $1 coin program of the U.S. Mint to buy hundreds of thousands of dollar coins with mileage credit cards to earn elite status with different airlines.

Check out the WSJ article here.

The purpose of the $1 coin program is so that people will start using $1 coins which last 30 years and can be recyled which is much longer than the 21-month lifespan of dollar bills. The website states:

The intended purpose of the Circulating $1 Coin Direct Ship Program is to make $1 Coins readily available to the public, at no additional cost, so they can be easily introduced into circulation—particularly by using them for retail transactions, vending, and mass transit. Increased circulation of $1 Coins saves the Nation money. The immediate bank deposit of $1 Coins ordered through this Program does not result in their introduction into circulation and, therefore, does not comply with the intended purpose of the Program.

seetee on December 22, 2009 | Filed Under Discounts/Deals, News

6 Comments

Wendy on December 22nd, 2009

omg, i found out about this a while ago and was seriously considering doing it. but then, i realized i am way too lazy to put that much effort into it.

Kenji on December 23rd, 2009

I’ve known about this for a while, but I decided not to do it because it was so much easier to get miles from churning Citi credit cards. When Citi closed that off, I considered the Mint, but that was taken away soon thereafter. BTW with some very minor exceptions, miles from CC spend do not count towards elite qualification. The miles accrued are only for redeeming for award flights. You can only get elite status by flying (again with some minor exceptions).

P.S. Your coworker isn’t a Flyertalker is s/he?

P.P.S. Re: your other post about being upgraded on KE, the first thing I thought when the scanner beeped was “op-up!” But that means that you likely hold some sort of elite status on SkyTeam, which begs the question: why the hell do you have elite status on SkyTeam. From SFO that makes about the least amount of sense possible.

seetee on December 24th, 2009

Kenji! What is a Flyertalker? I’m positive that I dont have elite status on Skyteam…haha whats “op-up”? I wish i had elite status!

Kenji on December 24th, 2009

http://www.flyertalk.com – read and be amazed
op-up – operational upgrade – it’s done when coach is oversold and they need to upgrade some people to business to clear space for all the passengers (or more rarely, from business to first). usually priority for upgrading is given by some combination of elite status and fare class (i.e. more expensive tickets)
you really don’t have status from flying on delta/northwest/korean/aeromexico/etc? then i’m doubly perplexed as to how you got the op-up, unless you had an expensive last minute ticket.

seetee on December 24th, 2009

ooooh, i had an expensive last minute ticket then. I think my round trip was $3000. My flight to Korea was bought 2 days before I left, and so the return ticket was 6 days after it was bought.

Kenji on December 24th, 2009

@seetee
although i’m not sure if this is true about KE, some full fare (or nearly full fare) economy tickets on some airlines have provisions for automatic upgrades to the next available class of service on a space available basis. given that full fare economy is often just as expensive or even more expensive than discounted business/first, it’s not a good way to get upgrades, but on last minute ticket sales, often full fare is the only fare class available.

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