Easy ways to quickly earn CC spend reward?

[SoCal Spartan]

Hey everyone,

I just signed up for an Amex Business Gold card with a 50k point reward after spending $5k in 3 months. I'd like to reach the spend as quickly as possible as we are looking to use the points towards a trip we will be taking this summer and want to book before the rates go up.

Any new methods out there for spending 'free' money through CCs? I'm familiar with Amazon payments for $1000 and WilliamPaid (for rent/mortgage). Unfortunately, I already paid my business taxes for the year or I could have reached the spending requirement quite easily. I also LOVED Loyal3 until they caught on to my stock churning, banned me and eventually changed their policy on CCs.

Any mustachians out there figured out new ways of gaming CC spends?

[kpd905]

Amazon Payments disappeared a few months back.

Amex Serve works for $1000/month of online loading.

[MountainBeard]

You might be able to pay some bills online.  My insurance will take a CC so the last time I needed to meet a spending min I charged in a year of insurance for the home and two cars.

[MsFrugalista]

Evolve Money allows you to pay bills with debit/prepaid cards and credit cards (3% fee). You might be able to pay your mortgage, utility bills (that don't accept credit card payments directly), property taxes, etc. Not all accounts may be available - YMMV.

[MrsPotts]

Got any kids in college? 

[SoCal Spartan]

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

That's too bad Amazon Payments went away, such an easy way to get at least $12,000 of CC spend each year.

I'll have to check out Amex Serve. And no, don't have any kids or any in college.

Hopefully I'll be able to piece together different ways of real spend and 'fake' spend to reach the $5k bonus in 3 months.

[JoJo]

Here we can pay our property taxes, as long as we pay a 2.5% fee to do so.  Might be worth it to take the hit on the fee to get the reward.

[Argyle]

Move all your bills onto the card. 

Prepay your large bills — life insurance, homeowners insurance, car insurance.  See if you can prepay your property taxes.  Whenever they're due, just call up the company and pay them now.

In my town, you can also prepay your utilities.  So if you don't mind having $1000+ "in limbo" rather than in investments — it really wouldn't be much of a hit — just prepay your utilities by $1000 or $2000.

Go out for drinks/dinner with friends, and have them give you cash and put the whole tab on the card.  You can buy something minimally expensive.  That way you can get something like $100+ on the card for a real spend of $5, if you play it right.