Gaming the system

Problem: you want frequent flier miles but don't want to purchase any of the various items that offer them.

Solution: wait until the U.S. Mint has a promotion that essentially gives you free miles.

From the Wall Street Journal:

"At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint started identifying them and cutting them off.

Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments straight to the bank. They then used the coins they deposited to pay their credit-card bills. Their only cost: the car trip to make the deposit."

Just goes to show that ingenuity knows no bounds. And that it pays to monitor your promotions and offers from the outset to identify and prevent people from gaming the system. It works for Vegas, and it works for everything else too...