Free Airplane Tickets
"I didn't find this loophole, but my friend did. A few years back, an online store had this promotion where whoever spent the most money over a month would get free round-trip airplane tickets to anywhere in the world."
-Reddit user BrushgoodDar
Traveling Hack
"Years ago you could buy American Express Travellers Checks at AAA for no additional cost."
"I read about this family that would buy them using credit cards that got traveling points, then turn in the travelers' checks and use the money to pay off the credit cards, but the points would stay on their account." -Reddit user The_Original_Gronkie
Drink And Ditch
"This guy I knew went out to a downtown type club where they swipe your card once and then keep it till you come back to get it when you want to leave. The goal here is obviously to have them keep coming up and buying more drinking, and you just rack up a large bill until you cash out and you get your final check."
"Well, he bought a Visa card from Walmart and put 10$ on it. Ordered one drink, and the card didn't get declined cause it was under 10$ then started coming back and back, eventually racking up a bill over 200$. The guy just left the club, and they never heard from him again. The club had no way of finding him either cause there is no name on those cards. They did, however, get a video of him and will be looking for him next time he goes downtown." -Reddit user squishysharkmaster
Dumpster Dive At Wendy's
"Some guys I knew in college used to dumpster dive at Wendy's when they were doing an air miles promo for each drink you purchased."
"They would grab all the cups they could find and then mail them in. They traveled a bunch of crazy places for free." -Reddit user Dulcius_ex
The Radio Station Played Themselves
"Local radio station had a contest where you call in when they play the same artist back to back to win a prize. It turns out they had a "now playing" and "up next" feature on their website."
-Reddit user mahck
Points For Purchases
"A local restaurant chain near me ran a special where every purchase gains you points, and every 100 points, you get a $10 discount on your next purchase. It turns out to do this, they would just credit $10 to your account, which was usable when you used their rewards card."
"So I purchased a $100 gift card and got $110 in value. Then I used the $100 gift card to buy another $100 gift card and now had $120. I stopped there once I confirmed the loophole, and the staff was laughing pretty hard about it. The rules quickly changed." -Reddit user Schwerlin
My Tech Nerd Friend
"My best friend a few years back figured out our favorite late-night pizza place had a deal that if you referred X number of friends to their email loyalty program, you got a code for a free large pizza."
"Well, he was a tech nerd and found a way to auto-generate email addresses for fake people and racked up an insane amount of free pizza codes." Reddit user - ItsMeMurphYSlaw
Validated Parking
"There is a department store downtown in my city. Parking downtown is scarce and expensive, so the dept store offers free parking to customers."
"The trick is to park at the dept store, quickly buy a belt or something, do whatever you wanted to do downtown, then at a later date (or later that day even) go back and return the item. If you frequently/regularly did this, you could return an item and buy a new one in a single trip each time you do this. All while getting free parking downtown for spending a few minutes in the store." -Reddit hydra3a
Jeans Day
"Went to a catholic school with uniforms. We got "jeans day" passes to wear. They were always different colors, including white."
"I took one white pass, took it to a copier, copied enough to fit one page, printed one full page of passes, then printed mass stacks of pages. I made a lot of money selling them out." -Reddit user Dean_Soja
Skipping A Step to a Master's Degree
"There are some graduate schools that don't require a bachelor to apply, just a fulfillment of prereqs. We paid $6k for my husband to take the prereqs he needed, then applied to all the graduate schools that didn't require a BA."
"My husband's first and only degree is a Doctorate. Also, some schools will consider work experience as a fulfillment of prereqs. My bro just finished his Masters and never did undergrad." -Reddit user leechladyland
You Can Skip Cancellation Fees
"Hotels/events/pre-booked things that charge you to cancel at short notice."
"A lot of places charge you to cancel at short notice but are free to rearrange. If you call up and rebook for a few weeks time, then a day or so later (so you don't sound cheeky!), call back and cancel for free. Rather than paying an expensive cancellation fee for not canceling in advance!" -Reddit user Agh-Bee
Free College Applications
"Applying for graduate schools, all the apps cost money to submit ($50+ each usually), but you can often get them waived if you're a member of certain organizations/groups (stuff like honors societies, career development organizations for underrepresented minorities, etc.)."
"I found out that just being an APPLICANT (which was free) for one of those groups counted for the fee waiver and got application fees waived for over half of the schools I applied to, even after being rejected from that program."
-Reddit user turq8
One Scholarship At A Time
"At my university, you could only hold one bursary it's's like a financial aid award, not really a scholarship) at a time""
"However, there was a bursary that apparently would match the value of all other bursaries you qualified for up to a certain amount. I can't remember the rules now, and it had a cap. It was something like 10k a term which was way more than the others or most scholarships. Anyways, we discovered it, it was only available for two terms, but it was a godsend while it was there." -Reddit user billbapapa
Swag Bucks
"My school had a reward system for good grades/behavior called swag bucks."
"At the end of each quarter, you could trade them in for prizes (movie posters, dollar store toys, I think the biggest prize was a Wii)." -Reddit user Modusobit
Smart Planning
"My friend made a spreadsheet of all the restaurants in town that gave you free stuff for your birthday and mapped out the shortest route to take you to all of them."
Reddit user zephyrcoco