Random Q: What can be bought and sold online for £0 profit/loss?

Russinating

Russinating

Russinating

Soldato
Joined
27 Dec 2005
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Location
Bristol
Here's a random question for you. Is there anything that can be bought, preferably online/a digital product, and sold again for no profit or loss?

And before someone suggests it, this isn't anything dodgy, just a possible way of collecting more Airmiles (if such a product exists!).
 
Anything potentially. If you can buy the item with a sufficient discount to the new price and then that discount is removed, you should be able to get your money back. However, your biggest problem now is the risk of the private sale should you be scammed etc.

I thought about this and decided it wasn't worth it. I ended up collecting 120k air miles in the first 3 months where I had a 10x bonus. They soon add up :)
 
Yeah that's the thing, the risk of not selling or one scam like you say.

I thought about bet matching which is potentially unlimited and no need for a 'buyer' but it of course costs the difference between the bet and the lay (~£1 per £100 bet/200 miles).
 
Russinating said:
Yeah that's the thing, the risk of not selling or one scam like you say.

I thought about bet matching which is potentially unlimited and no need for a 'buyer' but it of course costs the difference between the bet and the lay (~£1 per £100 bet/200 miles).
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Nice idea but you'll typically pay a cash advance for credit card transactions when gambling. Plus the refund may be subtracted from the deposit, right?

I just ended up putting some of my work expenses on my card, quickly racked up the points :)
 
What about one of those places you buy foreign currency online? You'll lose a bit of money as there will be a difference between the buy/sell prices, but if you search around for who offers the best rate, the amount you will lose maybe offset by the airmiles you gain? You don't have to worry about selling it back to a potential scammer either.

I've not looked into this so if the difference between the buy/sell prices are large then this might be a waste of time. It also might look dodgy going into the post office every other day to change up 100 million Vietnamese Dong!
 
What about items that apply credit for online games and subscriptions? Like £25 PSN cards or similar vouchers. Their monetary value can't change any therefore could resold on for the same maybe?
 
Adam said:
Nice idea but you'll typically pay a cash advance for credit card transactions when gambling. Plus the refund may be subtracted from the deposit, right?

I just ended up putting some of my work expenses on my card, quickly racked up the points :)
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Fair point. And I work for myself so I don't have that luxury :(.

mpledge52 said:
What about one of those places you buy foreign currency online? You'll lose a bit of money as there will be a difference between the buy/sell prices, but if you search around for who offers the best rate, the amount you will lose maybe offset by the airmiles you gain? You don't have to worry about selling it back to a potential scammer either.

I've not looked into this so if the difference between the buy/sell prices are large then this might be a waste of time. It also might look dodgy going into the post office every other day to change up 100 million Vietnamese Dong!
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Not a bad idea! Will have to check that out.

Hopeless_Savage said:
What about items that apply credit for online games and subscriptions? Like £25 PSN cards or similar vouchers. Their monetary value can't change any therefore could resold on for the same maybe?
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Yeah thought about that, like Xbox Live cards etc. Trouble is still need a seller, would most likely be sold via PayPal (so fees) and there's no reason to buy from me when it's the same price as a store.
 
mpledge52 said:
I've not looked into this so if the difference between the buy/sell prices are large then this might be a waste of time. It also might look dodgy going into the post office every other day to change up 100 million Vietnamese Dong!
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Generally the difference between buy / sell rates are pretty huge for retail outlets.
 
Having looked briefly you can get pretty close with online purchases and then selling back at the Post Office. As in, 50p buy/sell difference when trading £1000 worth of Euros.
 
jamief said:
Generally the difference between buy / sell rates are pretty huge for retail outlets.
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If you buy it online hopefully you'll get a good rate on the buy side at least. Maybe you can sell it back somewhere other than the high street that may offer better rates?

I've never bought or sold foreign currency anywhere other than the high street though so this may be a rubbish idea!
 
All of the suggestions so far will include some kind of % charge for using your card. It will only be a couple of percent, but you'll need to spend thousands to get any kind of decent rewards so they costs will add up.

Also, the cost of flights isn't that competitive. From what I can work out the points are best used for upgraded flights (business or first class) as you still need to pay taxes. You may find it's simply not worth doing.

It's very addictive though :)
 
Could you repeatedly buy and sell something to a friend? Both racking up air miles.

Whole thing sounds a bit fraudulent to be honest.
 
mpledge52 said:
What about one of those places you buy foreign currency online? You'll lose a bit of money as there will be a difference between the buy/sell prices, but if you search around for who offers the best rate, the amount you will lose maybe offset by the airmiles you gain? You don't have to worry about selling it back to a potential scammer either.

I've not looked into this so if the difference between the buy/sell prices are large then this might be a waste of time. It also might look dodgy going into the post office every other day to change up 100 million Vietnamese Dong!
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100m VND is only about 3k GBP. :p
 
Russinating said:
Having looked briefly you can get pretty close with online purchases and then selling back at the Post Office. As in, 50p buy/sell difference when trading £1000 worth of Euros.
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You can't do this. Cash transactions on credit cards attract interest from day one, a cash advance fee (usually 3%) and do not earn rewards.
 
It reminds me of that story from the US where people were buying $1 coins from the treasury on their credit card and would then pay them into their bank. Pay off the the card and go on holidays with the air miles or reward points.
 
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