I also wish I had made better opportunity of those now dead deals. Still, we were very fortunate to have participated at all. I still make $5k per year after fees in credit card rewards and signup bonuses (thanks OBC, et all) and have averaged $4k to $5k per year in free travel over the last 5 years. Chase SW Companion pass was awesome to get for 2 years with 2 player.
It’s nothing compared to the high roller earnings that some have been able to accomplish in the day but nonetheless, I was not very financially savvy in my early 20’s until I found FW. I owe a great many thanks to the posters who have and continue to contribute their expertise and wisdom. Finding FW (and continueing with FD) truly changed my life.
While it may have been said before, thank you to the FD admins for keeping our community alive, diminished as it may be, it is still very valuable to many of us.
That was such a great deal!! I once actually paid my local taxes with those coins. Walked into the tax collector’s office, which is in her home, and started apologizing right away. But she was gracious and accepted the coins without any protest. The deal died not long afterwards so was unable to pay that way a second time. Still have a roll of GW coins which I have kept as a memento.
The other great deal I remember was the free laptop deal. Where else were you gonna get a brand new laptop for free!! I still have that laptop and it still works.
ETA
Rest of the laptop story, full disclosure:
I loved that free laptop. But there was a wrinkle. Turns out I got one of the bad NVIDIA chips - too heat sensitive with early failure.
Fortunately I had low hours on that thing when the class action was settled. All owners had to do was to return their laptop and a new one was sent out.
I figured: “why send them this low hours laptop”. So I bought a “downer cow” duplicate of my laptop on eBay for small money, sent that one in instead, received a second brand new laptop, and kept my low hours original.
Thereafter ripped open my original and made a couple of modifications:
Modified fan so it is always on. Upgraded thermal path (heat sinking) on NVIDIA chip from copper to silver. So far so good. It still works.
Agree, sure do miss FWF. First learned about and executed App-O-Rama. Still have some of those initial credit cards from 15 years ago…Charge $1.01 yearly at amazon to keep the account active.
Delzy, I think that was. The “all in” on gold thread, right? He was gonna claim he lost it all gambling or something like that. Yeah, those threads were entertaining. There was more of a push-the-envelope vibe I think, and even if you didn’t feel comfortable doing some of the programs or “stunts,” etc., it was really great to see how people were thinking outside the norms. It was kind of inspiring in some ways - and really entertaining in other ways.
I milked that dollar coin thing, but one deal I really remember was the battery deal at KMart - mainly because of the looks I got buying all those batteries. I think people much have thought there was a zombie apocalypse in the offing.
Storytime. I had a Suntrust debit card that provided sky miles rewards for purchases. I used to go to Walmart everyday and buy $7,000 worth of money orders. I would write them out to myself and despoit them electronically. I would always get nervous because the big blue ATM machine would say “fifteen hundred dollars” really loud multiple times and I thought it made me a robbery risk.
After about 6 months of doing it I got a call from my bank asking me what is going on with these transactions. I didn’t have a good answers and I was like “Uh, I was just buying money orders”. He said my answer wasn’t believable and if the activity didn’t cease they would close my account. LOL. He probably thought I was a drug dealer. With all the know your customer laws the banks are basically spying on everyone’s accounts.
After getting about 600,000 delta sky miles I stopped doing it because I didn’t want my bank accounts shut down.
A few years later I applied for a Suntrust credit card to get a $200 bonus and I got rejected stating that I had a “previously unfavorable relationship with the bank”. I had to laugh and took that to mean they figured out what had happened and how much it costs them
I still play a similar game buying gift cards and converting them to money orders. I did app deposits with US Bank for a little while there which saved me time not having to stop by the ATM but about a year ago I made the mistake of mixing up two of the money orders while distracted and tried depositing the same money order twice.
This caused the bank to flag and freeze my account and after a month of hastle finally closed the account as well as a 10 year old credit card. They said I would never be able to be a US Bank customer again. Just a couple days ago I was approved for a US Bank Leverage Visa Signature Business Card, (hot deal for $750 signup bonus and 2% CB on your top 2 spend categories). So my business side wasn’t affected but I haven’t yet tried opening anything on the personal side.
I am not really sure. I think they made them that way to assist blind people.
I learned later from FWF that the machines had ports on them to assist the hearing impaired. People would bring a pair of headphones and then plug them into the machine to avoid the loud sound.
The other thing that made me nervous is that I didn’t want to draw attention from the Walmart employees next to the machine. If they knew someone was coming in everyday buying like 7 grand worth of money orders I figured there was a good chance they would call the police claiming I was a drug dealer or money launderer. The asset forfeiture laws are scary guilty until proven innocent stuff and would basically allow the police to sieze the money orders until I could “prove” that the money was legitimately obtained.
For anyone still in the game, many WM started entering your license info for any MO transaction over $1k. All my local WM limited MO purchases to $2k some time ago.
The money order system (not Walmart as far as I know) started banning people who exceeded their purchasing threshhold. I can no longer purchase any MO over $1k per WM visit now as of a couple months ago. This is a game changer but I still play to a lesser extent as it is still worth some visits with my OBC cards. The good old days of Blue Bird and multiple thousands of money orders was a great time. RIP.
I have generally always been conservative by most FW standards to not overplay or get banned from systems/banks but inevitably hammers start cracking down over time.
LOL, I think indeed, some of the big ballers of the time did have the right idea though. Hit it hard and take it for all it’s worth. There will always be more deals to hit. It’s a balance determination between longevity over time vs quick payout and cutting ties with banks. I still value my banking relationships though and being able to reapply for deals in the many years to come.
It also feels like that era was a bit of a Wild West of electronic banking/transactions/credit cards and banks were putting stuff out with way more loopholes than now, trying things and see what stuck with customers and not thinking through what exploits they may create in the process.
I really miss those days. Stores honored price mistakes routinely. Churning miles and signup bonuses was a free-for-all. FAR stuff was run of the mill, so much so you needed a spreadsheet to keep track of rebates. 5% cashback on everything for a year with no limit was barely worth posting and MSing was the norm. And everyone (well except that one guy) knew NOT to call, let alone post it, brag, or ask on social media.
So I think the decline of FWF was just coinciding with times changing.
FWF was never a $ maker for FW. What really sink it, IMO, was multiple unforced error by management for the cash back portion of the business. I said as much when they stopped cash-back click through. At the time FW was still king of the cash back.
