Get Crypto Rewards with Your Credit Card: The Flimflam Follies
by Robert McGarvey
Admit it, there is something fundamentally pedestrian about collecting cashback rewards on credit cards. Sure, I remember, sort of, the odd $20, or was or $30?, that I got for using my Venmo credit card where the user can get 3% back on the primary spending category
On Discover, so far this year I have gotten $86, mainly with 5% back rewards and, yes, I had to check the account website. I knew I had gotten some money from Discover but had no real idea how much or little.
But I still remember, quite clearly, when a business associate cashed in enough American Airlines miles to claim a free trip to Egypt and of course the pyramids. That was in the early 1980s – he obviously was an early mileage savant – and I remember it all vividly. I also remember when a neighbor who studied the OAG cashed in miles for a free trip to Yugoslavia for himself and his girl friend in the early 1990s.
Color me envious.
What did I do with my Discover cash back? Huh? I have no idea. It just went into paying the next Discover bill.
But today I discovered a new and exciting credit card reward. Read on to find out what.
Nope, I am not advocating a full throttle return to a pursuit of airline miles. Regular readers of JoeSentMe know airline mileage is a treacherous game where the dealer sets all the rules and the rules do change. As far back as 2017 the belief has spread that airlines in fact make more money selling miles (mainly to big financial institutions) than they do seats. The math gets complicated and the disclosures are not full but the undisputed reality is that the system is flooded with miles that can be earned buying cat food and redeemed for flights. That system is not advantageous to any looking for free flights.
Airline miles are a kind of 21st century manifestation of Gresham’s law.
And, yes, I do remember I recently bought two roundrip comfort economy tix on Delta to Spain with miles. There remains availability. But that cost me 240,000 Amex Rewards miles plus a little cash. I am glad to save the money but can’t say I am thrilled with the exchange rate.
Fact is, I just am not thrilled or enthused about the pursuit of miles. Yes, I will toggle an Amex Offer if it brings me more miles for doing little or nothing. But I am not going to play the miles game, not in 2021. When airlines cease to publish an awards chart – as some now do – the pursuit becomes akin to searching for a black cat in a darkened room while wearing a blindfold.
If I have a pile of Amex miles and it’s easy to burn ’em buying a ticket I will.
But the thrill indeed is gone.
I scarcely track my United and AA miles anymore, in part because I have earned zero new miles from them in the past year. Boring.
What does give me thrills is that now I can collect Venmo rewards in Bitcoin. How cool is that?
For some time – years really – I have mulled plunging into Bitcoin but have kept my wallet zipped. Now Venmo has offered me a painless way to pay in Bitcoin and since, in my mind, the money is free, I have no anxieties about speculating in novel currencies.
If I decide crypto is too flaky, I can switch back to cash rewards on Venmo in a few clicks.
There are a half dozen more cards that now offer crypto as rewards. The list is here.
I used the Venmo card not necessarily because I am insisting it is the best but because it already was in my wallet and inside a minute of tapping around in the app I had it set up to pay my rewards in Bitcoin. Sometimes I like low barriers to entry and this was such a case.
For me the thrill in rewards just may be returning as now I get to join the bipolar excitement of the Bitcoin price rise and fall – even if my stake is a tiny fraction of one Bitcoin. Mightn’t crypto just turn out to be a flimflam? Uh…like rewards miles?