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Category Archive for 'Credit Cards'

My MVP Cards

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

I have several dozen active credit cards (heck I have more than 2 dozen active cards just from AMEX and Chase) but only a handful are actually regularly used. People always ask me which card is “best.” Unfortunately there is no best card out there but by determining the value you get from spending you can figure out which cards will be best for you.

Some of the cards that I have that typically gather dust include The Platinum Card® from American Express and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN which have awesome benefits ($400 fee refund, global entry, 2 lounge membership programs, Starwood Gold status, etc) but aren’t what I would use for spending on a daily basis because of the lack of bonus categories. The Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express and Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express may give free luggage, but there’s no good reason to spend money on those cards as even if you want awful Delta Skypesos you can do better by spending on Starwood and transferring miles to Delta with a 25% bonus (though I sincerely hope you don’t!)
The Chase Chase British Airways card and the Citi Hilton Reserve has fantastic signup bonuses, but they’re just not compelling cards for my spending as their point values can’t compare with more valuable cards.

The Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard has a very nice signup bonus and 2.2% back for spending isn’t bad for most people’s needs, but I personally prefer earning airline miles. I prefer real airline miles (or points transferable to real airline miles like American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, or Starwood Starpoints) because they allow me to book expensive last minute domestic tickets that can otherwise cost over $1,000 for 9,000 miles or even less. I’d have to shell out over 100,000 bank miles for such a ticket. I also love airline miles because I can take business and first class trips that I could otherwise never afford. Spending $20,000 to fly in a suite is ludicrous but using 110,000 airlines miles is a steal. I’d need some 2 million bank miles to pull off such a trip!

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Here are the cards that I consider to be my Most Valuable Plastic as they’re the ones I go to depending on the purchase type. Below I will endeavor to explain my target value system for each currency and how that helps me determine where every single one of my purchases is made in order to always maximize the value I get from every purchase.

-Chase Ink Bold Charge Card and Chase Ink Plus Credit Card
What’s great? The 50K signup bonus is fantastic of course and you can get both of these cards for each business that you run to keep expenses for each separate.
But what really shines on these cards are the bonus categories which is where I primarily use this card.
You earn that on internet/cable service and telecom purchases, so that’s a nice rebate when you purchase a new cell phone an off your cable bill. More importantly you also earn 5 points per dollar at office supply stores. With hundreds of gift cards sold by office supply stores you can earn a ton of miles for anything from buying gas, online shopping on Amazon or Groupon, buying clothes from Gap Inc, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Marshalls/TJMaxx, or Nordstrom, and much more. Plus you can buy $200 Visa gift cards that earn 1,000 points and can be uploaded to Bluebird or used for cash back, bill pay, money orders, etc.
Gas and dining purchases earn 2 points per dollar.
Fringe Benefits: No foreign transactions fees, 2 free lounge visits per user even on free additional user cards.
In dollar terms: I value Ultimate Rewards points at a minimum of 1.9 cents per dollar, so 5 points per dollar purchases mean a 9.5% rebate. 2 point per dollar purchases would mean a 3.8% rebate. I use this card for all of the 5x categories and for gas. I don’t use the card for 1 point per dollar purchases as they only earn 1.9%.

Yes, the Ink cards are business cards. But anyone can open a business (a little side income never hurts!) and there are several huge advantages that business cards have over consumer cards as you can read here.

For example if your name is Joe Smith and you want to sell or you do sell items on Ebay or on Amazon, or if you have any other side business/hobby and want a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures you can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

But most importantly the Ink cards are rare in that they offer awesome offer signup bonuses and awesome spend bonuses which makes them the current kings of the credit card world.
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-Chase United Club
From the United Explorer card you can click on the Club tab.
What’s great? I get this card free via SM but normally there’s a hefty $395 fee meant to cover the full United lounge membership, 2 free checked bags per person, and waived award expedite/close-in fees.
From a spending standpoint this card is great for everyday purchases as you earn 1.5 miles per dollar on everything.
While other cards offer more points per dollar on car rentals this card and the United Explorer card offer free primary car rental insurance in almost every country in the world besides Israel. In other words if you dent your rental car on other credit cards you’ll have to file a personal insurance claim and only if that’s rejected will the credit card coverage kick in. With the United cards you won’t have to ever inform your personal car insurance of the accident.
Fringe Benefits: Non-expiring miles, expanded saver, and last seat standard award availability.
In dollar terms: I value United miles at a minimum of 1.8 cents per dollar, so 1.5 miles per dollar mean a 2.7% rebate everywhere. I use this card for most purchases over $25 unless I’m trying to hit spend thresholds elsewhere, the purchase is in a bonus category elsewhere, or it’s a purchase that I want to be covered by AMEX’s awesome purchase protections.
It’s worth bearing in mind that if you spend $25,000 in a year on the the United Explorer card that you get a 10,000 mile bonus, meaning that you will have earned 1.4 miles per dollar (2.52% at 1.8 cents per mile), or nearly as much as on the Club card if you stop spending there.
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-Chase Freedom
What’s great? On all versions of this fee-free card you get 5 points per dollar in rotating categories. Currently that includes Restaurants, Movie theaters, and Lowe’s. In July it will be Gas stations, Theme parks & Kohl’s. Lowe’s also sells gift cards to hundreds of other stores, which means you can earn 5 points per dollar there as well.
There are also 2 versions of Exclusives programs on this card if you also have a Chase checking account. The old program gives 10 bonus points monthly per transaction and 10% bonus points monthly on base spending. The new program gives 10% bonus points annually but it’s good even on bonus spending, so that means 5.5 points per dollar in the rotating categories. The catch here is that the bonus points are limited to $1,500 in spending per quarter, but if you’re like me and downgrade Sapphire cards into Freedom cards then you probably have a few cards and don’t need to worry about that.
In dollar terms: I value Ultimate Rewards points at a minimum of 1.9 cents per dollar, so 5 points per dollar purchases mean a 9.5% rebate. I have the old Exclusives program so on a $10 purchase in a bonus category I earn 61 points or a 11.59% rebate. Of course when I send a penny via Google Wallet I earn 11 miles or a 2,100% rebate
I use the card for all the 5x category purchases and for everyday purchases under $25 as a $20 purchase for example earns me 32 points or a 6.1% rebate. When the everyday purchase is more than $25 I shift over to United Club which will offer more miles per dollar in those cases.
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-Chase Sapphire Preferred
What’s great? The 40K signup bonus is pretty great of course, but there are a plethora of bonus categories with this card to take advantage of.
-You earn 1.07 points per dollar spent and 2.14 points per dollar spent on restaurants, airfare, hotels, car rentals, charges in airports, travel agencies, caterers, timeshares, trains, buses, taxis/limos, ferries, bridges, tolls, and parking. On the first friday or every month you’ll earn 3.21 points per dollar on dining.
Fringe Benefits: No foreign transactions fees, no phone-tree to speak to a live rep, plus the heavy metal card is sweet looking. Convert the card to a Mastercard and you’ll get free primary car rental insurance in Israel.
In dollar terms: I value Ultimate Rewards points at a minimum of 1.9 cents per dollar, so 3.21 points per dollar purchases mean a 6.1% rebate. 2.14 point per dollar purchases would mean a 4.45% rebate. I use this card for the 3.21x and 2.14x categories except for airfare which typically goes on AMEX and car rentals go on United though if I have time I’ll switch the car rental from United to Sapphire Preferred at the end of the rental (assuming I didn’t damage the rental car of course ). I don’t use the card for 1.07 point per dollar purchases as they only earn 2.03%.
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-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express
What’s great? This used to be the best card out there. Now it faces serious competition. Still nothing ever comes close to the AMEX protections so whenever I buy an item that I might need to return, may need extended warranty coverage, is a final sale item, or that is from a merchant where it may need to be disputed this is my go-to card. Sure you only get 1 point per dollar but really that’s 1.25 miles per dollar as 20K points converts into 25K miles with dozens of airlines. Or use the points for hotel stays with no capacity controls at high values. On the business card you also get Open Savings benefits which means cash back on top of points at places like Hyatt, Hertz, HP, Microsoft, Fedex, OfficeMax.com, Barnes & Noble, and more. That means it’s better to use your Starwood card at a domestic Hyatt over a Hyatt card.
Fringe Benefits: Having the card entitles you to room upgrades and 4pm late checkout. It also gives you credit towards earning lite status. Plus for the past 3 years AMEX has allowed you to spend $25 for free on Small Business Saturday. Free additional user cards also qualify for the $25.
In dollar terms: I value Starpoints at a minimum of 2.2 cents per dollar (which means I value the miles I get from the points at 1.76 cents per dollar), so 2 point per dollar purchases mean a 4.4% rebate and 1 point per dollar purchases mean a 2.2% rebate. I use this card at Starwood hotels, on purchases that qualify for Open Savings, and for any purchases that may need any of the AMEX purchase protections.
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-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card and The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN
What’s great? The business card currently has a 50K signup bonus (bumpable to 75K) The kicker with these cards are the bonus categories. Both offer 3 points per dollar on airfare. The consumer card offers double points on gas and groceries. The business card offers double points on advertising, shipping, and gas.
Fringe Benefits: You can get a 15K annual point bonus on the consumer card by spending $30K in a year. AMEX MR runs promotions throughout the year like the current 35% bonus for transfers to British Airways.
In dollar terms: I value Membership Rewards points at a minimum of 1.5 cents per dollar, so 3 point per dollar purchases mean a 4.5% rebate, and 2 point per dollar purchases mean a 3% rebate. Don’t forget that if you can get to $30K spend that you’ll bump those numbers significantly. I use the consumer card for airfare and groceries. The Ink cards are better for gas whether you buy gas gift cards or pay at the pump.

Posted in Credit Cards | 122 Comments »

Google Wallet Offering Free Credit Card Processing; Post In The DDF Conga Thread To Join!

Monday, May 20th, 2013

DDF user Emkay reported on DDF 4 days ago that Google was integrating the ability to send money into Gmail. DDF user magnus then posted that Google is temporarily not charging any fees to send or receive credit card payments.

The payment are considered a regular purchase and will earn miles. You should probably avoid using Citibank cards however as they are notorious for changing online purchases into costly cash advances.

They’re rolling out the ability slowly, but if you receive a payment from someone you’ll be able to send money to anyone else within a few minutes.

I still don’t have the ability to send directly from Gmail, but once someone sent me a penny, a red “Send Money” button appeared when I went to http://wallet.google.com/

I have created a temporary board on the DansDeals forums with conga lines where forum members can get in line to receive a penny from the person before them in line and then they will pass on a penny to the next guy once their account is enabled to send payments.

Of course I used my grandfathered Chase Freedom Exclusives card so that I’ll earn 11 miles for sending that penny

There is a hard limit of $9,999.99 that you can send at once. If you try entering more than that you’ll get this cute message:

While there doesn’t appear to be any limit on how much you can send in total, Google is not going to like it if you send very large amounts or if you pass money back and forth between accounts and they will likely close your Wallet accounts if you do that. So take it easy and don’t go sending $5,000 to meet a spend threshold in one shot unless you’re willing to risk testing the limits and possibly losing your ability to use Google Wallet. Hopefully they’ll warn you before closing your Wallet account but they don’t have to.

It’s unknown when the free processing promotion will expire. Hopefully it will last for years like the $1,000 in free processing that Amazon Payments lets you do every month

You just gotta’ love the plethora of manufactured spend methods we have today to meet those climbing spend thresholds. Between this new development, Amazon Payments, Bluebird, Vanilla Reloads, Vanilla Debit cards, Visa/MC gift cards with pins (that can earn you quintuple points and) that can be cashed out via WalMart ATMs, Bill Pay, or even Money Orders this is truly a golden era. Perhaps not as scalable as those gold dollar coins I used to get by the truckload, but cards are a whole lot lighter than coins!

Posted in Credit Cards, Free Stuff, Google | 60 Comments »

Using Gift Cards From Chase To Meet Spend Thresholds For Free

Monday, May 20th, 2013

Update, 05/20: Just to confirm, I was able to purchase these gift cards to help meet the spend thresholds on an Ink Bold and Ink Plus card to earn another 100,000 points. It posted on the statement as a regular mileage earning purchase.
When I called to activate the card the system automatically gave me a pin number. I had no problem using the gift cards to fund my Bluebird cards at the WalMart ATM machine (which calls them WalMart MoneyCards) for free, though it took a couple of tries on one of the cards.

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Originally posted on 04/18:

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Chase is currently offering gift cards with no initial fees and no shipping fees.

DDF user ckmk47 reports that he bought some, added a pin, and loaded them on his Bluebird card at Walmart for free.

Once it’s on your Bluebird card you can pay off any bill or credit card or write a check to anyone.

Alternatively once you have a pin for the card you can also use them at Walmart to pay off any credit bill for $1 or buy a money order for 70 cents (and you can split the money order or bill pay among 4 gift cards at a time) without going through Bluebird.

It’s a great way to meet the spend threshold on Chase cards as there are no fees at all with a Bluebird fund. I just ordered $2,500 worth myself for complete the threshold spending on some more Ink cards.

-Chase cards with a $500 spend threshold include: Freedom Mastercard and Freedom Visa.

-Chase cards with a $1,000 spend threshold include: United Explorer, British Airways, Marriott Premier, and Hyatt.

-Chase cards with a $3,000 spend threshold include:Sapphire Preferred and Ink Cash.

-Chase cards with a $5,000 spend threshold include: Ink Bold and Ink Plus.

Posted in Credit Cards | 169 Comments »

The Best Cards From Barclays Bank

Monday, May 13th, 2013

Barclays bank has several great credit card offers. Best of all they typically pull from your Transunion credit report. Most banks pull from Experian though this does vary by state. If you are NJ or NY based you shouldn’t have almost any credit pulls on your Transunion report if you don’t have Barclays bank cards.

I have done successful 4BMs with Barclays in the past. If you are denied you can call reconsideration at 866-408-4064.

The Lufthansa Premier Miles & More World MasterCard offers 20K miles for spending $1 and another 30K miles for spending $5,000 within 3 months. This means you’ll have 55,000 miles after meeting the spend threshold.

Lufthansa miles have a few sweet uses. You can fly on Star Alliance partner United in domestic first class (on 2 class planes) or domestic business class (on 3 class planes) for just 17,000 miles each way with no fuel surcharges. United flies several planes a day between JFK or Newark and Los Angeles or S. Francisco that have lie-flat seats in business class. Plus you can still order hot kosher meals on these routes. United charges 25,000 of their own miles each way for these seats, so you’ll save 8,000 miles each way via Lufthansa.

Remember to book one-way flights as a round-trip business class is 35,000 but they charge half the price and round down for one-way so it’s only 17,000 each way.

You can also always transfer 20,000 Starwood points into 25,000 Lufthansa miles if you need more miles.

Domestic first class on a 3 class plane is 50,000 miles round-trip though United’s 3 class first class on the JFK to Los Angeles or S. Francisco routes are being phased out. United charges 70,000 of their own miles round-trip for these seats, so you’ll save 20,000 miles via Lufthansa.

A one-way coach ticket in the US will run 12,000 miles.

Business class to Europe is 52,000 miles each way and there are no fuel surcharges on USAirways (which has a very nice Envoy Suite in business) and Lot Polish (which flies 787s with an excellent business class to Warsaw.)

Coach to Israel is 40K each way and business class is 67K each way, again with no fuel surcharges nonstop on USAirways from Philadelphia.

The only current way to book Swiss First Class is with Miles & More. I flew it a few years ago when it was still bookable with partner miles and it was fantastic. However it’s quite pricey now at 85,000 miles plus fuel surcharges each way.

Barclays cards can be churned though, so you can always start saving up.

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The Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard Linky offers 40,000 points for spending $1,000 within 90 days.

It’s one of the best cashback cards out there and it offers a nice signup bonus unlike the other cashback cards.

The card gives 2 “miles” for every dollar you spend plus a 10% refund when you redeem miles so that you effectively earn 2.2 “miles” per dollar spent. The 10% refund means that the 40,000 points signup bonus is really 44,000 points as you’ll get 4,000 of those points back after you redeem the points for a cash refund. Of course when you redeem those 4,000 points you’ll also get a 400 point refund, etc. The 10% refund posts within 1-2 weeks of making a redemption.

Miles is a misnomer, really they just mean cents with each mile being worth 1 cent. The way it works is you book travel via any booking site and then you can just go online to your Barclays account and request that the purchase be refunded using your points. You can refund any purchase that is categorized as “Airlines, Travel Agencies & Tour Operators, Hotels, Motels & Resorts, Cruise Lines, Passenger Railways and Car Rental Agencies.”

So if you spend $420 on a plane ticket and have 42,000 points from opening the card and spending $1,000 you’ll be able to get a $420 cash refund.

2.2% cash back on all of your spending is excellent, but still I personally prefer real airline miles over bank miles. However this card is probably the best you’ll get for bank miles and can make sense for some depending on what kind of travel you book.

The no annual fee version of the card also has no foreign transaction fees. It only has a 20,000 point signup bonus though that also will receive a 10% point refund with every redemption.

People have been able to book a refundable travel itinerary to get their points converted to cash without actually traveling.

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My affiliate link for the USAirways card offer 30,000 miles for spending $1 though this link (which I have not tested but others have) should give 35,000 miles.

With USAirways merging with American these will soon be converted over to American miles. In the meantime there are several sweet spots on the USAirways award chart like off-peak awards and on the Star Alliance award chart like 90,000 miles in business for a round-trip to Asia or 110,000 miles in business for a round-trip to Australia.

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-The Virgin America card only offers 10,000 points for spending $1.

Now 10K signup miles typically isn’t even a good offer, but their award chart is interesting. You can fly coach on Singapore from JFK to Frankfurt for just 20,000 miles round-trip or to Asia for just 35,000 miles round-trip with no fuel surcharges. Other airlines charge double or triple that.

I flew Singapore in coach (as well as in their awesome business and suites class products) and it’s fantastic, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Coach passengers get amenity kits, free drinks, fantastic kosher meals (the best I ever had on a plane), and kids even get free toys! Service was awesome and much better than what I’ve had in business class on domestic carriers. Of course it helped that I grabbed an empty row of 4 seats all to myself!

You can also fly from Las Vegas, Los Angeles, S. Diego, S. Francisco, S. Jose, Sacramento, Seattle, Phoenix, or Portland to Kailua-Kona on partner airline Hawaiian for just 15,000 miles round-trip with no fuel surcharges. Once on the awesome Big Island of Hawaii you can see an active volcano erupting or drive up Mauna Kea to see one of the most stunning sunsets and clear starry night skies that you’ll ever experience. Spend $5K on the card and the round-trip will be free.

Posted in Credit Cards | 43 Comments »

HURRY! 75,000 (Or Even 100,000!) Point Signup Bonus For Spending $5,000 On The Business Gold Rewards Card From American Express Open!

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

Update, 1pm: The 75K offer appears to be dead. The current promotional offer is back to 50K signup bonus points.

The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN

A single credit card that will give you more than enough miles for 2 round-trips to Israel without fuel surcharges or more than 15 short-haul round-trips tickets…read on!

Currently when using select browsers you can get 75,000 signup bonus points when using the link above. It’s unknown how long this will stick around for.

When I clicked on the link in IE and Firefox the offer was 50,000, but from Chrome the offer is 75,000.

Definitely try the link from all 3 of those browsers or try the link from your phone to see the 75K offer. It may also be a cookie issue, so you can also browse incognito and then click on the card link to access the 75K offer. To browse incognito in Chrome just hold down Ctrl, Shift, and N and the same time. In IE and Firefox you can access this mode by holding down Ctrl, Shift, and P buttons on your keyboard. Then just return to DansDeals.com and click on the card offer again and hopefully you will get the 75K offer.

Others have had success from their phone’s browser or just trying from another computer.

Signup bonus:
-75,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months.
Plus this card offers 3 points per dollar spent on airfare, making this one of the best cards to use to purchase airline tickets. You also get 2 points per dollar at gas stations, on shipping, and for advertising.

Having consumer charge cards (Green, Gold, Platinum, etc) , consumer credit cards, or business credit cards will not stop you from earning this signup bonus.
If you have had a business charge card (Green, Gold, or Platinum) in the past 12 months the terms state that you will not receive the bonus. YMMV.
People have been able to apply for the gold and platinum at the same time and reported success.

Upgrading the card: Earn an additional 25K signup bonus points and $200 airline fee credit!
Numerous DDF membersas well as myself have used this link after getting the card and receiving the signup bonus to upgrade the card from Gold to Platinum. The link gives you 25K bonus points for upgrading within just a few days. There is no credit pull for this upgrade.
Plus you can get the Platinum $200 cash back in airline fee refunds once it’s upgraded as well!

Offer Terms:
-Earn 75,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $5,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 3 months of Card membership
-Earn points even faster to get more rewards for your business.
-3X points on airfare purchased from airlines. 2X points at US gas stations.
-Up to $100,000 in each category per year, then 1 point.
-Terms and limitations apply.
-Reduce travel costs, show appreciation for employees and clients, and offset everyday expenses by using points to get something back and grow your business.
-$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $175.
-Apply online to qualify for this offer. See offer terms for details

Spending $5,000 in 3 months:
Spending $5K isn’t what it used to be.

With options like gift cards with pins that can be easily cashed out, Vanilla Reloads/Bluebird, Vanilla MVD cards that can be combined and cashed out, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

No need to rehash everything, Here are articles I’ve already written on this stuff:
-Having Fun Cashing Out Gift Cards
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
-Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card
-Today’s Escapades
-Meeting A Spend Threshold In One Night.
-Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Send And Receive $1,000/Month With No Fees Using Amazon Payments!

American Express Benefits:
-American Express offers the best dispute resolution in the industry. If you have a problem with the item or merchant you’ll be glad if you made the chaarge on an AMEX.
Plus they offer incredible return protection, purchase protection, and warranty service.
With return protection you can return items up to $300 to AMEX for 90 days even if the merchant won’t accept returns.
With purchase protection your items are covered if they break or are stolen within 90 days.
With extended warranty you will have double the manufacturers warranty, up to one additional year, for free. Plus the AMEX warranty year is incredible as they will just refund your purchase price if you have problems with your item, without any hassle at all!

Additionally if you spend $1,000 at Fedex on this card for example you’ll get a 5% automatic cash rebate and 2,000 points (double points for shipping as stated above). $1,000 at HP gets a 10% automatic cash rebate and 1,000 points plus their awesome extended warranty coverage as long as you have any open American Express card at the time of the claim.

What can you do with the points:
-Once you’re done with $5K in spending you’ll have at least 80K American Express Membership Rewards points. Or if you do the upgrade you’ll have at least 105,000 points!

With the current 35% bonus for transfer to Avios, 105,000 Membership Rewards points transfer into about 142,000 British Airways Avios.
With the bonus you can get to Israel for as just 45K Membership Rewards points round-trip with no fuel surcharges!
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 31 short-haul flights.
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 18 medium-haul flights.
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for 14 of those flights.
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Or you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska). With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 11 of those flights.
-A flight from NYC to Israel on Air Berlin booked via Avios is just 30,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 4 of those flights.
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their awesome business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe in December in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Business would be just 100K on Delta. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fuel surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.
-ANA and Singapore also charge no fuel surcharges on United and USAirways. You can fly round-trip to Europe for just 38K points or round-trip to Israel for just 60K points.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

If you make zero income:
Then why are you applying for credit cards? American Express has the right to ask to see you tax returns at any time. While people have reported passing the financial review as long as they make something (DDF’ers have reported as little as $5K/year) it’s not a good idea to apply for this card if you don’t have income on the books.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways (Currently 1,000:1,350 ratio) and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

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You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards from American Express include:

Consumer cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express
-American Express® Gold Card
-Blue Cash Everyday Card® from American Express
-Blue Sky from American Express®

Business cards:
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express

Posted in Credit Cards | 246 Comments »

Business Cards In My Wallet

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

Business credit cards represent an excellent opportunity for mileage junkies. They carry great signup bonuses and fantastic benefits.

If you just sell items on eBay or Amazon you can get a business card so that you’ll be able to put business expenses on a dedicated card. You don’t need to be registered as a business, when asked for the business name you can name it by just using your own name and add Sole Proprietorship (Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship). Then just use your social security number when you are asked for your Tax ID number.

You can even get a business card if you are just thinking of opening a business and want a card to start purchasing items for a business. People have gotten approved even without any business revenue.

The really great thing about business cards from banks like American Express and Chase is that they don’t report your spending on your personal credit report.

On personal cards if you spend money on your card your credit score will be hurt even if you pay your bill on time. A whopping 30% of your credit score is based on credit utilization. You can pay off your card before your statement is generated to avoid that, but that takes a lot of effort and laying out money well before you have to. Additionally it’s good to have the statement close with a few dollars to show the card is active and being paid every month.

On a business card it’s just not reported, so you can wait until the money is due and even max out your line without it having a negative effect on your score. Plus if you close a business card it won’t ever have an effect on your score.

Get rejected for a business card? It’s no big deal just call Chase Business Recon at 800-453-9719 or AMEX Recon at 866-314-0237. You can shift lines or close personal cards to have a business card approved. You can also send a secure message to try to get approved as well.

So which business cards do I personally carry? These are some of my favorites:

-Chase Ink Bold, and Chase Ink Plus
These are my favorite business cards. I’ve gotten both approved with one call to Reconsideration. The Bold card is a charge card with a flexible spending line that must be paid in full while the Plus card is a credit card that you can pay over time.

They give 50,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards points for spending $5,000 which is awesome. Plus you get 5 points per dollar on cable, telecom, and office supply stores on up to $50,000 in annual spending. And 2 points per dollar on gas and dining.
-Upgrading at your local carrier’s store to an iPhone or Galaxy S4? 5 points per dollar.
-Buying gift cards for gas? 5 points per dollar plus you’ll pay the lower cash rates at the pump.
-Buying gift cards for Amazon, Gap, Groupon, Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, TJMaxx, or hundreds of other places? 5 points per dollar.
-Buying Visa or MC gift cards to fund Bluebird or use to pay credit card bills? 5 points per dollar.

Those points all add up quickly. Plus they can be transferred to extremely valuable currencies like United, Hyatt, Korean, BA, and more.

This card also gives 2 free lounge visits worldwide via Lounge Club. Even authorized user cards which are free qualify for 2 free annual lounge visits!

Plus there are no foreign exchange fees. The fee is waived for a year and is then $95.

-The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN
For a limited time this card is also offering 50,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000. Plus Membership Rewards often offers transfer bonuses like the current 35% bonus to British Airways which makes the 55K points you’ll get turn into 74K Avios.

Plus on DDF there’s a link and a thread with info on how to earn an additional 25K Membership Rewards points!

You earn triple points on airfare and double points for gas stations, shipping, and for advertising.
The fee is waived for a year and is then $175.

-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
For a limited time this card is also offering 25,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000.
Several DDF members have reported being able to apply for this card together with the Gold card and Starwood card and earn the bonus on all 3.
The benefits this card comes with are numerous
-You can get back $400 from airline fee credits (or airline gift cards in $100 increments) in your first card membership year. That’s $200 in 2013 and another $200 in 2014. See this DDF Wiki for more info on that benefit.
-It also comes with a $100 global entry expedited customs (5 year membership) refund.
-Platinum card airline club access (American, Delta, and USAirways) for you and your entire family or 2 guests. It also works at the Airspace lounge in Baltimore, Cleveland, and the one opening this month in Jetblue’s JFK terminal. Airspace gives you and your guests free gift cards upon entry to buy premium drinks or meals in the lounge.
-Priority pass worldwide unlimited lounge membership
-Starwood gold elite status for 250 points back on all stays (even points stays) or free wifi.
-Car rental perks at Avis, Hertz, and National.
-Lost item and purchase protection up to $10,000/item.
-Regus Office Club Membership with worldwide locations.
-No foreign exchange fees.
There is a $450 annual fee for as long as you keep it at the Platinum level though you can always downgrade it if you so desire.

-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express
This card gives 10K bonus Starpoints for spending $1 and 15K additional bonus Starpoints for spending $5,000 in 6 months.
Starpoints are great for hotel stays (with redemption methods like Cash and points or 5th night free to stretch your points) and for the 25% bonus you get when transferring points to dozens of different airlines including valuable ones like American (which lets you book El Al flights without fuel surcharges), Emirates, JAL, LAN, and USAirways that don’t participate with Membership Rewards or Ultimate Rewards. 20K Starpoints transfers into 25K with most airlines but 20K Starpoints becomes 50K LAN for example where you can book British Airways flights without fuel surcharges.

There’s no annual fee the first year and it’s just $65 thereafter.
Authorized user cards are free and in every November this decade on Small Business Saturday each one of those AU cards has gotten a $25 credit to spend at any small business!

With all AMEX business cards you also get Open Savings benefits which means cash back on top of points at places like Hyatt, Hertz, HP, Microsoft, Fedex, OfficeMax.com, Barnes & Noble, and more.

-Chase Ink Cash
With this card you’ll earn 20K bonus Ultimate Rewards points for spending $3,000.
You also earn 5 points per dollar in the same categories as the Ink Bold/Plus card but that’s capped at $25,000 per year. It also earns 2 points per dollar on hotels and dining.
This card also offers 6 months of 0% APR.
You do need an Ink Bold/Plus card or a Sapphire Preferred to transfer these points to airlines/hotels.

-United Explorer Business card.
From the United Explorer consumer card you can click on “Are you a business owner?” in the top-right to access this card.
This card offers 30,000 miles for spending $1,000 though I was able to get matched to 50,000 plus $50 cash back via Secure Message. I was able to get this card and 2 Ink cards in a 3BM.
This card offers a free checked bag, expanded saver and last seat standard award availability, and 2 free United lounge passes per year.
You also earn 2 miles per dollar on United tickets and at restaurants, gas stations, and office supply stores.

Posted in Credit Cards | 48 Comments »

Earn 3.21 Points Per Dollar With Sapphire Preferred At Restaurants Today…Or 5 Points Per Dollar With Freedom

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

You can now automatically earn triple points with your Chase Sapphire Preferred card on all dining on every first Friday of the month at least through the end of the year. Together with the 7% annual dividend that means 3.21 points per dollar. Spend $100 in a restaurant and you’ll get 300 points on your next statement plus 21 points in your annual dividend.

That’s nice, but at least for today and the first Friday in June (the 7th) you’ll be better off using your Chase Freedom card which is offering 5 points per dollar on all dining from now through June 30. Spend $100 in a restaurant and you’ll get 500 points on your next statement (though sometimes the 5% doesn’t post until the 2nd statement). Registration is required for the Freedom 5 point categories which include dining, movie theaters, and Lowe’s purchases through June 30. Spending is limited to $1,500 per Freedom card per quarter.

Plus if your card is linked for Chase Exclusives with a Chase checking account you’ll either earn an extra 10 points per transaction plus a 0.1 points per dollar monthly bonus. Spend $100 in a restaurant with the old Exclusives program and you’ll have 520 points on your next statement. Or you will get a 0.5 points per dollar annual bonus with the new Exclusives program. Spend $100 with the new Exclusives program in a restaurant and you’ll get 500 points on your next statement plus 50 points in your annual dividend.

Personally I’m still in the old Exclusives program, but Chase said they will send me a letter when I am transitioned to the new program.

Bear in mind that if you are outside of the US that you would do better with Sapphire Preferred as that has no foreign exchange fees while Freedom will sock you with a 3% fee. Also you or your wife need a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card to transfer points earned on the Freedom card into airlines or hotels.

Posted in Chase, Credit Cards | 13 Comments »

$100 Visa Gift Card For Just $95 Shipped From Staples After $10.60 Instant Savings!

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

Update: DEAD!

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You can buy up to 2 of these “per customer.” The $10.60 per card instant savings will be applied on the final checkout page.

The total for 2 $100 cards is just $190 shipped.

If you have one of the awesome Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Ink Cash cards you will earn 5 points per dollar. If you order 2 cards that’s 950 points on the purchase, or more if you’re trying to meet the $5K spend threshold to earn the lucrative signup bonus. Plus of course you come out $10 ahead besides for the points earned. It’s also helpful to meet spend threshold on any other card.

You can create a pin by calling the number on the back of the card and then liquidate this card in Walmart by loading it to your Bluebird account (free), getting cash back on a debit purchase (free), by cashing it out for a money order (70 cents for up to 4 cards), or by paying off any bill ($1 for up to 4 cards).

HT: yitzf, via DDF

Posted in Credit Cards, Free Stuff, Miles | 90 Comments »

50,000 Point Signup Bonus For Spending $5,000 On The Business Gold Rewards Card From American Express Open!

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN

Signup bonus:
-50,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months.
Plus this card offers 3 points per dollar spent on airfare, making this one of the best cards to use to purchase airline tickets. You also get 2 points per dollar at gas stations, on shipping, and for advertising.

This is being promoted as a limited time offer, but I do not know the exact end date.

Offer Terms:
-Earn 50,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $5,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 3 months of Card membership
-Earn points even faster to get more rewards for your business.
-3X points on airfare purchased from airlines. 2X points at US gas stations.
-Up to $100,000 in each category per year, then 1 point.
-Terms and limitations apply.
-Reduce travel costs, show appreciation for employees and clients, and offset everyday expenses by using points to get something back and grow your business.
-$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $175.
-Apply online to qualify for this offer. See offer terms for details

Spending $5,000 in 3 months:
Spending $5K isn’t what it used to be.
I have spent twice hat much at CVS in one night

With options like gift cards with pins that can be cashed out, Vanilla Reloads/Bluebird, Vanilla MVD cards that can be combined and cashed out, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

What can you do with the points:
-You can wait for another Avios bonus. These come by every few months and usually range from 30%-50%.
Last month there was a 50% bonus for transfers from American Express Canada to British Airways so hopefully that will come down to us soon!
With a bonus you can get to Israel for as little as 20K points each way instead of the normal 30K points each way.
-Once you’re done with $5K in spending you’ll have at least 55K American Express Membership Rewards points.
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 12 short-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for more than 18 short-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 7 medium-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 11 medium-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 5 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for more than 8 of those flights!
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Of you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska). With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 4 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for more than 6 of those flights!
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their awesome business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe in December in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Business would be just 100K on Delta. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fuel surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.
-ANA and Singapore also charge no fuel surcharges on United and USAirways. You can fly round-trip to Europe for just 38K points or round-trip to Israel for just 60K points.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards from American Express include:

Business cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN

Posted in Credit Cards | 77 Comments »

Having Fun Cashing Out Gift Cards

Sunday, April 7th, 2013

Have questions when reading this post? It’s probably already been answered in one of the following related posts.

So the big news over the weekend is that you can now assign a pin number to gift cards, effectively turning them into debit cards.

Gift cards for sale at Staples. Those $200 ones are the jackpot!

I bought many thousands of dollars of gift cards during previous promotions at Staples and Office Max when they had them on sale for wayyy less than face value, earning me tons of points and cash. I’ve been cashing them out slowly with several Amazon Payments accounts for free, but as there are always other spend thresholds to be met that process takes time.

Now the game has changed.

The automated call number for my gift cards easily allowed me to assign a pin number for my gift cards. I just dialed the number on the card, entered my card info, and followed the easy prompt on the phone (5) to assign a pin.

Load gift cards directly to Bluebird:

I took a few thousand dollars worth of gift cards to WalMart today and loaded $1,000 onto mine and my wife’s Bluebird cards. You are able to do this with any cashier.

In the process I learned that you can use up to 3 cards per transaction, so that’s $300 of loads with 3 $100 cards or $600 of loads with 3 $200 cards. This saves you time over doing a separate transaction for every card. You can load up to $1,000 per day and $5,000 per month.

Once it’s in Bluebird you can use the cash to pay off your credit card bill, your mortgage, write a check to anyone, or even transfer funds to your bank account. You can even get free checks for your Bluebird account if you request them by 05/21, just login to your account, hover over the dropdown “my account” button in the top-right, and click on order bluebird checks.

Get cash back from gift cards:

I was also able to pickup a 98 cent bottle of Softsoap and select cash back to get cold hard cash from a gift card. However I was only able to get cash back in multiples of $20, so I’ll probably use Amazon Payments to wipe the remaining balance from the cards.

I went to WalMart to be able to load Bluebird and to get cash back on a purchase. I’m sure it will work at other stores as well so if you try to use a gift card with a pin to make a cash back debit purchase elsewhere please post the results in the comments.

There are no fees to load the cards onto Bluebird in Walmart and there are no fees to get cash back.

I did not have success though with the Mastercards from Office Max and Staples, I only had success with the Visa cards. If you get the Visa gift cards from Office Max or Staples you should be good to go. Other brands may work as well, I just haven’t tested them myself.

So is this worthwhile?
When the gift cards go on sale and you can buy them for less than face value there’s no question. What about when the gift cards are not on sale?

If you have an Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Ink Cash card you earn 5 points per dollar at Office supply stores.
If you buy 5 of the $200 Visa gift cards you will incur $34.75 in fees if there are no promotions.
That means you’ll get 5,174 Ultimate Rewards points of a cost of 0.67cpp (cents per point).

What does buying Ultimate Rewards points for .67cpp mean in layman’s terms?
-A one-way ticket from NYC to Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, or Toronto costs 4,500 BA Avios. At a cost of 0.67cpp that ticket costs $30.
-A one-way ticket from NYC to Chicago is currently 3,780 Southwest points, or about $25.
-A round-trip business class ticket to Israel on United, USAirways, or Air Canada nonstop from North America is 120,000 United miles, or $804. The 80K coach ticket would be $536.
-A round-trip ticket to Israel via Germany on Air Berlin is 60K Avios or $402.
-A one night stay at a $1,005.950/night Hyatt hotel in Paris, Sydney, or the Maldives is 22,000 Hyatt points, or $147.
-A round-trip ticket from JFK to Asia in ANA’s new first class suite with closing doors is 135,000 United miles, or $904 for what is normally a $19,000 ticket.

Of course these rates are all after you’ve already met the spend threshold.
Otherwise buying $5,000 of gift cards to meet the spend threshold will cost you $5,173.75 and will net you 75,869 points at a cost of 0.23cpp, or roughly 1/3rd of the price examples above.
I’ve done a 3BM for 2 Ink cards and a United card and got them approved with just 1 phone call to net over 200K miles after spend thresholds.

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach Chase business reconsideration at 800-453-9719.

Another card where this can make sense with is the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express, which gives 6% cash back for purchases at grocery stores which also sell gift cards
The Blue Cash Preferred receives 6% back on $6,000/year, the Ink Cash gives 5 points per dollar on $25,000/year, and the Ink Bold and Ink Plus give 5 points per dollar on $50,000/year each.

HT: jk2 via FT (who appears to be the first to break this news online), MMS for his research and yitzf via DDF for the heads up.

Posted in Credit Cards, Miles | 114 Comments »

Is The Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard Card For You?

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

Update: This card no longer provides car rental insurance in Israel.

Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard Linky

Barclays has improved the bonus on this card for a limited time from 20K to to 40,000 “miles” after you spend $1,000 within 90 days.

So if you spend $420 on a plane ticket and have 42,000 from opening the card and spending $1,000 you’ll be able to get a $420 cash refund.

I prefer real airline miles because they allow me to book expensive last minute domestic tickets that can otherwise cost over $1,000 for just 9,000-25,000 miles. I’d have to shell out over 100,000 bank miles for such a ticket.

I also love airline miles because I can take business and first class trips that I could otherwise never afford. Spending $20,000 to fly in a suite is ludicrous but using 110,000 airlines miles is a steal. I’d need some 2 million bank miles to pull off such a trip.

So why would anyone want bank miles?

Say you just want to fly to Israel in coach. You would need roughly 80,000 airline miles for such a trip (though it can be had for as little as 25,000 with fuel surcharges or 50,000 without surcharges). Plus those seats are of course capacity controlled.
If you want to fly nonstop on United to Israel for $900 using the hidden city trick I wrote about last week you can just pay for the flight and use your bank miles to get that ticket refunded. You’ll need 90,000 miles, but as you earn 2 miles per dollar it’s really the equivalent of just 45,000 miles. Plus you’ll get a rebate of 10% of the miles (9,000 in this case) credited back to you in addition to the $900 cash refund.
And of course as you bought the ticket you’ll also earn some 11,000 United miles for the trip itself, which of course you wouldn’t earn if you redeemed an award through United. So you’re really getting a bank mileage refund and an airline mileage refund on your free ticket.

Plus with these miles you’ll have 90 days to earn more points and still cover the price you paid in the past. As opposed to airline miles where you need to have all of the points in hand before redeeming. And you are not limited to just airplane tickets.

As for me, I’d rather use 120,000 United miles and fly in in a bed to Israel. That kind of redemption would cost some 600,000 bank miles. Call me spoiled, but I appreciate the aspirational aspect of real airline miles.

But if you just like to redeem for coach awards purchased with advance notice and don’t want to deal with capacity controls this may very well be the best card for you at 2.2% cash back.

There are no foreign exchange fees. You also get a free subscription to TripIt Pro, a $49 annual value. There is delayed luggage insurance included as well for you to be able to purchase necessities while you’re without your bags.

There is no fee for the first year, but afterward there is an $89 annual fee. You can downgrade the card to a free version after the year is up, though that card only earns 1 mile per dollar spent. Of course you can always ask for a retention bonus or for the fee to waived once the fee comes up.

I may not like the card for everyday use for my purposes, but the signup bonus is very good, especially as Barclays typically pulls from Transunion which is great news for most churners.

If you are denied you can call reconsideration at 866-408-4064.

The no annual fee card also has no foreign transaction fees. It only has a 20,000 point signup bonus though that also will receive a 10% point refund with every redemption.

Posted in Credit Cards | 58 Comments »

Register Now For Q2 Chase Freedom Spending And Last Day For Q1 Spending

Sunday, March 31st, 2013

-Chase Freedom Mastercard-Earn $100 cash back (in the form of 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points) when you spend $500 in 3 months.
-Chase Freedom Visa-Earn $100 cash back (in the form of 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points) when you spend $500 in 3 months.
There is no annual fee for Chase Freedom!
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You can click here to activate your Q2 Chase Freedom 5% categories.Although they are called “5% categories” you really get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent which can be cashed out for 5% cash. For $1,500 in spending you will earn at least 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points.If you or your spouse has a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card you can transfer Freedom points over to one of those cards and then transfer them at a 1:1 ratio into much more valuable airline miles (United, British Airways, Southwest, Korean, etc) or hotel points (Hyatt, etc)

The 5 point categories for 2013 are as follows:

Q1, January – March: Gas stations, Drugstores & Starbucks
Q2, April – June: Restaurants, Movie theaters, and Lowe’s.
Q3, July – September: Gas stations, Theme parks & Kohl’s
Q4, October – December: Select department stores & Amazon.com

Here is a link that explains where you will and won’t earn the 5 points per dollar this quarter

Q1 Spending (finish by today 03/31)

Don’t forget that at gas stations and drug stores you can buy gift cards for other stores so that you earn 5 points per dollar there as well.

Plus many drug stores and gas stations carry Vanilla Reload cards as well as My Vanilla Debit cards so that means 5 points per dollar and you can cash out the cards with Bluebird or at your local bank.

Q2 Spending:

Your favorite restaurants will probably also be happy to sell you a gift card so that you can lock in 5 points per dollar now.

Here is a list of gift cards sold by Lowe’s. The selection may vary at your local store.

Of course if you have an Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Ink Cash card you will earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent all year round on telecom, cable, internet, as well as everything from office supply stores, which includes gift cards to other stores and prepaid cash cards that can be used anywhere. With the Bold/Plus cards that’s capped at $50,000 per year and with the Cash card that’s capped at $25,000 per year. The cards also earn 2 points per dollar year-round at gas stations and either hotels (Bold/Plus) or dining (Cash)

Posted in Credit Cards | 15 Comments »

It’s Back! Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Chase Visa Signature Card: Get 2 Roundtrip Flights!

Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

Update, 03/28: DEAD!

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Update, 03/27: In case you are on the fence about these cards or are considering going for a free companion pass good through 12/31/14, the limited time 50K Southwest card offers have just been updated to being “Last Chance.” Going, going…

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Update, 03/16: Multiple readers and DDF members have been able to get both the points for both the Plus and Premier cards and have secured nearly 2 years of free companion pass flights!

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Find more great credit card deals in the Credit Cards tab.
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Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Chase Visa Signature Card Linky

For a limited time you can get 50,000 points when you spend $2,000 within 3 months of getting the card. They’re marketing this as 2 roundtrip flights but in fact it is enough for about $950 of free flying on Southwest, so you can stretch out those points for as many as 15 free flights with Southwest’s low prices.

You can also use your points for Airtran flights as well! For now this is only available in select markets, but by April you’ll be able to use your points for all Airtran flights. Plus because you will be booking the flights via Southwest.com you will get 2 free bags and free changes and flight cancellations as well!

You can use the points for yourself or book award tickets for anyone else you want to give a ticket to. Plus Southwest allows you to cancel an award flight and redeposit the points in your account for future use without any penalties!

There are in fact 4 unique Southwest credit cards that are all offering 50,000 points for spending $2,000. There is the consumer Plus and Premier cards and the business plus and premier cards. The difference is that the plus cards have a $69 annual fee and offer 3,000 bonus points (~$57 towards travel) every year while the premier cards have a $99 annual fee, have no foreign exchange fees, and offer 6,000 bonus points (~$114 towards travel) every year. You can access them all at the bottom of the application link above.

Don’t fly? You can also use 50,000 points to get $500 worth of gift cards to places like Amazon, Avis, Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap, Hyatt, Lowe’s, Macy’s, TJMaxx, Walmart and many others. A $500 gift card to Walmart can always be sold to a place like Plastic Jungle for $460 cash.

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With Southwest’s Rapid Rewards “2.0″ program you can redeem points for any seat on any flight. For the regular “wanna get away” fare it costs 60 points for each dollar of airfare. In practical terms this means for example:

A one-way Cleveland-Baltimore flight on 03/12 is $68.90 with tax.
It can also be bought for 3,480 points plus $2.50 tax.
So 3,480 points gets you a value of $66.40 ($68.90 airfare less the $2.50 tax required on the points ticket)
So each point is worth 1.9 cents (66.40/3,480), valid for redemption on all flights.

The value per point will depend on your route, but points always seem to be worth more than 1.8 cents each.

The Southwest card comes with a 50,000 point signup bonus, which at 1.9 cents per point is worth $950 towards Southwest flights just for opening the card and spending $2K.
There is a $99 annual fee but with this card you earn 6,000 points every anniversary that you have the card, which is worth $114 towards Southwest flights!

You get 1 point per dollar on regular purchases, which is equal to a rebate of 1.9%.
You get 2 points per dollar on Southwest purchases, including hotel and car rentals via Southwest, which is equal to a rebate of 3.8%

Companion pass:

Plus you get a free companion pass if you earn 110,000 points in a year from most sources, including earnings from credit card signups and credit card spending! If you earn 110,000 Southwest points for example by 04/01/13 the pass will be good until 12/31/14. The pass allows you to bring a companion with you for free when you fly Southwest, even if you are flying on a free ticket!

You can open 2 versions of the Southwest card to get to the 110,000 points in a year. If you open 2 cards and spend $5,000 on each you’ll have 110,000 points!

Points transferred from Ultimate Rewards to Southwest don’t qualify towards companion pass status, but points transferred from Ultimate Rewards into Hyatt and then into Southwest do qualify! So you can transfer 50K Ultimate Rewards points into 50K Hyatt and 50K Hyatt transfers into 30K Southwest.

In other words if you get 50K points from signing up for this credit card you can transfer 100K Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt and then into 60K Southwest points, worth about $1,140 towards Southwest travel. Plus then you’ll have a companion pass so that you can bring your companion for free whenever you fly Southwest, so that $1,140 toward Southwest is really doubled to $2,280 because of the free companion ticket. Not a bad value for a 100K Ultimate Rewards transfer.

See this post for more info on the Ultimate Rewards program and associated credit cards.

Transfers to Airtran and Rapid Rewards “1.0″:

You can transfer increments of 1,200 Southwest points into 1 Airtran credit. Here is Airtran’s award chart, which does not price awards according to the cost of the flight. Thus you can get an international round-trip award ticket for just 19,200 Southwest points. These awards are capacity controlled however. A business class upgrade on Airtran is just 4,800 Southwest points.

Once they are in Airtran you can also transfer them back into Southwest’s old Rapid Rewards 1.0 program. In this program awards are just 16 credits (19,200 points) round-trip, no matter how expensive the flight is. These are also capacity controlled, but for some flights you will come out far ahead with this old program.

And as always, Southwest:
-Gives 2 free checked bags per passenger.
-Does not charge change fees to switch your flight. Whether you are on a paid or an award flight you can change without penalty!
-Does not charge a cancellation fee to cancel your flight (you will get Southwest credit for the full amount paid, even on non-refundable wanna get away fares) or to cancel and redeposit your award flight.
-Refunds the fare or point difference if the price of your flight goes down after you buy it, just call to get the credit at any time!

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Other awesome Chase consumer cards you can get on the same day as the Southwest card with just 1 credit pull include the Chase Sapphire Preferred (which gives 2.14 points per dollar on travel and dining with no Foreign Exchange fees and can be easily converted into a World Mastercard that gives free car rental insurance in Israel), Chase Freedom (which gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories and 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account) and the Chase United Explorer (which gives free luggage, free primary car rental insurance in most countries worldwide besides Israel, expanded saver and standard award ticket availability, priority boarding, and more).

The Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus business cards are both giving 50,000 signup points and offer 5 points per dollar on telecom, cable, and office supply stores, 2 points per dollar for gas and lodging, no foreign exchange fees, free lounge visits, and a waived annual fee for the first year.

Posted in Credit Cards, Southwest | 117 Comments »

Current Mega Signup Bonuses From Chase

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

Related post: Reconsideration For Those Without The Gift Of Gab (Don’t just give up after you are denied!)
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Chase has really stepped up their credit card offers in recent years. The signup bonuses and credit card spending multiples have really stolen the thunder of one-time wundercards like the Starwood American Express that couldn’t be matched.

Here’s a quick roundup:

-Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus business cards.
Signup bonus: Both of these cards give a whopping 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points each for spending $5,000 within 3 months. You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.9 cents for your Ultimate Rewards points, making the signup bonus worth $950. Ink Plus is a credit card and Ink Bold is a charge card. I’ve been able to get both approved due to that with one call to Reconsideration.

They both have no annual fees for the first year, no foreign transaction fees, and 2 free lounge visits per year (even for free additional user cards!)

But even more importantly you earn 5 points per dollar at office supply stores, where you can find hundreds of gift cards to other online and retail stores. And that’s besides for 5 points per dollar on telecom, cable, and internet as well as 2 points per dollar on gas and hotels.

50,000 signup points and 5 points per dollar earning makes the Ink cards a must-have for any mileage junkies. While the $5,000 spend in 3 months may sound daunting for some, between Amazon Payments, Vanilla Reloads, or even buying Visa gift cards (which work on Amazon Payments as well) or store gift cards from office supply stores with 5x points, it’s really not all that difficult. Even if you pay your federal taxes via a credit card for a 1.88% fee, you’ll be coming out way ahead thanks to the generous signup bonus.

Read more about the awesome Chase Ultimate Rewards program in this post. Points transfer to some of the best airlines and hotel programs out there.

-Chase Sapphire Preferred
Signup bonus: 40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for spending $3,000 within 3 months. The annual fee is waived for the first year.
You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.9 cents for your Ultimate Rewards points, making the signup bonus worth $760.

Sapphire Preferred offers a 7% points dividend every February for the previous year’s purchases, effectively making the card earn at least 1.07 points per dollar spent. You will also earn 2.14 points per dollar spent on restaurants, airfare, hotels, car rentals, charges in airports, travel agencies, caterers, timeshares, trains, buses, taxis/limos, ferries, bridges, tolls, and parking. There are no foreign exchange fee.
You can convert the card into a World Mastercard that gives free CDW coverage on rental cars in Israel.

-Chase Southwest Visa Signature
Signup bonus: 50,000 Southwest points for spending $2,000 within 3 months.
There are 4 versions of this card, each giving 50,000 points that are accessible under the “Additional Southwest Airlines Credit Cards.” They include a consumer and business premier card with a $99 annual fee that have higher annual bonuses and no foreign exchange fees and a consumer and business plus card with a $69 annual fee that have lower annual bonuses and charge foreign exchange fees.
When used for flights points are worth roughly 1.9 cents each and when used for gift cards points are worth 1 cent each, making making the signup bonus worth anywhere between $500 and $950.
If you collect 110,000 Southwest points in a year from select sources, including all points from Southwest credit cards, you can to bring along a companion for free on all of your Southwest (and Southwest coded Airtran) flights for the remainder of the year and for the entire following year. That’s good on paid flights and on award flights, so you can effectively get twice the value out of your points earned. And award changes and cancellations are free, as are your checked luggage.
Read this post for more info on the Southwest program and various options for the points for non-flyers, such as store gift cards.

-Chase British Airways Visa Signature
Signup bonus: 50,000 BA Avios for spending $1,000 within 3 months.
You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.3 cents for your Avios, making the signup bonus worth $650.
With short-haul flights starting at just 4,500 Avios you can get a lot of free travel from your Avios. Plus BA doesn’t charge any last minute expedite/close-in fees, doesn’t collect massive fuel surcharges for flights on AA within the Western Hemisphere or on Aer Lingus, Alaska, Air Berlin, LAN worldwide, and only charges $2.50-$10 (just the 9/11 fees) to cancel a domestic award.

Other awesome Chase cards with lesser published signup bonuses that you can add onto a “3BM” with just 1 credit pull include the Chase Freedom (which gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories and 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account) and the Chase United Explorer (which gives free luggage, free primary car rental insurance in most countries worldwide besides Israel, expanded saver and standard award ticket availability, priority boarding, and more). There is also a business version of the United Explorer (click on “are you a business owner” on the Explorer application) and a Club version of the United card (click on the Club tab on the Explorer application) that gives 1.5 miles per dollar spent, 2 free checked bags per person, a United Club membership with unlimited free lounge and airport terminal access for you and your family, and waived expedite fees on United awards.

Posted in Chase, Credit Cards | 68 Comments »

Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Update: Have you used this strategy to improve your credit score? Let’s hear about it in the comments!

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Originally posted on 11/08/12:

One of the most common fallacies that people have about their credit score is that paying their bill off in whole once they get their statement is good enough. It’s not.

The truth of the matter is that once you get that statement it’s too late, the damage has been done on your credit report already.

The “amounts owed” section of your credit report makes up a whopping 30% of your FICO score (only your payment history makes up a bigger percentage than that) and it does not differentiate between whether you pay off your bill in full or in part. All it is is a snapshot at any given point in time of how much you owe and what percent of your credit is being used on each card individually as well as on all your cards collectively.

The amount owed on your credit report can be from the middle of a billing period or at the end of a billing period depending on the bank. The fact that you always pay it off in full once you get your statement doesn’t matter at all. If you make a large charge on a card and your bank reports that charge before you pay it off then your score will be significantly lower than it would be if you didn’t owe anything. It’s said that ideally you shouldn’t even use 10% of the credit line of any of your cards in order to optimize your score. Using more than half of your credit line on any given card can drop your score significantly.

So what can you do? Prepaying a card before making a charge is not a good idea, especially with American Express. You can pay down your balance before your statement closes, though you still typically want it to show some level of activity on the card and you may not want to tie up your funds weeks before you have to.

Or you can get a business card and put your spending there.

Spending done on business cards is not reported to the credit bureaus. Neither are their credit lines. So you can theoretically max out a business card and it would not hurt your personal credit score. Whereas on a consumer card it would have a massive negative effect on your score, even if you will and always do pay it off in full.

Additionally on a business card the credit line is never reported to the bureaus. Thus when you go to close the card you don’t lose that credit line. Closing a consumer card on the other hand can hurt you unless you shift that credit line to another card or use that credit line as leverage to get approved for a new card, something that not all banks will allow you to do.

It’s important to note that if you fail to pay a bill owed on a business card that it will get reported on your personal credit report. But as long as you make timely payments it will never get reported.

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach Chase business reconsideration at 800-453-9719 and American Express reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

So what cards are out there?
Chase has business cards that earn Ultimate Rewards, an awesome transferable point currency that can be used for United, British Airways), Hyatt, and much more. Click here to read more on that.

-There is the Chase Ink Bold Charge Card and the Chase Ink Plus Credit Card.
Both of these cards currently offer 50,000 bonus points after for spending $5,000 in 3 months. Previously these had required $10,000 in spending.

The Ink Bold and Plus cards have a $95 annual fee which is waived for the first year and those cards allow Ultimate Rewards points to be transferred to airlines or hotels. A lounge club membership with 2 annual visits is included for free for the primary user and for all free additional users! There are also no foreign exchange fees with these cards.

The Bold card is a charge card that must be paid in full every month and has a flexible spending limit while the Plus card is a credit card that has a defined credit limit and can be paid over time. I’ve gotten approved for both types no one reconsideration call.

With 110,000 points that you can get with the Bold and Plus cards after spending the threshold you can book more than 24 short-haul flights on American, fly round-trip business class to Europe with no fuel surcharges, or even fly in Kosmo Suites first class on a Korean A380. With 100,000 United miles you can fly Newark-Israel-Newark and Newark-Hawaii-Newark with no fuel surcharges.

These cards also offer a whopping 5 points per dollar spent on up to $50,000 annually at office supply stores, and internet/telecom/cable bills.

People like to buy gift cards from office supply stores like Office Max, Office Depot, and Staples for stores like Amazon.com, clothing stores, and much much more with no fees. You can also save on your gas purchases and earn way more miles by buying gift cards from office supply stores.

You can even purchase prepaid cards from office supply stores that can be used at any store. A $200 Visa prepaid card will cost you $6.95 but you’ll be able to use it anywhere and you’ll earn 1,035 miles for each one that you buy! Plus there are occasional promotions to defray or negate those fees. You can even cash them out for free with Amazon Payments, so they’re a good way to meet spend thresholds.

You also earn 2 points per dollar on gas stations and hotels. Don’t forget that many gas stations also sell gift cards and prepaid cards and there’s no cap to the 2 points per dollar earnings.

-Then there is the Chase Ink Cash Credit Card.
The cash card offers 20,000 bonus points for spending $3,000 in 3 months. It also offers 5 points per dollar spent on up to $25,000 annually at office supply stores, and internet/telecom/cable bills. You also earn 2 points per dollar on gas stations and restaurants. A lounge club membership with 2 annual visits is included for free. There is no annual fee, though you or your spouse need a Bold, Plus, or Sapphire Preferred card to transfer those points into real miles.

-On the American Express side you also have plenty of great cards to choose from that I’ve talked about in the past. The Starwood and Business Gold carda both can earn more than 1 airline mile per dollar spent. You can read more about them on the Credit Card page here:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN
-The Plum Card® from American Express OPEN

Posted in Credit Cards | 110 Comments »

A List Of Gift Cards Sold At Lowe’s

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

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I compiled this list of gift cards sold by Lowe’s as Lowe’s is included in the Q2 spending categories on the Chase Freedom Mastercard and Chase Freedom Visa when you can earn over 5 points per dollar spent on up to $1,500 in spending. You also earn 5 points per dollar on restaurant and movie theater spending in Q2.

Why is that important when you can always buy Lowe’s (or Home Depot) gift cards with your Ink Bold or Ink Plus card at an office supply store to earn 5 points per dollar year-round on up to $50K in spending? Because you can’t buy gift cards at Lowe’s when using a Lowe’s gift card!

For the sake of being comprehensive I have included all of the gift cards I saw, including to non-kosher restaurants. For what it’s worth the kosher Subway in Cleveland for example does accept Subway gift cards even though they don’t participate in any other national Subway coupons or promotions.

-AMC Theaters
-AT&T GoPhone
-Aeropastle
-Amazon
-Applebees
-Barnes & Noble
-Bass Pro Shop
-Bath & Body Works
-Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby
-Boost Mobile
-Build-A-Bear
-Cabela’s
-Cheesecake Factory
-Chili’s
-Claire’s
-Coldstone Creamery
-Cracker Barrel
-Darden Restaurants
-Fandango
-Finish Line
-Foot Locker
-Game Stop
-Gap Inc (Gap, Banana, Old Navy, Athleta, Piperlime)
-Golfsmith
-Ihop
-iTunes
-JCPenney
-Jiffy Lube
-Jo-Ann Fabric
-Justice
-Kohl’s
-Lane Bryant
-Lowe’s
-MLB.com
-Macy’s
-Marriott
-Marshalls
-Michael’s
-Nascar Superstore
-Nike
-Nordstrom
-OfficeMax
-Olive Garden
-Outback Steakhouse
-PFChang’s
-Panera
-Petco
-Petsmart
-Pizza Hut
-Red Lobster
-Red Robin
-Regal Cinemas
-Ruby Tuesday
-Sephora
-Shell
-Southwest
-SpaFinder
-Sports Authority
-Staples
-Starbucks
-Subway
-TGIFriday
-TJMaxx
-T-Mobile Prepaid
-Tracfone
-Verizon Prepaid
-Virgin Mobile
-Xbox

Posted in Credit Cards | 23 Comments »

Register Now For Q1 Chase Freedom Spending!

Monday, March 11th, 2013

Update, 03/11: Don’t forget that you have to register your card by 03/14 to participate in the Q1 bonus categories!

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Update, 01/08: I’ve already spent the $3,000 max on 2 Freedom cards this quarter on Vanilla Reloads from CVS and moved the funds over to Bluebird to pay off the Freedom bill. Total points=15,360. Total cost=$23.70. Hard to beat that!
If your local store does not have Vanilla Reloads you can also use MVDs.
Read this post for more information (with pictures) on the entire process.
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-Chase Freedom Mastercard-Earn $100 cash back (in the form of 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points) when you spend $500 in 3 months.
-Chase Freedom Visa-Earn $100 cash back (in the form of 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points) when you spend $500 in 3 months.
There is no annual fee for Freedom!
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You can now click here to activate your Q1 Chase Freedom 5% categories.

Although they are called “5% categories” you really get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent which can be cashed out for 5% cash. For $1,500 in spending you will earn at least 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points.

If you or your spouse has a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card you can transfer Freedom points over to one of those cards and then transfer them at a 1:1 ratio into much more valuable airline miles (United, British Airways, Southwest, Korean, etc) or hotel points (Hyatt, etc)

If you are grandfathered for Freedom Exclusives you also get 10 points per transaction and a 10% bonus on base spend points.

The 5 point categories for 2013 are as follows:

Here is a link that explains where you will and won’t earn the 5 points per dollar this quarter

Don’t forget that at gas stations and drug stores you can buy gift cards for other stores so that you earn 5 points per dollar there as well.

Plus many drug stores and gas stations carry Vanilla Reload cards, so that means 5 points per dollar and you can cash out the cards with Bluebird!

Posted in Credit Cards | 58 Comments »

Split By GroupMe: Free Until 03/12

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

Update #3: A $499 limit has been added to qualify for free processing.

Update #2: It’s back to being free again through 03/12!

Update, 03/08: It appears that GroupMe has gone back on their word and has started charging for this service early. They have edited the page and deleted the info on the service being free through 03/12. Congrats to those who got in before they made the change!

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Split By GroupMe Linky

Split by GroupMe is a way for friends to chip in for something together and pay back one person for laying out the funds to buy something. There will be a 4% processing fee starting on 03/13/13, but until then you can send credit card payments to anyone for free.

Considering that this is intended for small purchases I’d imagine they may block large transactions.

If you try out the service please post how it works out for you.

Posted in Credit Cards | 59 Comments »

Reconsideration For Those Without The Gift Of Gab

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

Calling the Reconsideration department after being denied a credit card is crucial. They’ve already pulled your credit, now you just have to explain why you want the credit card. Everyone gets denied, the only difference is how much time you’re willing to spend to turn that denial into an approval.

You only have 30 days after you’re denied to reconsider an app, but often you can call Reconsideration right after applying. The advantage of calling right away is that it limits the chances of getting another pull in case they have to pull your report another time.

Good strategies include:
-Proactively offering to shift credit lines around from other cards to get the new application approved.
-Proactively offering to close an older card you don’t use anymore to get the new application approved. Make sure the old card is totally paid off and that they move over the entire credit line to the new card. In this way you won’t have any loss on your credit report from the closed card as the closed card continues to help your length of credit history and average age of your accounts for at least 10 years after it’s closed and you didn’t lose your line of credit or hurt your credit utilization ratio.
-Explaining how you want the benefits the card provides. Like free baggage and primary car rental insurance on United Explorer. Or just simply that you plan on flying more often on Delta or Southwest. That you will be staying in Starwood hotels and want elite night credits, that you like the idea of 3 times points for airfare, or that you want 2.14 points on dining and travel with Sapphire Preferred. That you want a line of credit for your business with Ink Plus along with the charge card capabilities of Ink Bold. Every card has unique perks, make sure you know what you’re applying for and why and that will help you out greatly. Often I can even teach the reps a thing or 2 they didn’t even know! If a card has no fee or no foreign exchange fee or any other unique perks, those are all good reasons for wanting a card.
The banks are afraid of people just applying for credit to rack up debts that they won’t pay. Your job is to explain why you are NOT one of those people and why you want the card. After all if you don’t pay a bill you’ll lose out on all the fun due to your credit being shot!
-Explaining why you might want 2 versions of a card. HSA spending should often be done on a dedicated card. You may want to separate foreign and domestic spending. Etc.
-Explaining how you’ve never had a late payment or that you’re a loyal customer for x amount of years.
-Explaining how you bank and have other services with the credit card and are very loyal.
-Be friendly! Ask the person how their day is going and they’ll be more likely to want to help you out.

What about if you’re just not a good talker?
Multiple DDF members have had great success doing reconsideration via secure message. The same strategies apply, just keep your case short and to the point.
-dovy2 was denied 3 times over the phone but approved after just 1 secure message.
-sky121 helped his grandmother out with secure messaging, offered to shift credit lines around to get approved, and voila.
-syguy explained the benefits of the Sapphire Preferred and offered to move over credit and he got approved as well via SM.

So far all of the reports have been with Chase. If you try it with another bank then be sure to let everyone know how it goes.

Want to talk instead of write? Here are Reconsideration numbers:

AMEX: 866-314-0237

Barclay: 866 408 4064

BoFA: 866-458-8804

Chase:
Chase: 800-432-3117 (Application status)
Chase: 888-270-2127 (Application reconsideration)
Chase: 800-453-9719 (Business card reconsideration)
Chase: 888-245-0625 (Credit Analyst reconsideration)
Chase: 888-622-7547 (Chase Executive Office)
Chase: 888-298-5623 (Credit Reallocation – Consumer)
Chase: 800-453-9719 (Credit Reallocation – Business)

It’s also worth noting that if you have at least $10,000 in a Chase checking account your banker can send in a special reconsideration form requesting that you be approved. Use this in case you face dead ends after calling the various departments and secure messaging them.

Citi:
Citi: 866-606-2787 (Account Analyst)
Citi: 888-201-4523 (New App Approval Status)
Citi: 800-444-2568 (Retention Dept.)
Citi: 800-763-9795 (Credit Dept.)
Citi Credit Bureau Dispute Fax: 866-713-5028

Citi Recon can be tough. Many people have also had better luck writing to the office of the President for reconsideration on Citi cards:
Mr. Ken Stork
Office of the President
PO Box 6000
Sioux Falls, SD 57117

Have you tried reconsideration via Secure Message? Share the details in the comments!

Posted in Credit Cards | 37 Comments »

75,000 Point Signup Bonus For The Business Gold Rewards Card From American Express Open!

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

Update: The 75K offer link below will expire tomorrow, 03/08, at 1:59pm EST!

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Signup bonus:
75,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $10,000 in 4 months.

Offer Terms:
-LIMITED TIME OFFER: Earn 75,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $10,000 in the first 4 months of Card membership.
-3X points on airfare
-2x points on purchases in the U.S. for advertising in select media, gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations, and shipping
-1X points on other purchases
-Points are earned only on eligible purchases. Bonus points limitations apply.
-Earn points even faster to get more rewards for your business
-24/7 support for everything from identity theft to travel emergencies
-$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $175
-Introductory annual fee for Additional Gold Cards in the first year is $0; then, $50 for the first Additional Gold Card and no fee for other Additional Cards
-Terms & Restrictions Apply.

Spending $10,000 in 4 months:
Spending $10K isn’t what it used to be.
I have spent that much at CVS in one night

With options like Vanilla Reloads, Vanilla MVD cards that can be easily combined, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

No need to rehash everything, Here are articles I’ve written on this stuff:
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
-Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card
-Today’s Escapades
-Meeting A Spend Threshold In One Night.
-Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Send And Receive $1,000/Month With No Fees Using Amazon Payments!

If you spend $1,000 at Fedex for example you’ll get a 5% automatic cash rebate and 2,000 points (double points for shipping as stated above). $1,000 at HP gets a 10% automatic cash rebate and 1,000 points plus their awesome extended warranty coverage as long as you have any open American Express card at the time of the claim.

What can you do with the points:
-You can wait for another Avios bonus. These come by every few months and usually range from 30%-50%.
This month there is a 50% bonus for transfers from American Express Canada to British Airways so hopefully that will come down to us soon!
With a bonus you can get to Israel for as little as 20K points each way instead of the normal 30K points each way.
-Once you’re done with $10K in spending you’ll have at least 85K American Express Membership Rewards points.
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for about 19 short-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 28 short-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for more than 11 medium-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 17 medium-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for more than 8 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 12 of those flights!
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Of you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska). With 85K points you’d have enough for about 7 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 10 of those flights!
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their great business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe last month in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fue surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards from American Express include:

Consumer cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
-American Express® Gold Card
-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-Blue Cash Everyday Card® from American Express
-Blue Sky from American Express®

Business cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN

Posted in Credit Cards | 109 Comments »

A List Of Gift Cards Sold By Office Supply Stores

Sunday, March 3rd, 2013

Update: Want to save money on gas while earning more points?
Several DDF users have confirmed that they paid the lower cash price for gas when using a gift card instead of the higher credit card price. Plus by buying those gas gift cards at office supply stores on Ink you earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar. Additionally some DDF users report that they even received a 10 cent discount off of the cash price at Shell for using a Shell gift card!
For more info:
-http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=18471.msg398873#msg398873

-http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=14434.msg195250#msg195250

-http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=18471.msg400779#msg400779

-http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=18471.msg399028#msg399028

-http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=14434.msg198470#msg198470
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Originally posted on 12/10/12:

Related posts:
-A Rundown Of The Chase Ultimate Rewards Program And Ultimate Rewards Cards
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-Updated Chase Ink Offers
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I’ve mentioned numerous times that the Chase Ink cards can be used at Office Supply stores to buy gift cards and earn 5 points per dollar. As the points can be transferred to many valuable currencies (see the related articles above) that means a rebate of about 9.5%.

I personally have all 4 Ink flavors, the Ink Bold, Ink Plus, Ink Cash, and Ink Classic cards. I just finished my collection with the last 2 flavors I could get and a United business card which earned me 50K miles and $50 cash back a few weeks ago in a 3BM. It took a call to Business Recon to get them approved, but with some shifting of personal credit lines that didn’t pose any problem and I even got the 2 Ink cards approved in one call.

The money you spend on business cards doesn’t show up your credit report so spending on them doesn’t hurt your credit utilization ratio like spending on a personal card does. The Ink Cash card comes with 6 months of 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers, which also won’t hurt your credit score like those would if carried on a personal card. Canceling a business card won’t hurt your score either as the credit line was never reported.

Getting a business card is quite simple. As a 12 year old I was buying beanie babies from Nordstrom to flip on eBay once they were “retired” when a $5 purchase could fetch $300 a week later. Once I hit 18 I was able to get a business card by just calling the business my name with Sole Proprietorship at the end. I just used my social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field. I never had a problem getting approved after a quick chat with reconsideration. You can reach Chase business reconsideration at 800-453-9719.

Besides for the office supply store bonus you also earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent all year round on telecom (cell and landline), cable, internet, and TV. With the Bold/Plus cards that’s capped at $50,000 per year and with the Classic/Cash cards that’s capped at $25,000 per year. The cards also earn 2 points per dollar year round at gas stations and either hotels (Ink Bold/Plus/Classic) or dining (Ink Cash). The Bold/Plus cards have no foreign exchange fees and you need one of those cards or a Sapphire Preferred to transfer points to airline miles or hotel points.

Amazon Payments can cash out AMEX/MC/Visa gift cards with no fees. Of course if you do $5,000 like that on a new Ink Bold or Ink Plus card you’ll also have earned the 50,000 point signup bonus plus 25,000 points at 5 points per dollar, so you’ll have a total of 75,000 points, all transferable to United, British Airways, Korean, Southwest, Hyatt, and more.

Or pick up gift cards to stores you shop at anyway, like Amazon or Nordstrom, to earn 5 points per dollar there.

You should never pay tax on a gift card. If you are being charged tax by mistake be sure to ask for a manager or call their corporate customer service.

People have asked what gift cards they have in stores, so I went to compile a list. For the sake of being comprehensive I have included all of the gift cards I saw, including to non-kosher restaurants. For what it’s worth the kosher Subway in Cleveland for example does accept Subway gift cards even though they don’t participate in any other national Subway coupons or promotions.

Office Max:
-Prepaid AMEX (Fee applies)
-Prepaid Mastercard (Fee applies)
-Prepaid Visa (Fee applies)
-Amazon
-American Eagle
-AMC Theaters
-AT&T GoPhone
-Babies R Us/Toys R Us
-Baja Fresh
-Barnes & Noble
-Bass Pro Shop
-Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby
-Boost Mobile
-Build-A-Bear
-Cabela’s
-Catherine’s
-Cheesecake Factory
-Chili’s
-Claire’s
-Coldstone Creamery
-Cracker Barrel
-Disney
-Express
-Fandango
-Foot Locker
-Home Depot
-Ihop
-iTunes
-JCPenney
-Jo-Ann Fabric
-Justice
-Kindle
-Kohl’s
-Lowe’s
-Macy’s
-Michael’s
-Nike
-Nook
-Nordstrom
-Olive Garden
-Outback Steakhouse
-Outdoor Adventure Gift Card
-Panera
-PFChang’s
-Pizza Hut
-Prepaid phone cards
-Red Lobster
-Red Robin
-Regal Cinemas
-Ruby Tuesday
-Sephora
-Southwest
-SpaFinder
-Starbucks
-Subway
-TGIFriday
-TJMaxx
-T-Mobile Prepaid
-Verizon Prepaid
-Virgin Mobile

Staples:
-Prepaid AMEX (Fee applies)
-Prepaid Mastercard (Fee applies)
-Prepaid Visa (Fee applies)
-Aeropastle
-Amazon
-American Eagle
-AMC Theaters
-Applebees
-Babies R Us/Toys R Us
-Barnes & Noble
-Bath & Body Works
-Bass Pro Shop
-Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby
-Bloomingdale’s
-Cheesecake Factory
-Chili’s
-Coldstone Creamery
-CPK
-Express
-Fandango
-Foot Locker
-Gap Inc (Gap, Banana, Old Navy, Athleta, Piperlime)
-Google Play
-Groupon
-Home Depot
-Hulu Plus
-iTunes
-JCPenney
-Jiffy Lube
-Kindle
-Kohl’s
-Lowe’s
-Macy’s
-Marriott
-Marshalls
-Michael’s
-Nintendo eShop
-Nook
-Nordstrom
-Olive Garden
-Outback Steakhouse
-Red Lobster
-Regal Cinemas
-Ruby Tuesday
-Panera
-Petco
-PFChang’s
-Pottery Barn
-Prepaid AMEX
-Sephora
-Shell
-Southwest
-SpaFinder
-Starbucks
-Subway
-TJMaxx

Office Depot:
-Prepaid AMEX (Fee applies)
-Prepaid Visa (Fee applies)
-Prepaid Vanilla Gift Card (Fee applies)
-Prepaid OneVanilla Gift Card (Fee applies)
-AMC Theaters
-American Eagle
-Applebees
-AT&T GoPhone
-Barnes & Noble
-Bass Pro Shop
-Bath & Body Works
-Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby
-Bloomingdale’s
-Burger King
-Burlington
-Chili’s
-Express
-Exxon/Mobil
-Fandango
-Foot Locker
-Game Stop
-Gap Inc (Gap, Banana, Old Navy, Athleta, Piperlime)
-Ihop
-iTunes
-Macy’s
-Marshalls
-McAfee
-Olive Garden
-Panera
-Pier 1 Imports
-Pizza Hut
-Red Lobster
-Sephora
-Shell
-Starbucks
-TJMaxx
-T-Mobile Prepaid
-Verizon Prepaid
-Virgin Mobile
-Wendy’s
-Xbox

Posted in Credit Cards | 59 Comments »

Vanilla Reloads Transfers To American Express Prepaid

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

Update: No news here at all, but if you only started paying attention to Vanilla Reloads once Bluebird came around then you can come out from under the same rock that I was under!

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Maybe I’ve been asleep at the wheel, but this is news to me at least. You can transfer funds from Vanilla Reload cards to American Express Prepaid cards.

I still have a few prepaid cards from back when they were offering a bonus to signup for them.

My wife and I both have bluebird cards, so that’s an easy $10,000 of spending we can do per month and cash out for free. This just adds a little more free spending. With a prepaid card you get 1 free ATM transaction per month and additional transactions are $2.

You can find more info on loading your prepaid card from Vanilla Reload or from Green Dot on the FAQ page.

In case you need to meet spend thresholds cards like Vanilla Reloads or Vanilla Debit are just perfect. They’re also great for just getting cheap miles, especially with CVS earning 5x on Freedom this quarter.

You can find free ATMs in Brooklyn inside and outside the Barclays Center. In Cleveland, Columbus, and Pittsburgh you can go into any Getgo gas stations for free ATMs along with your free gas.

You can withdraw up to $400 per day from your prepaid card. My wife and I have 6 cards, so that’s nothing to sneeze at!

HT: @chiefmbh via Twitter and Thingywingy via DDF

Posted in Credit Cards, Miles | 54 Comments »

Signup Bonus Returns For The American Express Business Platinum Card

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013

Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN

For a while now there has been no signup bonus for this card, but as of today for a limited time the 25K bonus is back. You can get this bonus even if you have the consumer Platinum card.

Signup bonus:
25,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months.

Annual fee:
$450. Though that can be offset by the $400 in fee refunds you can receive in your first cardmembership year.

Card benefits:
-Platinum card lounge access for you and 2 guests or your wife and kids at American (must be flying American), Delta (must be flying Delta), and USAirways (can be flying anyone) lounges.
-Priority Pass lounge access to hundreds of additional clubs worldwide.
-Regus lounge membership for access to wifi equipped offices with free snacks worldwide.
-$200 per calendar year in airline fee refunds, so $400 in refunds for 2013 and 2014 during your first cardmembership year. More info here.
-Refund of Global Entry/Nexus/TSA PreCheck expedited security membership.
-Automatic Starwood Gold elite status for bonus points on paid and award stays/free wifi, room upgrades, and 4pm late checkout.
-Car rental elite status and special benefits like 4 hour return grace at Hertz with free #1 Gold, free reward days at Avis and elite status with National.
-No Foreign exchange fee.
-This is one of the only cards that will refund you if you lose any item that you purchased (up to $10,000) within 90 days in additional to many other enhanced American Express benefits.

Spending $5,000 in 3 months:
Spending $10K isn’t what it used to be.

With options like Vanilla Reloads, Vanilla MVD cards, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

What can you do with the points:
-You can wait for another Avios bonus. These come by every few months and usually range from 30%-50%. That means you get to Israel for as little as 20K points each way instead of the normal 30K points each way.
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges or less with a transfer bonus.
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges.
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges.
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Of you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska).
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their great business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe in December in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fuel surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.
-ANA miles can get you round-trip to Europe for 38K miles with no fuel surcharges or Israel for 60K miles with no fuel surcharges.
-Singapore miles can get you round-trip transcontinental flights in lie-flat business class for 40K or business class to Hawaii for 60K with no fuel surcharges.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards you may want to consider include:

Posted in Credit Cards | 21 Comments »

50K Premier Rewards Gold And 45K Delta Card Offers!

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013

Step 1: Click here to check which offers you can get.

Step 2: Click on “Offers Matched for You” at the top of the left sidebar.

Step 3: Enter your personal info. You don’t need to enter your social.

Step 4: See if you have a 50K Premier Rewards Gold or 45K Delta card offer waiting for you! The Gold offer requires $1,000 of spending in 3 months. The Delta card requires $5,000 of spending in 6 months.

Be sure to take screenshots of the offer details.

You can also submit applications for different American Express cards in separate browsers with the same single credit pull including great cards like the Starwood Preferred Guest® Consumer Credit Card from American Express or the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN. Cards applied for on the same day from the same bank typically result in just 1 pull.
The Starwood cards have no fee the first year and have free authorized user cards that you can use on Small Business Saturday to make $25 on each one. Plus you can downgrade the card to a free card after the year.

HT: MEIR613, via DDF

Posted in Credit Cards | 69 Comments »

What Do You SM For?

Sunday, February 10th, 2013

Secure messaging (or SM for short) is incredible. It’s a time saver and it works miracles.

Some examples of what you can do:

-Have an application reconsidered.
This was a new one for me, but a DDF member related that they sent a SM to Chase and got a Sapphire Preferred card approved by offering to move over part of the credit line from their United Explorer card.

You can also employ the strategies I wrote about in this Reconsideration post when writing a SM to be reconsidered. Explain why you want the card for its benefits (for United to get free bags and primary car rental insurance, etc) and if you are willing to move over part or all of the credit from another card to get the new card approved.

-Cancel a card.
First of all you really shouldn’t do this via SM. Rather than cancelling a card unilaterally you should apply for a new card (or multiple new cards) and work to get them approved by moving over part of or all of the credit line of the card you want to close anyway.
Also if you call to cancel a card you may be offered (or you can ask for) a retention bonus to keep the card open.
But if you are sure you just want to close down the card and don’t want to waste time fighting to close it you can just send a SM to ask that it be closed. Add that you simply don’t have the time to call in and would appreciate it if they can close it for you.

-Get credit for a promotion.
A few of my $25 Costco Link Like Love credits didn’t post automatically. I sent a SM and they manually posted them. Strangely enough a few months later they showed up automatically.
Many DDF’ers posted similar stories with Small Business Saturday as well.

-Request a waiver for a late fee and interest.
If you miss a payment once and get hit with a late fee and interest you can ask via SM that it be waived as a courtesy. Don’t forget to also request that interest on the next bill be suppressed as well.

-Have pending points posted.
Most cards post the points together with the statement. On AMEX charge cards they’re only posted after you have paid your bill. Once you pay your bill you can SM to have your points posted right away instead of having to wait for them.
You can also ask AMEX to allow you to borrow Membership Rewards or Starpoints which you will have 12 months to pay back through purchases or signup bonuses.

-Match a bonus.
While this no longer works with AMEX, people have been able to match some bonus offers with Chase and Citi. Can’t hurt to ask!

-Receive a refund of a credit balance.
Pretty straightforward. Just SM to get a check sent out to you for a credit balance left on your account. You can even request that the credit balance be sent to your checking account via ACH.

What else do you SM for?

Posted in Credit Cards | 19 Comments »

Killer Apps: Knowing The Top Benefits Of Each Card

Thursday, February 7th, 2013

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People are always asking me what the best cards are. If only it were that easy.
You see different cards have different things they excel at. Some have a great signup bonus, others have great spend categories, others have great fringe benefits, etc.
If you know where your card excels you’ll know where and when to use it. There’s no shame in keeping a cheat-sheet in your wallet

For example:

-Chase United Explorer Consumer (Click on “Business Owner” for business card)
-Killer app: While most cards only give secondary car rental insurance when renting in your home country, this card gives primary insurance. With other cards that means you would have to make a claim with your personal car insurance and only if they deny it will the credit card would pay the claim. With this card your insurance company will never even know about the claim.
-Also great for: Signup bonus (I’ve gotten 55K+$50 my past several times), free checked bag, expanded saver and standard award availability.
-Not great for: Spending, unless you can hit $25K in a year in which case the earning are bumped up from 1 mile per dollar to 1.4 miles per dollar.

-Chase Ink Bold, Chase Ink Plus, and Chase Ink Cash
-Killer app: Signup bonus of 50K on the Bold or Plus. Plus awesome bonus categories. You get 5 points per dollar on internet and telecom but more importantly 5 points per dollar at office supply stores. With hundreds of gift cards sold by office supply stores you can earn a ton of miles for anything from buying gas, online shopping on Amazon or Groupon, buying clothes from Gap Inc, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Marshalls/TJMaxx, or Nordstrom, and much much more.
-Also great for: 0% intro APR on the Ink Cash.
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories.

-Chase Freedom Mastercard and Chase Freedom Visa
-Killer app: No annual fee. 5 point rotating spending categories. Currently drug stores is a category. Can you hear Vanilla Reload?
If you have the card linked for exclusives with Chase checking account you also earn 10 points every time you swipe the card and 10% bonus points, making this a go-to card for small spend amounts.
-Not great for: Small signup bonus. Also you or your spouse needs a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus to transfer points to airlines or hotels.

- Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Killer app: 25K signup bonus. Plus you get a 25% points bonus when you transfer blocks of 20K points into airlines miles. And the points transfer into dozens of airlines with endless possibilities. Plus the points are very valuable towards hotel stays.
-Also great for: Fringe benefits! AMEX is simply awesome when it comes to benefits. If you ever need to dispute a charge they make it painless and easy…I’ve never lost! Store won’t take back an item within 90 days? You can return it to AMEX for a full refund and many times for smaller purchases they even let you keep the item! Problem with an item within the year after the original warranty expired? AMEX will refund your entire purchase price, simple as that! In other words if you even buy on item that you may have a problem with it should be on an AMEX.
On Small Business Saturday you get a $25 in free spending and that even works on all of your free additional cardholders! There are many other similar promotions that AMEX runs throughout the year as well.
-Not great for: Base spending is good due to the 25% bonus but the only bonus category is for spending in Starwood hotels.

-The Hyatt Card from Chase
-Killer app: 2 signup bonus nights that can be used at hotels that go for $1,000/night. You also get Platinum elite status which gets you upgrades and free internet. If you are already elite you get suite benefits for applying. Every year you get an additional anniversary night.
-Also great for: At Hyatt hotels you get triple points, though AMEX business cards give points + 5% cash back at domestic Hyatts. No foreign exchange fees.
-Not great for: You can usually do better for spending on other cards.

-Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa Signature
-Killer app: 40K signup bonus. 2.14 points per dollar on dining, airfare, car rentals, and hotels, and 1.07 points per dollar elsewhere. Plus you get the best possible foreign exchange with no fees when abroad.
-Also great for: You can have Chase convert the card into a Mastercard which will cover car rentals in Israel, all while earning 2.14 points per dollar with no foreign exchange fees. I was able to get another Visa after converting to a Mastercard and got the points on it again.

-Chase United Club (Click on Club tab)
-Killer app: 1.5 miles per dollar spent everywhere. 2 free checked bags on United. Full United Club membership for gate access even when you aren’t flying. Primary rental car insurance. Expanded saver and standard award availability. Waived award expedite fees.
-Not great for: Hefty annual fee, though I’ve been able to get it waived by asking.

-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-Killer app: Triple points on airfare and double points on gas and groceries. Plus 15K bonus points for spending $30K annually.
-Also great for: 25K signup bonus.
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories unless you can hit $30K in a year.

-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Killer app: $200 per year airline fee refund, Platinum card lounge access, Priority Pass lounge access, Global Entry Fee Waiver, Lost Item Protection
-Also great for: 25K signup bonus, no foreign transaction fees.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards, though no other card will reimburse you for just losing an item. Hefty annual fee though it’s offset by getting $400 in refunds.

-Chase British Airways Visa
-Killer app: Signup bonus of 50K for spending $1K, 75K for spending $10K, 100K for spending $20K. With award starting at just 4,500 Avios that’s a lot of free flights. Vanilla Reload, MVD, Bluebird, Amazon, et al can all help meeting that.
-Also great for: If you can make it to $30K you get a free companion pass to use on a BA award ticket. No foreign exchange fees. You get 1.25 Avios per dollar spent everywhere and 2.5 on BA tickets.
-Not great for: As BA partners with AMEX, Starwood, and Ultimate Rewards, there are many other ways of getting Avios besides for spending on this card once you get the signup bonus.

-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express and Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Killer app: Free checked bag and priority boarding on Delta
-Also great for: 30K signup miles.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-Killer app: 6% cash back at grocery stores
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories.

-Chase Slate
-Killer app: 0% APR for 15 months plus no fees on balance transfers within 60 days of opening the account.
-Not great for: Earning points.

-Chase Marriott Premier and Chase Marriott
-Killer app: Signup bonus.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Citi Hilton Reserve
-Killer app: Signup bonus of 2 free weekend nights at Hilton and Waldorf Astoria worldwide. Free anniversary night if you spend $10K annually.
-Also great for: Gold elite status which gets you free breakfast ad upgrades. Plus it can be matched to the awesome Hyatt Diamond status.
-Not great for: Besides for Hilton spending, you can do better spending on other cards.

-Citi Hilton
-Killer app: No annual fee card that gives Hilton Silver status. All Hilton elites receive points discounts on award stays of 4 or more nights.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Citi AA (There are lots of links for this card, see DDF for the latest and greatest “zombie” link)
-Killer app: Signup points, free checked bag, 10% award redemption rebate, reduced AA awards to rotating cities.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Discover It
-Killer app: 5% rotating cash back categories on a no annual fee card.
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories.

-Penfed Visa
-Killer app: 5% cash back on gas. No foreign transaction fees.
To open this card you need to join something a membership like the National Military Family Association, which is open to the public but costs $20. On the plus side belonging to the National Military Family Association also reduces most people’s auto insurance rate significantly. You can ask your car insurance company how much you would save if you were a member before joining.
-Not great for: Spending outside of gas.

-Barclays USAirways Consumer Card and USAirways Consumer Card for Chairman Preferred Elites
-Killer app: 40K signup bonus. 5,000 mile discount on USAirways awards.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

Posted in Credit Cards | 80 Comments »

Is Today The Last Day To Change Your Previously Registered $200 Airline Fee Credit Choice?

Thursday, January 31st, 2013

The Platinum Card® from American Express is loaded with many valuable benefits. One of them is a $200 annual fee credit for an airline that you can register for.

That effectively gives you $400 in fee credits in your first card membership year.

While most people use the credit to purchase 2 gift cards of $100 each from AA or United in separate orders, DDF user PlatinumGuy has his own method to get a straight cash refund that works perfectly though I’m not about to endorse it. You can read the Wiki on this DDF thread to learn more, though you need to be logged into DDF to read Wikis.

The language on the fee credit now says that “Card members who have already selected a qualifying airline will be able to change their choice one time each year in January at www.americanexpress.com/airlinechoice or by calling the number on the back of the Card.”

My guess is that when you call in after today that they will still let you change the airline, though why risk it?

If you open a new Platinum card you are not bound by that January time limit.

Posted in Credit Cards | 31 Comments »

Should You Get A United Club Card?

Sunday, January 27th, 2013

Update, 01/27/13: Today is the last day to apply for Avis President’s Club if you are a United Club cardholder. That benefit is being discontinued and on April 1st Avis President’s Club members with status from United credit cards will be downgraded to Avis First elite status.

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Originally posted on 04/30/12:

United MileagePlus Card Linky

The United Club card is the premium version of the United Explorer card, just click on the MileagePlus Club card tab.

The United Club card costs a whopping $395 per year, though you get a $95 statement credit for signing up. People have had success sending a secure message to get it matched to a first year free offer.

It is a heavy metal card, like the Sapphire Preferred.

You can have the card even if you already have an Explorer card. While the Explorer card offers 30K miles for signing up and spending $1,000 (and you can SM to be matched to 55K miles+$50 cash back) on the Club card there’s no mileage bonus for signing up.

So should you get the card? That depends on how often you travel with luggage, how much you spend, and how you value having a full club membership. Even if you just value 1 of those things it can be worth being a cardholder.

So what do you get for having the card? These incredibly sweet benefits:

-Full United Club membership:
This membership normally costs $500 per year for non-elites and it’s the only club network that can’t be accessed with the AMEX Platinum card or the Priority Pass lounge membership that comes with that card.
A full United Club membership allows your entire family, or you and 2 guests, to enter hundreds of United and partner lounges worldwide, regardless of which airline you are flying of even if you are even flying at all! Just show your membership card and you’re in!
Here is a dreadfully incomplete list of lounges. For example I’ve used my United membership card in Tel Aviv but they’re not listed.

-Unlimited Airport Terminal Access:
Another very nice benefit of being a full United Club member is that you can access the secured part of the airport even when you’re not flying! When I pick someone up from the airport I often like to meet them at the gate and surprise them and go for a free drink in the club. All you have to do is go to the checkin counter, show your United Club membership, and request a gate pass to get past security to access the lounge.
This will work in any airport where there is a United or USAirways lounge.
With free wifi, snacks, drinks, newspapers, magazines, and even showers and free ironing services in some locations, you can even make the United Club your new office if you wanted to!
Or you can just take your kid past security to see the planes taking off when not rushing to a flight, just like in the pre 9/11 days.

-1.5 United Miles per dollar spent everywhere!
This blows every other card out of the water. You’ll get 1.5 miles for every dollar you spend anywhere. No other card out there offers anything near this earning rate on everyday purchases! Even the great Starwood card earns an effective 1.25 miles per dollar spent and those can’t be directly transferred to United (though they can be used on United via an airline like USAirways though they have harsher award policies), or the excellent Freedom card with checking offers 1.1 points per dollar spent on everyday purchases.

It’s not hard at all to get at least 1.8 cents value per mile (or much more than that), but at that rate it’s a 2.7% rebate on everything you buy. Considering you can pay your federal income taxes for a 1.88% fee, you will be able to load up on miles the next time you pay taxes and be excited about getting a discounted vacation out of it! It would come out to a cost of just 1.25 cents per United mile, which is an incredible bargain (A business class ticket to Europe is 100,000 miles with no fuel surcharges, so you would be paying just $1,250 for business to Europe or $1,500 for business to Israel or the Maldives), plus you may even be able to deduct the 1.88% fee!

You also earn 2 miles per dollar on United purchases, though that is beat by the 2.14 points per dollar offered by Sapphire Preferred.

-2 Free Checked Bags:
You and one companion automatically get 2 free checked bags on United worldwide. If you bring 2 bags each that’s a savings of $240 domestically or a savings of $400 to most international destinations (Europe, Israel, Argentina, Asia, Australia, etc) on a round-trip.

Not only that but additional cards are free, and although additional cardholders don’t automatically get 2 free bags like the primary cardholder, they will at the checkin counter by just showing the agent their United Club card if you purchase their ticket using the United Club card. I have tested this out many times to confirm that this works. For a family of 4 with 8 checked bags you can split your itinerary into 2 after purchasing it, and then with 1 primary card and 1 additional card all 8 checked bags will be free, a savings of $480 domestically or $800 to most international destinations on a round-trip.

As the free luggage benefit can be attained by just showing a checkin agent your credit card, it will last until the card’s expiration date, which is 3 years from when you are approved.

-Premier Access and Boarding:
You’ll get priority check-in, priority baggage handling (your bags will arrive ahead of the general public’s), and priority security line access.
Plus you will board at the same time as Premier Silver elite members, ahead of Explorer cardholders, ahead of families with children, and way ahead of the general public, so that you will have plenty of space for your carry-ons.

-Waived Award Expedite/Close-In Fees:
Those pesky $75 per passenger fees for booking an award ticket within 21 days (which is right when the best award availability starts to open up) are automatically waived for cardholders!

-No foreign Transaction fees:
Get the best rates and pay no exchange rate fees.

-Avis President’s Club Elite Status:
Cardholders get Avis’ invite only President’s Club elite status!
With this status you get guaranteed 2 class upgrades, and often will get free luxury car upgrades, just like Chairman members!

-Hyatt Platinum Elite Status:
Cardmembers get Platinum status at Hyatt, giving them free internet, upgrades, bonus points, and a sweetened offer when they apply for the Hyatt credit card.

As with the Explorer card, you also get these benefits:

-Primary CDW Rental Car Insurance:
Almost all credit cards only offer secondary CDW rental car insurance, meaning that you must first file a claim with your personal insurance which will affect your rates. The United consumers cards cover accidents without the need to make any claim with your personal insurance and should definitely be your go-to card for all car rentals outside of Israel.

-Premier upgrades on award tickets:
Premier members will be eligible for upgrades by being a United cardholder.

-Non-expiring miles:
As long as you’re a United cardholder your miles will never expire.

-Last-Seat Standard Awards:
As long as there’s a seat on the plane you’ll be able to use double miles for it. This level is now capacity controlled for general members.

-Other protections:
-Travel Accident Insurance
-Emergency Assistance
-Trip Cancellation Insurance
-Lost Luggage Reimbursement
-Delayed Luggage Reimbursement
-Delayed Trip Reimbursement
-Extended Warranty Protection
-Price Drop Protection
-Purchase Protection
-Return Protection
-Worldwide Emergency Card Replacement

Posted in Credit Cards | 286 Comments »

75,000 Point Signup Bonus For The Business Gold Rewards Card From American Express Open!

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

Update #2: DEAD!

Update: This offer expires on Monday, 01/28 at 10:59am EST.

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-4BM Success! (2 consumer card and 2 business card approvals with just 1 hard pull!) .
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?
-Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 47K American Express Membership Rewards
-Credit Score FAQs: Opening And Closing Cards
-Credit Card Reconsideration: Don’t Give Up!
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Link removed-Offer is now dead!

Signup bonus:
75,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $10,000 in 4 months.

Limited Time Offer:
This will expire early next Monday morning, 01/28.

You will earn:
-3X points on airfare
-2x points on purchases in the U.S. for advertising in select media, gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations, and shipping
-1X points on other purchases
-Points are earned only on eligible purchases. Bonus points limitations apply.
-$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $175
-Introductory annual fee for Additional Gold Cards in the first year is $0; then, $50 for the first Additional Gold Card and no fee for other Additional Cards
-Terms & Restrictions Apply.
-Offer expires January 28th, 2013.

Spending $10,000 in 4 months:
Spending $10K isn’t what it used to be.
I spent that much at CVS just 2 nights ago in a single shot (well, 10 shots)!

What can you do with the points:
-You can wait for another Avios bonus. These come by every few months and usually range from 30%-50%. That means you get to Israel for as little as 20K points each way instead of the normal 30K points eacy way. Once you’re done with $10K in spending you’ll have at least 85K points.
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for about 19 short-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 28 short-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for more than 11 medium-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 17 medium-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for more than 8 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 12 of those flights!
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Of you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska). With 85K points you’d have enough for about 7 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 10 of those flights!
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their great business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe last month in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fue surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio, currently on special for 1,000:2,000)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards you may want to consider include:

Posted in Credit Cards | 207 Comments »

New Rules? What New Rules?

Sunday, January 20th, 2013

Lots of people have been talking about language AMEX added to their apps early last year about new rules that specify getting the bonus if you haven’t had the card in the past 12 months. While some have had these enforced it’s been haphazard. Some people have been told they wouldn’t get points and they wound up getting them once completing the spending and paying off the bill. Many others were even denied the points, wound up closing their cards, and were then sent checks in the mail for a value of 2 cents for every point they didn’t wind up receiving…go figure?

All I can do is report my own experience.

Last May I did a 3BM for 1 pull and got a Platinum card, a Delta card, and a Premier Rewards Gold card. I had all 3 of those cards previously and got the points for them automatically.

Last August I did a 4BM for 1 pull and got a Premier Rewards Gold card, a Starwood Consumer card, a Starwood Business card, and a Delta business cards. I had all 4 of those cards previously and currently even had 3 of them open but I got the points for them automatically. I did use a new Starwood number though.

Earlier this month I was approved for a 2nd Platinum card. I was denied for additional credit cards though as apparently there’s a new rule (and this new rule they actually did enforce as I tried calling multiple times) that you can have as many charge cards as you want (Gold, Platinum, Green, etc) but just 4 total credit cards. So if I wanted to get that additional Starwood app approved I’d have to close 3 other credit cards. Time to find some more charge card opportunities!

Today I’ve got quite the beautiful site on my new Platinum account though:

That just about covers the 2 suites we flew on Singapore on our dash to Paris last month.

And so on top of 13 active Chase cards and dozens of other cards I now have 10 active American Express cards, as follows. You can read more about them and my strategies in this post.

-Platinum #1
-Platinum #2
-Premier Rewards Gold #1
-Premier Rewards Gold #2
-Starwood Consumer #1
-Starwood Consumer #2
-Delta Consumer
-Starwood Business #1
-Starwood Business #2
-Delta Gold

Posted in Credit Cards | 47 Comments »

Flying To Israel With The Current El Al Promotions

Thursday, January 10th, 2013

Update: Promo #2 is already dead, but promo #1 for a 20%-30% bonus on transfers to Matmid expires today, 01/10/13.

This was originally posted on 12/10/12:

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Find more articles like this by clicking on the “Mileage Posts” tab on top of the DansDeals banner at the top of this site.

Related posts:
Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?
Which Miles To Use To Hawaii? (With info on how to get a free flexible ticket to places like Miami, Los Angeles, Alaska, or even Hawaii when you book your next ticket to Israel)

Other Current AMEX promotions:
-Get A 30% Bonus When You Transfer American Express Membership Rewards Points Into British Airways Avios!
-Transfer Membership Rewards Into 2.7 Hilton Points.
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Update: If you don’t have an El Al account you can signup here for free and receive 25 points (the equivalent of 1,250 AMEX MR points). Having an account allows you to check award availability (even when using AA miles) on ElAl.com

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I’m not a big fan of El Al points:
-Flight points and bonus points expire after 3 years regardless of activity.
-They charge $350 in taxes and fuel surcharges on award tickets between the US and Israel.
-Award availability can be very scarce and unlike United where you have dozens of other partners to redeem for, El Al doesn’t have any redemption partners.
-For NYC or Toronto to Tel Aviv you need 1,400 points in coach, 3,000 points in business, and 5,000 points in first.
-For Los Angeles to Tel Aviv you need 1,800 points in coach, 4,000 points in business, and 5,400 points in first.

To translate those numbers into AMEX points,
-For NYC or Toronto to Tel Aviv you need 70,000 MR points in coach, 150,000 MR points in business, and 250,000 MR points in first.
-For Los Angeles to Tel Aviv you need 90,000 MR points in coach, 200,000 MR points in business, and 270,000 MR points in first.
Plus add $350 in fuel surcharges to those rates.

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Other AMEX options besides El Al:

There are generally better ways to get to Israel with AMEX points, such as with Air Canada, British Airways, or Delta miles. Or possibly even converting Air Canada miles into USAirways miles with a 27% points haircut via points.com to avoid the fuel surcharges that Air Canada collects on some European carriers.

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If you’re sold on El Al:

If you only want to fly El Al, consider AA and Starpoint transfers to AA. And don’t forget to fully utilize JFK as a free stopover point for up to 2 free bonus award tickets.

-You can book El Al flights via American for as low as 80,000 miles in coach via Europe, 90,000 miles in coach nonstop, or 135,000 miles in business.
-When booked via American you also don’t need to pay any fuel surcharges.
-You can transfer increments of 20,000 Starwood Starpoints into 25,000 American miles. That 25% bonus makes the American booking that much less.
-When booking American you can also add on a free flight at the end to go anywhere in the US for free. In other words If you fly from JFK to TLV on 01/10/13 and back on 01/25/13 you can make JFK the “stopover” on the return and then add a flight from JFK to Los Angeles or Honolulu nonstop at any later date for free. Plus American does not charge anything for date changes.
The same thing works on the return you can book Honolulu or Los Angeles to JFK, use that as a “stopover” and then add a flight from JFK to Tel Aviv nonstop at any later date.
Plus they even allows stopovers like that on one-way tickets, so you can get 2 stopovers for free, effectively a free round-trip to anywhere in the US or Canada.

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First Class:

Wow, I got off on a tangent from what I intended to write about in this post…
At any rate what American can’t do is book you on El Al in first class, which is known to have the best kosher food in the sky even if it falls short of the first class service found on Asian and European carriers.
With the promotion #1 below first class becomes a lot cheaper, and first class availability on El Al is excellent, far better than coach or business (likely because AA can’t book into that class with their miles).

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Current Stackable Promotions:

Promo 1: Convert credit card points (AMEX, Diners, and HAS) to El Al by 01/10/13 and get a bonus:

-Members converting up to 1000 Club points will receive 20% additional free points.
-Members converting 1000 – 2000 Club points will receive 25% additional free points.
-Members converting over 2000 Club points will receive 30% additional free points.

So transfers of less than 50,000 AMEX will earn a 20% bonus, transfers of 50,000-99,999 AMEX will earn a 25% bonus, and transfers of at least 100,000 AMEX will earn a 30% bonus.

While the 20% bonus will post within a day, the extra 5% or 10% bonus (to make it 25% or 30% in total) won’t post until January.

With AMEX points if you go for the 30% bonus this means,
-For NYC or Toronto to Tel Aviv you need 54,000 MR points in coach, 116,000 MR points in business, and 193,000 MR points in first.
-For Los Angeles to Tel Aviv you need 70,000 MR points in coach, 154,000 MR points in business, and 208,000 MR points in first.
Plus add $350 in fuel surcharges to those rates.

Beware that the 30% bonus points are subject to the 3 year expiration policy.

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Promo #2: Points and Cash awards (Book by 12/31/12, depart between January 8 and March 9, 2013, returns until March 15, 2013)
This promotion is not good in first class unfortunately.
-For NYC or Toronto to Tel Aviv you need 900 points plus $200 in coach or 2,000 points plus $250 in business.
-For Los Angeles to Tel Aviv you need 1,200 points plus $200 in coach or 2,500 points plus $250 in business.
Plus add $350 in fuel surcharges to those rates.

If you use AMEX points and you go for the 30% bonus this means,
-For NYC or Toronto to Tel Aviv you need 35,000 MR points plus $200 in coach or 77,000 MR points plus $250 in business.
-For Los Angeles to Tel Aviv you need 47,000 MR points plus $200 in coach or 97,000 MR points plus $250 in business.
Plus add $350 in fuel surcharges to those rates.

Update: A commenter pointed out that only 20% of the bonus will post in December (the other 10% will post in January). Thus, if you use AMEX points and you only factor the immediate 20% bonus this means:
-For NYC or Toronto to Tel Aviv you need 37,500 MR points plus $200 in coach or 84,000 MR points plus $250 in business.
-For Los Angeles to Tel Aviv you need 50,000 MR points plus $200 in coach or 105,000 MR points plus $250 in business.
Plus add $350 in fuel surcharges to those rates.
Of course you can also get a 10% bonus in January to use for next time that makes the effective transfer rate better than these numbers.
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Need some Membership Rewards points now? You can always call American Express to borrow some if you are a cardholder!

-The American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card comes with 25,000 points for spending $2,000 and the first year is free. That will net you some 70,000 Hilton points.

-The Platinum Card® from American Express earns 25K points as well and now is a great time to signup as you can get $200 of airline fee credits (or airline gift cards in $100 increments) in December of 2012 and another $200 in January of 2013. It also comes with a $100 global entry expedited customs (5 year membership) refund, platinum card airline club access (American, Delta, and USAirways) for you and your entire family for 4 years, priority pass worldwide unlimited lounge membership, Regus Office Club Membership with worldwide locations, Starwood gold elite status, car rental perks at Avis, Hertz, and National, lost item (up to $10,000/item) refund protection, checked baggage protection, Open Savings automatic cash rebates on top of points, 3 additional Platinum users (with 4 years of free platinum card lounge access, priority pass membership, and global entry refund) for just $58 each, no foreign exchange fees, and many more free benefits. There is a $450 annual fee. As with all annual fees they are refundable if cancelled within 60 days, they are pro-rated if cancelled after 60 days and have another American Express card (i.e. if you have the card for 3 months and then cancel you would get a $337.50 refund), and they are pro-rated if you downgrade the card even if you have no other American Express card.

HT: Drago and freemymiles, via DDF

Posted in Credit Cards, Miles | 55 Comments »

Today’s Escapades

Monday, January 7th, 2013

Update #2, 01/07: Got all of my Staples gift cards that I’ll probably flip to Cardpool. A couple of them were slightly smaller than what I expected, but still not bad at all for a deal that paid out $$$ for gift cards that earned tens of thousands of Ultimate Rewards points at 5 points per dollar and helped me complete the signup bonus threshold spending for my Chase business 3BM that netted over 125,000 signup points.

Update, 11/13: Staples has gone crazy and I’m all-in! I’m currently due some $1,170 in Staples gift card rebates (which can be liquidated via Cardpool for $983 or used for rebate items) and have earned over 31,000 Ultimate Rewards points just in base spending on my Ink card, not even counting the 50,000 point signup bonus threshold help. Amazon Payments works perfectly to cash out the Visa and Mastercard gift cards as described below.

So here’s where it gets crazy. If you buy 3 of the $200 prepaid gift cards the system processes it for $135 in staples gift cards. The fee on these cards is $6.95 each, so for $20.85 in fees I’ll earn over 3,100 points plus $135 in Staples gift cards (which can be liquidated for $113.40). It’s probably a glitch, but I’ve got screenshots and printouts so they’ll be hard to argue with. Below are some of the combinations I tried on Monday.

In other news I continue to love CVS for bringing the Vanilla love to Cleveland and for having dozens of stores nearby You’ve made meeting my spending threshold on my recent App-O-Rama full of 4BMs and 3BMs easier than ever!

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This was originally posted on 11/11:

Related posts:
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-A List Of Gift Cards Sold By Office Supply Stores
-Chase Ink Offers Being Updated
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
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Cleveland, home of the original Office Max, isn’t blessed with an Office Depot. The nearest ones that I could find are a couple hours away in Columbus, Detroit, and Pittsburgh.

In case you’re living under a rock, people have been stalking Office Depots for the past few weeks waiting for their latest supply of Vanilla Reload cards. The card costs $3.95 and can be cashed out at full value via Bluebird. Plus you earn 5 points per dollar with any Ink card. So for a $3.95 fee you earn 2,500 points, or 0.158 cents per point, or $127 at those rates to fly round-trip to Israel with United.

The current rumor is that Vanilla Reload cards have been pulled from Office Depot, but you can still get $500 gift cards at Office Depot for a $4.95 fee and then use that to buy a Vanilla Reload at one of dozens of stores that still carry them. That brings the fees up to $8.90 for 2,500 miles or 0.356 cents per points, or $284.80 for that round-trip to Israel with United. Or just use the gift card for your everyday spending and earn 5 points per dollar everywhere.

Escapade #1:

As for me I went to a CVS and stocked up on Vanilla Reload cards to meet a spending threshold. It’s not nearly as lucrative, as there is a $3.95 fee and you only get 500 miles. Still buying miles at 0.79 cents is a great deal. The really nice thing though is to use that to meet a spending threshold. If you need to spend $5,000 to get 50,000 points then doing it like this will just cost you $39.50 and you’ll get those 50,000 points plus the 5,000 purchase points and you can use Bluebird to pay off your bill. You can use 40,000 Starpoints and transfer those to Flying Blue who can book you on Delta to fly to Israel with no fuel surcharges, though availability can be tough with Delta. At .79 cents per point that would run you $316 round-trip to Israel, though if you are getting points for opening a card and just need to meet a spend threshold then the cost will be much less than that.

I’ve already added the funds to my Bluebird account and can now cash it out for free.

Some DDF members have had success at Walgreens as well, post your experience in a comment.

Escapade #2:
I was browsing the DansDeals Forums on my Galaxy Nexus while I was out and read a post by member “DP7″ that when you buy $100 in Visa or Mastercard gift cards at Staples you get a $15 Staples Gift card. The promotion runs through 11/24.

I happened to be passing by a Staples so I went in and they had plenty of those gift cards. You can get that rebate on up to 10 gift cards per address. So I plunked down $1,059.50 (The $59.50 were gift card fees) and had $1,000 in prepaid Mastercards.
-I used my Ink card, so first of all I got closer to a spending threshold bonus and I also earned 5,298 Ultimate Rewards points at 5 points per dollar.
-When I got home it took me less than 2 minutes to fill in my online easy rebate and receive confirmation with a tracking number. I’ll get $150 in Staples gift cards in the nest 4-6 weeks.
-I can now cash out those gift cards for free via Amazon Payments or I can also go buy Vanilla Reload cards and cash them out via Bluebird.
-When you add a gift card to Amazon Payments it does a $1 authorization that stops you from being able to completely cash it out until the authorization drops. One way to get around that is to use an incorrect expiration date when you add it to your Amazon account and then correct it right afterward. Then you will be able to spend the full gift card amount without having to wait for the authorization to fall off.
-Assuming I just use Amazon that’s $59.50 for $150 in Staples gift cards AND getting $1,000 closer to a spending threshold, AND getting 5,298 points that are worth about $100 to me.
-I can also sell the $150 in Staples gift cards to CardPool for $126 cash. That would leave me with 5,298 points that I paid $59.50 for but received a cash rebate of $126, so that’s negative $66.50 which means cash going back into my pocket for “buying” those points. Good luck figuring out the cost per mile on that one!
-Staples also runs promotions for free stuff after rebate fairly often, so that would be another way to cash out those gift cards if you didn’t want to take the 16% haircut that CardPool takes.

Not bad for a short weekend drive.

Posted in Credit Cards | 175 Comments »

Possible 100K Platinum Card Signup Bonus?

Monday, January 7th, 2013

Update, 01/08 at 11:25am: DEAD!

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Disclaimer: I was told about this a little while ago but had to promise not to be the one to make it public. I am posting it now as it has already been posted today on multiple other deal forums as well as on DDF. I’m all ears for anyone else that wants to tell me anything else in confidence

Step 1: To check if you can get the 100K offer click here.

Step 2: Click on “Offers Matched for You” at the top of the left sidebar.

Step 3: Enter your personal info. You don’t need to enter your social.

Step 4: See if you have a 100K American Express Platinum card offer waiting for you!

Be sure to take screenshots of the offer details.
“Bonus offer not available to applicants who have had this product within the last 12 months or any Consumer ZYNC®, Green or Gold Card account within the last 90 days”

More info:
-There are other great offers on this page as well but beware that you may not be able to get the bonus on both the consumer Gold card and the consumer Platinum card based on reports and the above terms.
-A $450 annual fee applies and is not waived for the first year.
-You need to spend $3,000 in 3 months to get the bonus.
-Try browsing incognito if you don’t see this (or any other credit card) offer and come back here to start the steps again. In IE and Firefox access this mode by holding down Ctrl, Shift, and P buttons on your keyboard. In Chrome you can access this mode by holding down Ctrl, Shift, and N.
-Read this DDF thread for the $200 airline fee credit refund and how to get a $400 refund in your first year. Login to DDF to view the Wiki summary.
-You also get a $100 global entry expedited customs (5 year membership) refund, platinum card airline club access (American, Delta, and USAirways) for you and your entire family, priority pass worldwide lounge membership, and more.
-Being matched with a card is not a guarantee of approval.

You can also submit applications for different American Express cards in separate browsers with the same single credit pull including great cards like the Starwood Preferred Guest® Consumer Credit Card from American Express or the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN.
The Starwood cards have no fee the first year and have free authorized user cards that you can use on Small Business Saturday to make $25 on each one. Plus you can downgrade the card to a free card after the year.

HT: magnus, via DDF
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Follow @DansDeals on twitter and you’ll get a tweet when a deal is posted on DansDeals.com!
You can even set up your mobile device to receive text messages (and choose which hours of the night not to bother you). After setting up your device be sure to opt into mobile notifications from DansDeals (it’s in the drop-down menu next to the blue “Following” button), so that you will never again be kicking yourself for missing a crazy dea

Posted in Credit Cards | 258 Comments »

FICO Vs. FAKO

Friday, January 4th, 2013

There are lots of services that claim to want to sell you or give you your credit score. Unfortunately they’re almost all FAKO scores because they are fake. Lenders never use these scores.

Checking your own score does not hurt your score at all but the truth is that I don’t really sweat my score. You can get your complete report without the score from all 3 credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, for free once per year from AnnualCreditReport.com and the main thing is to make sure that it’s clean.

Alternatively you can get all 3 reports in a nice format from Citi Identity Monitor for $1 with a 30 day trial. Just be sure to click the box to access all 3 reports once you login. The scores are FAKOs but it’s still useful to check your hard pulls and check for inaccuracies every now and then. You can “churn” identity monitor and signup for their $1 trial as many times as you want.

Otherwise if you want to see your real FICO score there are really just a few options:
1. MyFico offers a free 10 day trial to Score Watch. This includes your Equifax FICO score. You can cancel online. Just select “I would like to cancel my product subscription” and then click “Score Watch-Free Trial.”

2. MyFico also allows you to purchase your TransUnion FICO score for $4.95/month (with a 3 month minimum purchase required, so $14.85) here.
You can also get your Transunion FICO score for free with a Walmart credit card.

3. If you have already used your free MyFico trial recently you can also purchase your Equifax FICO score directly from Equifax in their Score Watch product for $14.95/month which you can cancel right away.

And that’s about it, pretty much everything else is FAKO.

There is generally no way for a consumer to view their Experian FICO score, the one sold directly from Experian is FAKO. The only exception that I’m aware of is that members of the PSECU credit union (which is only available to limited residents of Pennsylvania) can access their Experian FICO scores for free. Otherwise I suppose you can apply for a loan to see your FICO score, but that would cost you a hard pull which will hurt your score.

The scores sold directly from TransUnion are also FAKO, as are most of the other scores sold by Equifax except the ones linked to above. And pretty much every other offer out there to get your scores are for FAKOs as well.

Hopefully that clears up some confusion…

Posted in Credit Cards | 64 Comments »

Chase Offers Ending Soon

Sunday, December 30th, 2012

Update: There may be just 2 days left to grab some Ink cards with the lowered spend requirements. Nothing confirmed at this point, but that’s the word on the street.

Related: My Current Credit Card Lineup
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Great card offers don’t stay around forever. These offers are around for a limited time only.

-Chase British Airways. 50,000 bonus Avios for spending $1,000 in 3 months, an additional 25,000 bonus Avios for spending $10,000 in 12 months, and another 25,000 Avios for spending $20,000 in 12 months for up to 100,000 bonus Avios.
Earn 2.5 Avios for every $1 spent on British Airways purchases and 1.25 Avios for every $1 spent on all other purchases. No foreign exchange fees. 10% off paid BA tickets. Every calendar year that you make $30,000 in purchases, you will earn a free companion ticket when you redeem Avios for a flight on British Airways. (If you can swing $30,000 in spending in 2013 on a new card you’d have at least 137,500 Avios and the companion cert) $95 annual fee.

You can read more about Avios in this post (and don’t miss the related links there either). Along with United and American it’s one of my favorite currencies due to 4,500 mile one-way award tickets, no expedite/close-in fees, an awesome infant lap child policy that saved us $1,000 when we flew to Argentina in first class earlier this year, and now surcharge free awards to Israel for 30K each way.
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The Ink business cards used to require $10,000 in spending but were lowered to $5,000.

Getting 2 cards that requires a total $10,000 in 3 months isn’t all that daunting.

-You can load $5,000 of Vanilla Reloads (that can be bought on a credit card at stores like CVS) on Bluebird per month and from there you can pay off your credit card bill. You can also load Vanilla Reloads onto Vanilla Debit cards and you can take out a cash advance (with no maximum limits!) from your Vanilla Debit card for free. Plus of course there’s Amazon Payments which lets you send and receive $1,000 per account per calendar month for free from your credit card.

-Or just stock up gift cards to places like gas stations, airlines, clothing stores, Amazon.com, and much much more from an office supply stores to meet a spend threshold while earning 5 points per dollar.

-You can combine strategies by buying a $500 gift card from Office Depot for $4.95 and cash it out via Amazon Payments (see this post for the trick to do that). Buy $10,000 of those on 2 new Ink cards and you’re looking at 150,000 points for a total cost of under $100 for some $2,800 worth of miles.

-Or you can buy prepaid gift cards and just use them for your everyday spending, thereby earning 5 points per dollar (less a small fee that amounts to the value of perhaps 0.5 points per dollar) everywhere!

-Chase Ink Bold. 50,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months. Points transferable to BA (OneWorld), United (Star Alliance), Korean (Skyteam), Southwest, Hyatt, and more or for 1.25 cents each towards airfare. 5 points per dollar on up to $50K per year on wireless, landline, cable services, and at office supply stores. 2 points per dollar on gas and hotels. 1 point per dollar elsewhere. 2 free lounge visits per year for primary and for all free additional users. No foreign exchange fees. No fee first year then $95.

-Chase Ink Plus. 50,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months. Points transferable to BA (OneWorld), United (Star Alliance), Korean (Skyteam), Southwest, Hyatt, and more or for 1.25 cents each towards airfare. 5 points per dollar on up to $50K per year on wireless, landline, cable services, and at office supply stores. 2 points per dollar on gas and hotels. 1 point per dollar elsewhere. 2 free lounge visits per year for primary and for all free additional users. No foreign exchange fees. No fee first year then $95.

The difference between the cards is that the Bold card is a charge card that must be paid back in full every month while the Plus card is a credit card that offers 0% APR on purchases and transfers for 6 months and best of all carrying a balance on a business card won’t hurt your credit score. That difference can help you get approved for both cards if you need to call Chase’s awesome Reconsideration department. Reconsideration can also move part or all of the credit line from personal or business cards to approve a business card.

You can call reconsideration to get your cards approved as soon as you are done applying.

There are also Ink cards with no annual fees like Chase Ink Classic and Chase Ink Cash. These cards give 20K bonus points for spending $3,000, down from the previous threshold of $5,000. These cards also give the incredible 5 points per dollar, though it’s capped at $25,000 per year instead of $50,000.

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner.”

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed.
You can reach Chase business reconsideration at 800-453-9719.
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-If you need more inspiration for a Chase 3BM you can check out this post on how I got 105,000 miles and $100 cashback on a Chase United consumer and business card (click on “are you a business owner” in the top-right). The fee waiver for the first year, the free checked bag, expanded United saver and standard award availability, priority boarding, elite upgrades on awards, free club passes, and primary CDW rental car coverage that almost no other card offers are just gravy on top of that killer signup bonus.
-Other favorites of mine include Chase Sapphire Preferred for the 40K signup bonus with the fee waived for the first year and 2.14 points per dollar on all travel and dining with no forex fees, Chase Freedom for the Exclusives program and the 5 point per dollar program on a card with no annual fee, and Chase Hyatt for 2 free nights worldwide (which includes a portfolio of $1,000/night dream hotels) along with other useful benefits and an annual free night. I’ve churned all of these myself and have them all in my current 13 card Chase portfolio

Posted in Credit Cards | 101 Comments »

My Current Credit Card Lineup

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

My name is Dan and I’m a credit card churning addict…

A part of my collection from a picture taken a little while ago.

It has now been 10 years since I turned 18 (and 8 years since I started blogging) and I’ve opened over 300 cards building a nest egg of over 10 million miles and points so that I can always hop on a plane, fly in first class somewhere, and stay in a 5 star resort without having to pay for it. Now that was easier before Rafi came along, but he’s logged tens of thousands of air miles under the doting eye of his incredible mom. It really is an addiction, from earning top-tier airline (United 1K) hotel (SPG Platinum and Hyatt Diamond), and car rental status (Avis Chairman), when I travel, I travel like a king and get to drive fancy cars and fly in first class suites for pennies. And yet I still enjoy nothing more than coming back home to good ole’ unpretentious Cleveland where my wife and I share a single Nissan Altima and we can sleep in our own (W) bed. At least until I start planning the next trip.

I’m not here to brag about what I’ve done. My point is that anyone can do this. Just be careful not to use cards to buy things you can’t afford and fall into a vicious cycle of debt. Otherwise it’s all fun and games

Over time I’ve perfected my churning methods. While I started with a simple Gap card I discovered by accident some 9 years ago in a method that’s since spread across the web that I was able to get 2, 3, or even 4 cards at the same time with just 1 credit pull by applying for multiple cards in different web browsers or computers at he same time. 2BM/3BM/4BMs are often talked about on DDF these days. The truth is that as long as the apps are submitted the same day it also generally counts as 1 pull, though nothing is ever guaranteed and it can take multiple attempts to call reconsideration to get your apps approved.

I became proficient at never paying an annual fee without either getting a retention bonus to keep the card or using the card as leverage to get approved for more cards. American Express and Chase reconsideration departments are only all too happy to allow you to move around credit lines to get new cards approved or close down old cards to get a new card approved so as you build your portfolio of cards it becomes a virtuous cycle as you keep getting more and more leverage to get new cards.. And I’ve gotten better at understanding how to properly churn cards and get matched to better offers, though companies have attempted to clamp down on that as well.

Over the years bonuses have gotten bigger, though spend thresholds have as well. Luckily there are many options these days to meet those spend thresholds. Travelers checks and dollar coins may be kaput but these days we have Amazon Payments, Vanilla Reload purchases via credit card and using Bluebird to cash out, and free cash advances from Vanilla Debit cards which can be funded via credit card or Vanilla Reloads. And you can always just buy gift cards to use in the future (particularly lucrative on Chase Ink cards as those earn 5 times the points) in order to meet spend thresholds on time as well.

As for my credit score, it’s still top-notch!

Here are the cards I currently have that are active and that I am the primary cardholder of:
(An * is listed next to the 7 cards I have in my wallet for use every day)
AMEX (9 active cards)
AMEX Consumer (6):
-Platinum
Got this one in my first 4BM of the year which resulted in just 1 pull. Not as good as the 100K offer matching of last year that I did multiple times, but 25K is nothing to sneeze at. If you apply right now you can get the $200 airline gift card for 2012 and another $200 for 2013 in just a couple weeks.
If offers a host of other benefits like platinum card lounge access (even if the card is closed), priority club lounge access, expedited immigration via Global Entry, Starwood Gold status, lost item insurance, and a whole lot more.
I don’t use this card for spending.
*-Premier Rewards Gold #1
Got this in the first 4BM as well for 25K points. With 3x points on airfare, 2x points for gas and groceries, and 15K bonus points annual for spending $30K it beats the Platinum card for spending hands down. Points transfer instantly to many airlines.
-Premier Rewards Gold #2
Got this in my 2nd 4BM of the year which also cost just 1 pull. Automatically got the 25K points in October even though my other Gold card is active.
*-Starwood #1
I’ve had this SPG card for many years and they are always happy to give me 3K points per year to keep it open which covers the $65 annual fee. Of course Small Business Saturday and all of the other great AMEX promotions throughout the year make it quite profitable to keep. Benefits include preferred plus elite status and nights and stays towards gold and platinum elite status. Starpoints of course transfer at favorable ratios to dozens of airlines and are also awesome at Starwood hotels.
This card used to get nearly all of my spending, but Chase has really improved their offerings of late. I still always use my SPG card for items that I either want the extended warranty coverage for, that I may need to dispute (as nobody can compete with AMEX dispute resolution), or that I may want to return using AMEX’s awesome return protection.
-Starwood #2
Got this card in my 2nd 4BM of the year for the signup points and the elite status nights which posted automatically with a new Starwood number that I merged afterward. Came in handy for Small Business Saturday as well.
-Delta
This was part of the first 4BM. The signup bonus posted automatically with a new Delta number that I merged afterward. I don’t have elite status with Delta but in case I even fly them at least I’ll get free bags and priority boarding now.
AMEX Business (3):
*-Starwood #1
Had this one for a while as well. Makes getting Starwood Platinum easier and Open Savings on top of Starpoints is awesome.
Plus spending on business cards doesn’t hurt your score like spending on personal cards does.
-Starwood #2
Got this one in the 2nd 4BM of this year for the signup points and the elite status nights.
-Delta Gold
This one was also part of the 2nd 4BM as a toss-in.

Chase (13 active cards)
Chase Consumer (8):
*-Sapphire Preferred Visa
Got this card once again earlier this year in a 3BM. It’s an excellent churnable card for the 40K signup bonus and the 2.14 points per dollar on airfare, hotels, dining, car rentals, caterers, tolls, etc. Plus 1.07 points per dollar elsewhere, no Forex fees, and it’s an awesome heavy metal card with top-notch customer service that answers on the first ring. And it allows you to transfer all your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to airlines and hotels.
*-Freedom Exclusives Visa
Another excellent card I’ve had for a while for the 5 point categories and the Exclusives program I have that gives 10% bonus points and 10 points every time you use your card. The lack of an annual fee makes it that much sweeter.
-Hyatt
Not a great card for spending but for the 2 night signup bonus that can used at ultra-luxe hotels and the annual free night that you get as well.
-United Explorer
I got an incredible 55K+$50 signup bonus for this via SM and the benefits are top-notch. Primary car rental insurance, free checked luggage, expanded United saver and standard award availability, priority boarding, elite upgrades on awards, free club passes, etc.
*-United Club (Click on the Club tab from the explorer card)
This card gives the benefits of the Explorer card and a whopping 1.5 miles per dollar on everything, no Forex fees, 2 free checked bags, a Club membership with access to lounges worldwide, gate passes for you and companions to the secured section of the airport terminal if it has a United or USAirways club, waived award expedite/close-in fees, Avis President’s Club, and Hyatt Platinum status (which also gets you 2 free suite upgrades when you apply for the Hyatt card). You can SM to get the fee waived.
-United Awards Visa
This card is discontinued and I’ll use it for leverage to get a new card.
-Sapphire Preferred Mastercard
Converted my previous Sapphire Visa to this card and got the Visa and the points again. That’s not an easy feat anymore and you may have to close the Mastercard to get approved for the Visa again. Great card for renting a car in Israel.
-Southwest Premier Visa
Got for the 50K points which is now gone. Will use as leverage for a new card, might try for the British Airways 100K card again now that Vanilla Reload as made that threshold so easy to attain.

Chase Business (5):
See this post for how to get a business card and why business card spending is better than consumer card spending.
-Ink Bold Mastercard
Got this card last year when you could link this card for Exclusives to earn up to 1.675 points per dollar. Now you can get 5 points per dollar by buying gift cards and using those for spending or cashing out via Amazon Payments. All of the Ink cards give 5 points per dollar at office supply stores and on telecom, cable, and internet. They also all give 2 points per dollar for gas. The Bold, Plus, and Classic cards also give 2 points per dollar at hotels while the Cash card gives 2 points for dining.
The cards also give 2 free lounge passes for all cardholders, even free additional users.
You need a Bold, Plus, or Sapphire Preferred to transfer points to airlines and hotels. The Bold card is a charge card to be paid off in full while all other Ink cards are credit cards that can be paid off over time. They even come with 6 months of 0% APR on purchase and balance transfers and best of all as they’re business cards spending and carrying a balance on them won’t hurt your score. Plus they’re churnable, what else do you need?
*-Ink Plus Mastercard
Got this for the 50K signup bonus during a 3BM last month. Coupled with 5 points per dollar at office supply stores to meet the $5K spend threshold that a whole lot of points.
-Ink Classic Mastercard
Got this along with the Ink Bold last year. Was going to use it as leverage but didn’t need to.
-Ink Cash Mastercard
Got this card as well during last month’s 3BM.
-United Business Visa (Click on “Are you a business owner” in top left.
Got 50K+$50 for this card after SM last month as part of the successful 3BM with 2 Ink cards with just 1 pull.

Citi (7):
Citi Consumer (6):
-Hilton
Keep it around for the elite status it gives for free. I’ll pick up a Hilton Reserve card as soon as I have the chance to try out the Waldorf Jerusalem.
-AA Visa #1
-AA Visa #2
-AA MC
-AA AMEX
Used to be able to churn these things every 60 days. Now it’s more like every 1-2 years. Retention offers are generous though and benefits include free bags and discounted awards. There are backdoor links for these cards that are always changing. Check DDF for the latest ones.
-Diners Club
Before United introduced primary car rental insurance this was the card to use. Now it’s just for retention bonuses.
Citi Business (1):
-AA Visa

Barclay (4):
Barclay Consumer (3)
-USAirways #1
-USAirways #2
-NFL
Got all 3 of these and the business card below as part of a 4BM last month. There are backdoor 40K links for these on DDF.

Barclay Business (1)
-USAirways

Discover (1):
-Discover More 5%
5% reward categories (5% on Amazon Payments, you bet!) are great for a fee-free card.

GAP Inc (2)
-Banana Republic Lifetime Luxe
Used to be your got Luxe status for life. Not anymore but I luckily got grandfathered years ago.
-Gap
My first credit card

BOFA (1):
-Ex-Schwab 2%
Was nice while the 2% lasted, now it collects dust though it gets us into museums for free on the first weekend of every month.

USBank Consumer (1):
-Flexperks

USBank Business (1):
-Flexperks
My Northwest Airlines cards converted to these and they gather dust, may one day use for leverage.

Posted in Credit Cards | 179 Comments »

Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

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In the past I’ve blogged about buying Vanilla Reload (VR) cards (right).

Another flavor of Vanilla is the My Vanilla Personal Reloadable Prepaid Visa card (left). On DDF it’s simply known as MVD or My Vanilla Debit.

I bought 2 of these with $500 each at CVS today with my credit card. There were $7.90 in fees, but this week they are offering $5 in ExtraBucks to spend in the future at CVS if you buy 2 in one transaction, effectively dropping the cost for 2 cards down to $2.90. The ExtraBucks did not print automatically but I showed the teller the offer in the store circular ad on page 8 and they printed a $5 ExtraBucks voucher for me valid for 30 days.

After that I went online to register the card at myvanilladebitcard.com to activate both cards in my name. Soon they will now mail me a permanent version of the card.

Then I went down the block to Citibank, went to a teller, and took out a cash advance of $500 on each of the cards and was given the money in cash with no fees and no account required.

Other DDF members have reported cash advance success at other banks, like Chase, with no fees. Be sure to sign the back of your card before going to the bank as your name is not otherwise listed on the temporary card. If your bank needs a name on the card you may need to wait for your permanent card to come in the mail.

So I got $1,000 closer to the $5,000 spend threshold on my Ink Plus to earn 50,000 points and earned 1,000 Chase UR points for under 0.3 cents each. To put that in perspective (completely ignoring getting closer to the signup bonus points) if you were able to earn 22,000 UR points at 0.29 cents you’d be able to stay at the Park Hyatt Paris, Sydney, or Maldives for $69/night instead of the normal $1,000/night rate. 120,000 points would give you a business class ticket to Israel (along with a free stopover in Europe and a free one-way ticket to Hawaii in business class as well good for an entire year if you play your cards right) for just $348.

Vanilla Reload is much easier than MVD, though VR cards can be harder to find. They can be bought with a credit card, and then you can go online to transfer the funds to a free Bluebird card, and then from the Bluebird card you can pay off your credit card bills, your rent or mortgage, or any other bill.
The limit on Bluebird is $1,000 on Vanilla reload funding per day and $5,000 of Vanilla reload funding per month. Always nice to have a spouse for things like this

The total cost of this route is $7.90 in Vanilla fees. For that you get at least 1,008 miles (or more depending on the card you use) and more importantly you get $1,000 closer to that spending threshold you may need to meet. But even if you don’t have a spending threshold to meet it’s still buying miles for under a penny a point which is awesome.

You can find stores that sell Vanilla Reloads here, but I’ve had great success at CVS. CVS has a $1,000 per transaction limit, so that’s 2 Vanilla Reload cards of $500 each. Vanilla Reload is not a Visa, so no ExtraBucks there.

Other Vanilla versions, like OneVanilla or any version other than the ones in the picture above can’t be cashed out via cash advance (like the MVD) or via Bluebird (like the VR).

The Visa versions of the Vanilla gift cards though do earn the $5 ExtraBucks bonus this week. They can be cashed out via Amazon Payments though, so you can load up on them if you need to meet a spending threshold and cash them out later on in future months on Amazon. In this post I wrote a workaround for how to cash out the full amount of those and all other Mastercard, Visa, and AMEX gift cards on Amazon Payments.

Posted in Credit Cards, Miles | 204 Comments »

Upcoming Chase Southwest And Airtran Card Changes?

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

~~Chase Southwest Airlines Visa~~DEAD!
-From this link you can access all 4 Southwest credit cards, the Consumer Plus, Consumer Premier and the Business Plus and Business Premier. The Apply Now button will take you to the Premier card and the alternate cards can be found on the bottom of the page. Each of these cards offer 50,000 points for spending $2,000. Points can be converted to Airtran, used on Southwest, used for store Gift Cards, and all count towards the 110,000 points needed in a year to get a free companion pass.
Some DDF members have all 4 versions of the Southwest card, by getting 3 you’ll effectively double the travel value of the 150,000 points from $2,850 to $5,700 due to the free companion pass you’ll get. With Southwest starting to fly internationally and publicly stating that they intend to start service to the stunning island of Hawaii, this is a golden opportunity.

~~Chase Airtran Visa~~ DEAD!
-Earn 32 Airtran credits and 2 business class upgrades for spending $3,000. Points can be used for 4 free one-ways on Airtran or Southwest, used for a free round-trip on any other airline in the US, or transferred to Southwest credits.
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For a limited time you can get 50,000 points when you spend $2,000 within 3 months of getting the Southwest card. They’re marketing this as 2 free flights but in fact it is enough for about $950 of free flying on Southwest, so you can stretch out those points for as many as 15 free flights with Southwest’s low prices.

Don’t fly? You can also use 50,000 points to get $500 worth of gift cards to places like Amazon, Avis, Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap, Hyatt, Lowe’s, Macy’s, TJMaxx, Walmart and many others. A $500 gift card to Walmart can always be sold to a place like Cardpool for $460 cash.

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A one-way LaGuardia-Chicago flight on 01/08 is $68.80 with tax.
It can also be bought for 3,480 points plus $2.50 tax.
So 3,480 points gets you a value of $66.30 ($68.80 airfare less the $2.50 tax required on the points ticket)
So each point is worth 1.9 cents (66.30/3,480), valid for redemption on all flights.

The value per point will depend on your route, but points always seem to be worth more than 1.8 cents each.

Companion pass:

Plus you get a free companion pass if you earn 110,000 points in a year from any source, including earnings from credit card bonuses and credit card spending! If you earn 110,000 Southwest points for example by 02/01/13 the pass will be good until 12/31/14. The pass allows you to bring a companion with you for free when you fly Southwest, even if you are flying on a free ticket!

Opening 2 Southwest cards (100,000 points) and spending the $2,000 on each (4,000 points) means you’ll be just $6,000 of spending short of the companion pass.

You should wait to finish spending the $2,000 on this card until January so that the points post in 2013 and the pass will be good all the way until the end of 2014!

See this post for more info on the Ultimate Rewards program and associated credit cards.

Transfers to Airtran and Rapid Rewards “1.0″:

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Need other Chase cards to apply at the same time?

All consumer or business cards applied for on the same day count as just 1 credit pull. It’s how I currently have 13 active Chase cards without making a dent to my top-notch credit score. Here are other Chase card offers, almost all of which I’ve successfully churned myself.

Consumer cards:

-Chase Freedom Mastercard and Chase Freedom Visa, 0% Intro APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers. $100 cash back for spending $500 in the form of 10,000 points. 5% back in rotating categories in the form of 5 points per dollar. Points can be transferred into miles if you have a Sapphire Preferred, or Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card. No annual fee.

-Chase United Explorer Visa, 30K miles for spending $1,000 in 3 months and adding an additional cardholder. Free checked luggage on United. Free Priority boarding with card. Non-expiring miles with card. Expanded Saver award availability. Last seat Standard award availability with card. Free primary Car Rental CDW. 2 annual lounge passes. 10K bonus miles for spending $25K annually. Comp upgrades for elite cardholders on award tickets. Double miles for United purchases. Introductory annual fee of $0 the first year, then $95.

-United Club Visa (Click on Club tab), 1.5 miles per dollar spent. 2 free checked bags on United. Free Premier boarding, security lines, and baggage with card. United lounge membership. Airport Terminal access even when not flying to access United or USAirways clubs. Waived expedite award fees. Non-expiring miles with card. Expanded Saver award availability. Last seat Standard award availability with card. Free primary Car Rental CDW. 2 annual lounge passes. 10K bonus miles for spending $25K annually. Comp upgrades for elite cardholders on award tickets. Double miles for United purchases. $395 annual fee.

-Chase British Airways Visa, 50,000 bonus Avios for spending $1,000, an additional 25,000 bonus Avios for spending $10,000 in 12 months, and another 25,000 Avios for spending $20,000 in 12 months for up to 100,000 bonus Avios. 2.5 Avios for every $1 spent on British Airways purchases and 1.25 Avios for every $1 spent on all other purchases. No Forex fees. Every calendar year you make $30,000 in purchases, you will earn a free companion ticket when you redeem Avios for a flight on British Airways. $95 annual fee.

-Chase Hyatt Visa, 2 free nights at any Hyatt worldwide for spending $1,000. Free Hyatt Platinum status. Existing Hyatt Platinums also get 2 free suite upgrades on paid stays. Existing Hyatt Diamonds get the 2 free nights in a suite. No Forex fee. Free automatic annual night at category 1-4 hotels. $75 annual fee.

-Chase Marriott Premier Visa, 50K bonus points and free cat. 1-4 night certificate for spending $1,000 in your first 3 months. Annual free cat. 1-5 night certificate. 15 night elite credit. No Forex fee. Introductory annual fee of $0 the first year, then $85.

-Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa Signature, 40K points for spending $3K. 1.07 points per dollar spent, 2.14 points per dollar spent on car rentals, airfare, hotels, and dining. Points redeemable 1:1 for BA, United, Southwest, or Hyatt points or for 1.25 cents each towards airfare. 7% point bonus for all spending. No Forex fee. No fee first year then $95.

-Chase Slate Mastercard, No balance transfer fees for 60 days and 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months. No annual fee.

Business Cards:

-Chase Ink Bold Mastercard 50K points for spending $5K in 3 months. Points redeemable 1:1 for BA, CO, or Hyatt points or for 1.25 cents each towards airfare. 5 points per dollar on up to $50K per year on wireless, landline, cable services, and office supplies. 2 points per dollar on gas and hotels. 1 point per dollar elsewhere. 2 free lounge passes per year for all card users. No fee first year then $95.

-Chase Ink Plus Mastercard 50K points for spending $5K in 3 months. Points redeemable 1:1 for BA, CO, or Hyatt points or for 1.25 cents each towards airfare. 5 points per dollar on up to $50K per year on wireless, landline, cable services, and office supplies. 2 points per dollar on gas and hotels. 1 point per dollar elsewhere. 2 free lounge passes per year for all card users. No fee first year then $95.

-Chase Ink Cash Mastercard, 20K points for spending $3K in 3 months. 5 points per dollar on up to $25K per year on wireless, landline, cable services, and office supplies. 2 points per dollar on gas and dining. 1 point per dollar elsewhere. 0% APR for 6 months. Points can be transferred into miles if you have a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card. No annual fee.

-Chase United Explorer Visa (Click on “Are you a business owner” on the top-right), 30K miles for spending $1,000. Free checked luggage on United. Free Priority boarding with card. Non-expiring miles with card. Expanded Saver award availability. Last seat Standard award availability with card. Free primary Car Rental CDW. 2 annual lounge passes. 10K bonus miles for spending $25K annually. Comp upgrades for elite cardholders on award tickets. Double miles for United purchases. No fee first year then $95.

Posted in Credit Cards | 61 Comments »

50,000 Point Signup Bonus For the American Express Business Gold Rewards Card

Monday, November 26th, 2012

Update: DEAD!

It’s worth noting that between 12/03 and 01/14 you will be able to get a 30% bonus on Membership Rewards transfers to British Airways Avios. That means that after spending the $5,000 and transferring during the bonus period you’ll have enough points for about 16 one-way short haul flights using Avios on American (or LAN, or Qantas intra-Australia, or even BA intra-EU) with no fuel surcharges. And it’s way more than enough for a round-trip ticket to Israel using Avios on Air Berlin with no fuel surcharges.
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Originally posted on 09/05:

-You will get 50,000 bonus points for spending $5,000 on this card within 3 months.
-3X points on airfare and 2x points on purchases in the U.S. for advertising in select media, gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations, and shipping.
-There is no fee for the first year, subsequent years are $175.

With this business card you will get Membership Rewards points AND automatic cash back on purchases from these select retailers with Open Savings:

Barnes & Noble online: 5%, Epson: 5%, Fedex: 5%, Flowers.com: 5%, Hyatt: 3%, HP: 5% if you spend $200-$999 annually, 10% if you spend $1,000-$50,000 annually, Microsoft Store: 5%, Courtyard/Fairfield/TownePlace/SpringHill/Residence Inn by Marriott: 5%, Office Max online: 5% on purchases up to $250, 10% on purchases above $250.

Getting a business card is simple. If Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

Some people have reported receiving a financial review after applying for this card, so if you have no income on the books it would not be a good idea to apply for this card.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways/Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards you may want to consider include:

Business cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN

Posted in Credit Cards | 123 Comments »

Matched On Ink Plus

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

I’ve already done several successful 3BMs and 4BMs with all of the major banks this year and I went for a few Chase business cards before they released some better offers yesterday.

I even got approved for an Ink Plus and Ink Cash card on the same call to Reconsideration by proactively offering to shift over part of the credit line from another card and now I have all 4 Ink cards.
That bumped me up to 8 active Chase consumer cards and 5 active Chase business cards that I am the primary cardholder on. Can anyone here top that?

Anyway I wrote a secure message on Chase.com to please match my Plus card so that I only need to spend $5,000 instead of $10,000 and first I got back a message asking for an invitation code. I wrote back that this is a public offer and that I would like a supervisor to respond to the secure message and they had no problem offering me the 50,000 points even if I only spend $5,000. So if you applied within the last few months for the Ink Bold or Plus card go ahead and get matched if you want a $5K hurdle instead of a $10K hurdle. And don’t be afraid to ask for a supervisor to respond to the message if needed.

Same goes if you applied for a Southwest card in the past 3 months and didn’t get 50,000 points.

Posted in Credit Cards | 22 Comments »