A creator ordered millions of $1 coins from the US Mint using credit cards to rack up nearly two million American Airlines miles. He flew the coins to Las Vegas on Southwest using their unlimited carry-on policy, cashed them in, and turned the whole scheme into free flights.
I can fly anywhere for free because of $1 coins. Back in 2005, the US government had manufactured way too many $1 coins. They wanted to get rid of them, so they launched this program where you could order the $1 coins online and they would ship them to your house for free. Spend $5,000, you get 5,000 $1 coins, dollar for dollar. But there was a loophole. You could buy these coins on your credit card. If you know how credit card rewards work, you're probably already seeing where this is going. I went all in. By the end, I was using 8 credit cards and earned nearly 2 million American Airlines miles and had a house so stuffed with dollar coins that it was hurting my marriage. But there was a catch. The Mint said you couldn't just take the coins back to the bank because the whole point is to get them into circulation. So I figured, who will take a zillion dollar coins off my hands? Well, there's only one place— Las Vegas, where cash is king. But how am I going to get all of these pounds of metal to Las Vegas? Then I found one more loophole. I found an airline, Southwest Airlines, with no limit for carry-ons at the time. So I got my strongest friends together for a Vegas trip. We flew out and cashed in.
