O!ePay AAVS Loophole with PrimeCredit's EarnMore CC + More Ideas Wanted

[Random2389456]

What is limit of this cash back game ? I mean any maximum amount cap ?

[LoganH]

What is limit of this cash back game ? I mean any maximum amount cap ?

So the Octopus app only lets you have 10,000HKD in your O!ePay Plus or Pro account at a time. If your spouse (or someone you trust and trusts you a lot) is willing to let you use their account, you could have two accounts with a total 20,000HKD limit.

You can easily use your balance to pay a handful of bills like water, government rent, and taxes. However, AliPay HK lets you use most Visa and Mastercards (I use U.S. ones) to pay almost anything besides an individual (P2P) or the IRD. Thus, for me the only special way of using O!ePay is to pay the IRD for my salaries tax. You can transfer in up to 500HKD per day (or 1,000-(using your octopus for any transaction amount the previous day) every other day via an AAVS Octopus card linked to a 2% AAVS credit card (PrimeCredit's EarnMore card).

If you have a bunch of salaries tax to pay, your time probably would be worth more than the maximum 20,000HKD transfer in limit (using two AAVS octopus cards with two O!ePay accounts) X0.02, which means you could in theory get up to 400HKD in cashback each month using this game.

I'll stop when I hit the 10k limit on each O!ePay account. Then at the start of each month, I'll transfer 3,000HKD to my mortgage linked savings account from each O!epay account, and then once I transfer in 6,000HKD I'll stop again until I have a new salaries tax bill, and then I'll be able to pay that with my O!ePay balance.

If you have a better way to invest/use your time and effort than to get up to 2% cashback with this game, I'd suggest doing that instead.

[Random2389456]

So the Octopus app only lets you have 10,000HKD in your O!ePay Plus or Pro account at a time. If your spouse (or someone you trust and trusts you a lot) is willing to let you use their account, you could have two accounts with a total 20,000HKD limit.

You can easily use your balance to pay a handful of bills like water, government rent, and taxes. However, AliPay HK lets you use most Visa and Mastercards (I use U.S. ones) to pay almost anything besides an individual (P2P) or the IRD. Thus, for me the only special way of using O!ePay is to pay the IRD for my salaries tax. You can transfer in up to 500HKD per day (or 1,000-(using your octopus for any transaction amount the previous day) every other day via an AAVS Octopus card linked to a 2% AAVS credit card (PrimeCredit's EarnMore card).

If you have a bunch of salaries tax to pay, your time probably would be worth more than the maximum 20,000HKD transfer in limit (using two AAVS octopus cards with two O!ePay accounts) X0.02, which means you could in theory get up to 400HKD in cashback each month using this game.

I'll stop when I hit the 10k limit on each O!ePay account. Then at the start of each month, I'll transfer 3,000HKD to my mortgage linked savings account from each O!epay account, and then once I transfer in 6,000HKD I'll stop again until I have a new salaries tax bill, and then I'll be able to pay that with my O!ePay balance.

If you have a better way to invest/use your time and effort than to get up to 2% cashback with this game, I'd suggest doing that instead.

Thanks for your detailed reply.
I am thinking like first 3000 HKD is ok because I can sent it back to bank account but after that I am not able to use the O!ePay Balance because salary tax is annual less than 1000 hkd and water bill is around 200 HKD for 4 months so is there any other way of using O!ePay balance amount ?

Second, is this game can be consider as illegal activity? because I don't want to do anything illegal.

[LoganH]

Thanks for your detailed reply.
I am thinking like first 3000 HKD is ok because I can sent it back to bank account but after that I am not able to use the O!ePay Balance because salary tax is annual less than 1000 hkd and water bill is around 200 HKD for 4 months so is there any other way of using O!ePay balance amount ?

Second, is this game can be consider as illegal activity? because I don't want to do anything illegal.

How would this be illegal? You move your money around to your different accounts because different institutions let you do so. Using your credit card's AAVS function to then transfer value on your octopus card to your O!ePay account and then to your bank account is all fine and obviously allowed.

You can pay a few bills with the O!ePay balance, but the only one that is special is HK salaries tax, which AliPay HK won't let you use a credit card to pay, but you can pay CLP, internet providers, HK government rent and rates, and your water bill with AliPay with seemingly any Visa or Mastercard (I've used US ones).

I'd say if you want to play, just stick to the 3,000HKD a month part and transfer it to your bank account, but again your time is probably more valuable than 60HKD (assuming your using PrimeCredit's (2% AAVS) EarnMore card), but I personally find it amusing. However, when I step back I feel I should do something else of greater value.

You can also use your O!ePay balance with their pre-paid mastercard (apply within the Octopus app), but that's quite pointless in that you could probably just use your cashback credit card more easily than your O!ePay pre-paid Mastercard.

[Random2389456]

How would this be illegal? You move your money around to your different accounts because different institutions let you do so. Using your credit card's AAVS function to then transfer value on your octopus card to your O!ePay account and then to your bank account is all fine and obviously allowed.

You can pay a few bills with the O!ePay balance, but the only one that is special is HK salaries tax, which AliPay HK won't let you use a credit card to pay, but you can pay CLP, internet providers, HK government rent and rates, and your water bill with AliPay with seemingly any Visa or Mastercard (I've used US ones).

I'd say if you want to play, just stick to the 3,000HKD a month part and transfer it to your bank account, but again your time is probably more valuable than 60HKD (assuming your using PrimeCredit's (2% AAVS) EarnMore card), but I personally find it amusing. However, when I step back I feel I should do something else of greater value.

You can also use your O!ePay balance with their pre-paid mastercard (apply within the Octopus app), but that's quite pointless in that you could probably just use your cashback credit card more easily than your O!ePay pre-paid Mastercard.

Thanks for your reply again.

After your suggestion I can use O ePay balance with CLP (more than 1000 hkd), mobile and town gas as well using ALI Pay HK.
For broadband, Smarttone is not in Ali Pay but doesn't matter as bill is not so much.

Thank you so much for your great advice.

[Random2389456]

How would this be illegal? You move your money around to your different accounts because different institutions let you do so. Using your credit card's AAVS function to then transfer value on your octopus card to your O!ePay account and then to your bank account is all fine and obviously allowed.

You can pay a few bills with the O!ePay balance, but the only one that is special is HK salaries tax, which AliPay HK won't let you use a credit card to pay, but you can pay CLP, internet providers, HK government rent and rates, and your water bill with AliPay with seemingly any Visa or Mastercard (I've used US ones).

I'd say if you want to play, just stick to the 3,000HKD a month part and transfer it to your bank account, but again your time is probably more valuable than 60HKD (assuming your using PrimeCredit's (2% AAVS) EarnMore card), but I personally find it amusing. However, when I step back I feel I should do something else of greater value.

You can also use your O!ePay balance with their pre-paid mastercard (apply within the Octopus app), but that's quite pointless in that you could probably just use your cashback credit card more easily than your O!ePay pre-paid Mastercard.

By the way, Is there any way that I can increase the monthly fund transfer limit more than 6000 HKD ?

Now, I am trying to add money in my O!ePay wallet but it is saying "Your transfer to O!ePay has exceeded the monthly fund transfer limit 6000 HKD".

I thought I can store upto 10000 HKD.

[LoganH]

By the way, Is there any way that I can increase the monthly fund transfer limit more than 6000 HKD ?

Now, I am trying to add money in my O!ePay wallet but it is saying "Your transfer to O!ePay has exceeded the monthly fund transfer limit 6000 HKD".

I thought I can store upto 10000 HKD.

It seems you have an O!ePay Plus account, you need to upgrade to an O!ePay Pro account to get the 10,000HKD daily limits and other limits which you can see at https://www.octopus.com.hk/en/consum...out-oepay.html

Try to play around with the Octopus app and upgrade and you can also check out the link above for more information.

[hktraveller]

It looks like there is a change from September 25 in terms that a Standard Chartered account is no longer needed. I can't seem to find mor details.

[Random2389456]

It seems you have an O!ePay Plus account, you need to upgrade to an O!ePay Pro account to get the 10,000HKD daily limits and other limits which you can see at https://www.octopus.com.hk/en/consum...out-oepay.html

Try to play around with the Octopus app and upgrade and you can also check out the link above for more information.

Thanks for your advice.
I have already have AAVS but still upgrade to Octopus Pro option not enabled in app.
I think I need to apply for personalized octopus for limit increase to 10k HKD but I doubt that after getting the personalized octopus card I have to apply for AAVS again.

[LoganH]

I now know that there is a 2,000HKD annual cashback limit for PrimeCredit's EarnMore UnionPay 2% on all spending (including AAVS). It's still unclear to me when the 100,000HKD spending limit (2% cashback part) resets, but I'm going to assume it follows a regular January through December calendar year. PrimeCredit's terms and conditions are in Chinese, but Google Translate usually helps me enough.

After getting my HK 20/21 regular and 21/22 provisional salaries tax demand, I was able to use my 10,000HKD Octopus Wallet balance without a fee to pay my tax demand. I also could freely transfer my wife's 10,000HKD Octopus Wallet balance to my 0HKD Octopus Wallet balance (after paying 10,000HKD to the IRD with my Octopus Wallet balance). I could then pay the IRD another 10,000HKD and reset my Octopus Wallet balance once again. I then could transfer in 10,000HKD back into both Octopus Wallets, so in theory I could pay the IRD up to 40,000HKD in a month (need to load up the Octopus Wallets to the max the previous month).

One strategy:
Fill up two Octopus Wallets to the maximum 10,000HKD. You can only transfer in (from a physical octopus card to the Octopus Wallet) a maximum of 10,000HKD per octopus card. With PrimeCredit's 2% AAVS credit card linked to two octopus cards you could transfer in and then pay your HK taxes. Scan the IRD's QR code on your tax demand within the Octopus app. You'll need the hard copy of your tax demand or to use another device with the relevant IRD QR code on it (unlike AlipayHK, which lets you scan QR codes from pictures already stored on your phone).

With two PrimeCredit AAVS linked octopus cards (500HKD one a day reload limit) that weren't used that day (00:00 to 23:59), the maximum you could transfer in to the Octopus Wallet would be 1,000HKD per day from your physical octopus cards using the Octopus app and a phone with NFC. If you using the Octopus app and your physical octopus cards a little before and after midnight and you don't need to use your AAVS linked octopus cards, you could transfer in 1,000HKD just before midnight and transfer in another 1,000HKD just after midnight.

You can transfer out 3,000HKD without a fee to a HK bank account (just send it to yourself via your phone number that you link to the bank account of your choice via your default account for receiving FPS transfers sent to your phone number). The rest of your Octopus Wallet balance you could use to pay to the IRD for your HK taxes (other bills AliPayHK should allow you to pay with seemingly any Visa or Mastercard (even US ones work for me)). If you transfer out more than 3,000HKD of our Octopus Wallet balance per month you'll get hit with a 1% transaction fee (on the amount over 3,000HKD), which is still means with PrimeCredit's EarnMore card you'd come out ahead by 1%, but there is an annual 2,000HKD cashback limit, so if you manage to 'spend' more than 100,000HKD using your PrimeCredit EarnMore card you won't get any additional cashback.

You can transfer out 3,000HKD, and transfer another 3,000HKD to another Octopus Wallet without any fees, so with my wife's Octopus Wallet and mine I can transfer out 6,000HKD each month to my bank account without a fee, and then I can transfer another 3,000HKD from my wife's Octopus Wallet to my Octopus Wallet to get my balance back up to the maximum 10,000HKD, and thus I can transfer in 6,000HKD into my wife's Octopus Wallet that month without any fees from Octopus.

Getting an extra 2,000HKD by going through all these hoops is probably not worth it for most people, but I like games like this and I like writing about them as well.