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Baddog posted:Even a "pre-approval", they still run credit on you usually right? Wells Fargo did to me. You kinda run into hard inquiry limits quicker than you think, I started getting denied after 7 cards in 5 months. I'm not sure when I can start up again (I've got 9 pulls in 6 months now with the 2 denials, might give it 3 months before trying for something new again?). I'm averaging over a hard pull a month over the last year and have had zero denials. BoA is also straight cash which I value a lot higher than points.
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Oct 3, 2015 20:57
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asur posted:I'm averaging over a hard pull a month over the last year and have had zero denials. BoA is also straight cash which I value a lot higher than points. Are you doing MS as well? The last one denied me partly because of "high utilization", as well as too many inquiries. I had a lot of giftcards on credit at the time (maybe 15k worth), although I still should have been under 10% utilization. Next approval I do I'm gonna clear all balances a few days before. Baddog fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Oct 4, 2015 |
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Oct 4, 2015 01:14
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Baddog posted:Are you doing MS as well? The last one denied me partly because of "high utilization", as well as too many inquiries. I had a lot of giftcards on credit at the time (maybe 15k worth), although I still should have been under 10% utilization. Next approval I do I'm gonna clear all balances a few days before. No MS, utilization hovers around 3-4%.
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Oct 4, 2015 07:59
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So am I seeing it right that the Discover card doubles your cash back for the first 12 months? So its 1% back on everything, 5% on whatever their calendar is, 10% on Apple pay purchases, but everything is doubled on month 12? Duckman2008 fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 12:57
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Duckman2008 posted:So am I seeing it right that the Discover card doubles your cash back for the first 12 months? Came to post about this too. What discover card should I sign up for to take advantage of this? e: yeah it looks like what you wrote is correct. It's 1% normally, but Apple Pay gives you an extra 10% on top of your 1%. I just read that they've also tweeted that the new signup promotion (double cash back at the end of 12 months) _will_ include the 10% from Apple Pay. Which is just really loving crazy cause this is a 22% off MSRP on everything. There's no sign up bonus for the Discover It card right now though. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 19:11
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edit not quite
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Oct 5, 2015 21:01
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Boris Galerkin posted:Came to post about this too. its a max of 1500 in charges a quarter right? Still not bad, ~300/quarter cash back for a year. I guess the risk is they decide not to honor it at some point before they pay out in a year...
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Oct 5, 2015 22:01
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So I've been traveling for work a fair amount and getting reimbursed for expenses on my credit card. So far this year I'm up to around 40K in miles on my southwest card! The problem is that my employer takes a month to reimburse me and that it dings my credit because my utilization is so high. To that end I'd like to get another airline card, preferably one that offers more international destinations as Southwest only goes to the Caribbean. What card/airline has the best deals out there right now? I could easily hit whatever spending goals they have. I was looking at the British Airways card but I read that they were about to devalue their program massively. Am I better off going with a specific airline? I usually fly Southwest for almost all of my trips so I thought maybe just a generic card would work too.
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Oct 5, 2015 22:06
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Citi Prestige (40k points - could be 50k) /Amex Platinum (100k points offer) would be good if you get access to their lounges. Everyone and their mother has a Sapphire Preferred - its a good card, especially if you can get a high signup offer.
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Oct 5, 2015 23:54
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BaseballPCHiker posted:So I've been traveling for work a fair amount and getting reimbursed for expenses on my credit card. So far this year I'm up to around 40K in miles on my southwest card! The problem is that my employer takes a month to reimburse me and that it dings my credit because my utilization is so high. To that end I'd like to get another airline card, preferably one that offers more international destinations as Southwest only goes to the Caribbean. What card/airline has the best deals out there right now? I could easily hit whatever spending goals they have. I was looking at the British Airways card but I read that they were about to devalue their program massively. Am I better off going with a specific airline? I usually fly Southwest for almost all of my trips so I thought maybe just a generic card would work too. You could get a different Southwest card if for no other reason than getting the signup bonus. At your earning rate, you could likely get the companion pass pretty easily. If you're actually that concerned about the month to month variation in your credit score and at least marginally trust your employer to keep reimbursing you, just pay the balance yourself before getting reimbursed. You could also just churn like crazy so you have a really high CL and your utilization will be really small (and summarily offset by your much lower AAoA).
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Oct 6, 2015 01:04
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Shadowhand00 posted:Citi Prestige (40k points - could be 50k) /Amex Platinum (100k points offer) would be good if you get access to their lounges. Everyone and their mother has a Sapphire Preferred - its a good card, especially if you can get a high signup offer. Why is the sapphire preferred card so highly recommended? I see it recommended everywhere but never really see why.
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Oct 6, 2015 01:51
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Boris Galerkin posted:Why is the sapphire preferred card so highly recommended? I see it recommended everywhere but never really see why. The semi-sarcastic answer is "because of TPG shilling it out in every other post." It's not a terrible card or anything but has been weakened dramatically by the improvements to other cards that give you a lot more value even if their annual fees are higher. You're supposed to use it alongside the Freedom but I honestly don't think the UR points are all that amazing.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:11
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Boris Galerkin posted:Why is the sapphire preferred card so highly recommended? I see it recommended everywhere but never really see why. Chip+sig, 2x rewards for travel and dining, 20% discount for redeeming through chase UR, no foreign transaction fee, the card is made out of metal, normal visa signature benefits like trip cancellation, auto insurance for rental, price protection, extended warranty and luggage reimbursement. $400(effectively $500 for UR rewards) sign up bonus. Edit. As a direct comparison the Penfed visa signature is chp+pin, no fee, not made of metal, 3x points on groceries, 5x points on gas, it costs ~59k points for a $500 flight instead of 40k points with Chase, and has no purchase protection. $100 sign up bonus instead of $400. Both are Visa signature so I'm not aware of any significant differences in the other benefits. lampey fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 02:25
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Shadowhand00 posted:Citi Prestige (40k points - could be 50k) /Amex Platinum (100k points offer) would be good if you get access to their lounges. Everyone and their mother has a Sapphire Preferred - its a good card, especially if you can get a high signup offer. Barry posted:You could get a different Southwest card if for no other reason than getting the signup bonus. At your earning rate, you could likely get the companion pass pretty easily. lampey posted:Chip+sig, 2x rewards for travel and dining, 20% discount for redeeming through chase UR, no foreign transaction fee, the card is made out of metal, normal visa signature benefits like trip cancellation, auto insurance for rental, price protection, extended warranty and luggage reimbursement. $400(effectively $500 for UR rewards) sign up bonus. Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'm not worried about work reimbursing me, they always have for me and everyone else. I guess just to make easy on our accounting department they do it all at the end of the month. It is always paid back monthly so I'm not accruing interest but it drops my score about 30 points between having it paid off and almost full towards the end of the month. I was thinking if I apply for another card while it's at 0 I can get a good deal to get international travel rewards. I'll look into the Citi Prestige and Chase Platinum and see what work for me, thanks again! Also I really wanted to get that companion pass on Southwest. Will have an outside chance of getting it next year. If I pay the extra $30 a month to pay my rent by credit card I could probably get it.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:53
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triple sulk posted:The semi-sarcastic answer is "because of TPG shilling it out in every other post." It's not a terrible card or anything but has been weakened dramatically by the improvements to other cards that give you a lot more value even if their annual fees are higher. You're supposed to use it alongside the Freedom but I honestly don't think the UR points are all that amazing. With the Freedom, even though you're not going to find it useful every quarter, it's probably the most efficient points earning combo for people in a fairly large band of spending, excepting card churning. I could pick up an Amex platinum or a Citi prestige but I don't travel enough to make them worthwhile while I do enough to make use of the UR points. I may still pick those up just for the signup bonuses if I find myself expecting to travel a lot in a certain year, but I don't think I can justify keeping them. There isn't a one size fits all and for some people the Amex SPG is going to be straight up better at around the same quantity of spending, while for others who spend enough they're going to be better served by the citi prestige and the 3x points on travel.
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Oct 6, 2015 03:22
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Desuwa posted:With the Freedom, even though you're not going to find it useful every quarter, it's probably the most efficient points earning combo for people in a fairly large band of spending, excepting card churning. I could pick up an Amex platinum or a Citi prestige but I don't travel enough to make them worthwhile while I do enough to make use of the UR points. I may still pick those up just for the signup bonuses if I find myself expecting to travel a lot in a certain year, but I don't think I can justify keeping them. The Platinum is definitely strictly a travel card and you'd only put stuff like car rentals on it. I don't know if you were actually thinking of the PRG instead of the SPG, but the PRG has 3x airlines, 2x on gas, supermarkets, and restaurants, and 1x elsewhere. The SPG can give a lot of value if you use it in tandem with the Platinum however due to automatically getting SPG Gold status, assuming you do travel a lot. It definitely depends on your needs but I do like what Amex as done with the PRG and it's insanely more competitive than it was. I've considered the Prestige but considering that AA is my hub back home, I can get more value out of the Executive card, at least until AA potentially devalues everything to hell.
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Oct 6, 2015 05:23
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Besides the signup bonus, travel/loyalty perks and maybe buying things on it for extended warranty, I'm going to sock drawer my AmEx Platinum. I'll carry it if I'm going to an airport with the appropriate lounge access but that's about it. Daily spend on it gives really marginal returns.
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Oct 6, 2015 05:58
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BaseballPCHiker posted:So I've been traveling for work a fair amount and getting reimbursed for expenses on my credit card. So far this year I'm up to around 40K in miles on my southwest card! The problem is that my employer takes a month to reimburse me and that it dings my credit because my utilization is so high. To that end I'd like to get another airline card, preferably one that offers more international destinations as Southwest only goes to the Caribbean. What card/airline has the best deals out there right now? I could easily hit whatever spending goals they have. I was looking at the British Airways card but I read that they were about to devalue their program massively. Am I better off going with a specific airline? I usually fly Southwest for almost all of my trips so I thought maybe just a generic card would work too. I'm going to concur somewhat with earlier posters, but I think your best options are earning a boatload of points are: - Citi ThankYou Premier ($95 AF). 3x on all travel (including gas), 2x on dining and entertainment. - Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95 AF). 2x on all travel and dining. - Amex Premier Rewards Gold ($195 AF, but with $100 airline incidentals). 3x on airfare (4x if you book through them), 2x at restaurants, gas stations, and supermarkets. All three of these allow you to transfer to select airlines and hotels, but do note that Chase and Amex have better transfer partners than Citi does. The Chase card and Citi card do have better travel insurance, and the Chase card offers primary rental insurance, but that might not be an issue for business travel.
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Oct 6, 2015 08:00
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The real upside of the CSP is that it is metal and feels badass. (And it has a good signup bonus and international travel features, too.)
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Oct 6, 2015 15:39
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Small White Dragon posted:British Airways devalued their program a while ago; it's not great anymore for long-haul premium cabin redemptions, but it can be a fantastic deal for short or medium haul coach or business class. I think the Citi ThankYou Premier may also have primary auto insurance.
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Oct 6, 2015 16:21
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lampey posted:Chip+sig, 2x rewards for travel and dining, 20% discount for redeeming through chase UR, no foreign transaction fee, the card is made out of metal, normal visa signature benefits like trip cancellation, auto insurance for rental, price protection, extended warranty and luggage reimbursement. $400(effectively $500 for UR rewards) sign up bonus. Do people use the points to purchase flights through chase? Even with the 20% bonus it seems way worse off than transferring to united - I consistently get my points valued at over 2% transferring to united. Probably depends on which airports you're near I suppose. Vomik fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 18:02
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It probably depends on where you live, where you are going, and when you leave; I burned through 50k UR points, and transferring to United never seemed to be the best choice, despite me living near a United hub.
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Oct 6, 2015 19:43
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Well drat, I just looked into non cashback cards today like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and those are actually better deals for me since I don't shop at grocery stores (often) and most of my spending is definitely restaurants and bars. Apparently bars count as restaurants. I'm not really seeing a difference between the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Citi ThankYou Premier cards, awards wise. I plugged in the Amex Rewards too but the other 2 programs seem to be better for me since the Amex program doesn't cover public transit and the occasional Uber/taxi (I don't have a car, so I don't have gas expenses).
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Oct 6, 2015 22:31
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Boris Galerkin posted:Well drat, I just looked into non cashback cards today like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and those are actually better deals for me since I don't shop at grocery stores (often) and most of my spending is definitely restaurants and bars. Apparently bars count as restaurants. I'm not really seeing a difference between the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Citi ThankYou Premier cards, awards wise. I plugged in the Amex Rewards too but the other 2 programs seem to be better for me since the Amex program doesn't cover public transit and the occasional Uber/taxi (I don't have a car, so I don't have gas expenses). The sapphire will probably come out ahead in terms of rewards if you pair it with the chase freedom since the points can be transferred freely. If they look similar to you but you're willing to juggle one more card that will probably make the difference for you.
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Oct 6, 2015 23:08
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Boris Galerkin posted:Well drat, I just looked into non cashback cards today like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and those are actually better deals for me since I don't shop at grocery stores (often) and most of my spending is definitely restaurants and bars. Apparently bars count as restaurants. I'm not really seeing a difference between the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Citi ThankYou Premier cards, awards wise. I plugged in the Amex Rewards too but the other 2 programs seem to be better for me since the Amex program doesn't cover public transit and the occasional Uber/taxi (I don't have a car, so I don't have gas expenses). Kinda  but you'll probably do way better than any rewards program if you shift more of your spending to grocery stores/cooking for yourself than eating out.
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Oct 6, 2015 23:35
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Kinda I meant I don't shop at grocery stores because I do nearly all my grocery shopping at the farmers market where they take cards through Square for the most part. I don't think these vendors are classified as a grocery store but I also didn't think bars that don't serve food are classified as "dining" so who knows. The highest category of my spending is literally booze.
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Oct 6, 2015 23:50
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Boris Galerkin posted:I meant I don't shop at grocery stores because I do nearly all my grocery shopping at the farmers market where they take cards through Square for the most part. I don't think these vendors are classified as a grocery store but I also didn't think bars that don't serve food are classified as "dining" so who knows. The highest category of my spending is literally booze. Haha, gotcha! At first glance it kinda read like a SloMo type situation.
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Oct 7, 2015 01:24
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Boris Galerkin posted:I meant I don't shop at grocery stores because I do nearly all my grocery shopping at the farmers market where they take cards through Square for the most part. I don't think these vendors are classified as a grocery store but I also didn't think bars that don't serve food are classified as "dining" so who knows. The highest category of my spending is literally booze. You can buy gift cards to almost anything at the grocery store (but most importantly amazon gift cards). Grocery spending == gift card spending.
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Oct 7, 2015 02:05
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Also if you're like me - spending a lot on Amazon but not always consistently - you can buy Amazon gift cards for yourself, on Amazon, whenever the Amazon category comes up on a Discover/Chase Freedom. It took me a while to realize I could just do this. I'm planning some large purchases for next year and getting 10% back on $1500 and 7500 UR points from another $1500 is a lot better than I'd expect to get from investing the same money for 6-8 months. Of course it helps that I have enough slack in my budget to do this.
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Oct 7, 2015 02:42
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Haha, gotcha! At first glance it kinda read like a SloMo type situation. Desuwa posted:Also if you're like me - spending a lot on Amazon but not always consistently - you can buy Amazon gift cards for yourself, on Amazon, whenever the Amazon category comes up on a Discover/Chase Freedom. It took me a while to realize I could just do this. I'm planning some large purchases for next year and getting 10% back on $1500 and 7500 UR points from another $1500 is a lot better than I'd expect to get from investing the same money for 6-8 months. Of course it helps that I have enough slack in my budget to do this.
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Oct 7, 2015 04:36
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Sunny Side Up fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Dec 14, 2020 |
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Oct 7, 2015 12:08
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I think if you really wanted to min/max a Chase Freedom for 5% category bonus is worth a look.
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Oct 7, 2015 14:23
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I don't know what thread to ask this in, but I figure someone here can give a good answer. How are multiple balance transfers to the same card handled? I know that if you transfer a balance and make new purchases, you lose the grace period for interest until the transfer is paid off, but is it the same for multiple balance transfers? Can you even do more than one in a relatively short period of time? I currently have three cards: Amex Every Day card, $100 balance, $1,000 limit. 0% APR until October 2016 Capital One Quicksilver, $550 balance (should be around $1,050 due to dispute I dropped but hasn't hit yet) of $3,500 limit Chase Slate, $0 balance, $3,200 limit. %0 APR until December 2016, 0% balance transfer fee for first 60 days. I recently did a transfer from Amex to Capital One to get the balance down, as I'm trying to up the limits on my %0 APR cards while the promotional period is in effect. Even if I don't use them. The plan is to transfer as much as I can to the Chase card because I'll never use it due to lack of rewards, and I'll just pay it down until the promotional rate expires. I plan to make a large purchase in October with the Capital One card and then transfer it to Chase, but to avoid interest, I'd have to either pay off the Amex to Cap One balance transfer first, or transfer it to Chase. Could I transfer the balance to Chase, make the purchases I plan to, and then make an additional transfer? Or does it need to all be done in one to avoid any additional fees? I realize this is a lot of effort, maybe I sound crazy, but I'd like to keep pace with paying down my car loan, and riding 0% interest and minimum payments seems like it would help.
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Oct 8, 2015 05:17
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With Chase Slate I think you have 60 days from account opening to make any balance transfers you want without paying the transfer fee. It shouldn't be a problem with multiple. When it comes to things like this it's never a bad idea to call and confirm. And I think I need to take advantage of the Chase SW RR Premier card's sign up bonus... 50K RR for 2K spend. edit: Wow, instant approval with 12k credit line, biggest I've ever started with... this can't be same Chase that gave me 3k with a Freedom card then never increased it again. nickutz fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Oct 8, 2015 |
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Oct 8, 2015 15:04
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I'm holding out until 2016 to open any of the SW cards in the hopes that the 50k offers will still be around so I can get a companion pass.
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Oct 8, 2015 15:17
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Cool, just got instantly approved for both the CSP and Freedom just now. Gave me a combined 23k limit which like doubles the 24k I had before. Time to buy a boat! (Nah, no boat.)
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Oct 8, 2015 19:36
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Barry posted:I'm holding out until 2016 to open any of the SW cards in the hopes that the 50k offers will still be around so I can get a companion pass. You are in the window now to get the points in early 2016. Get approved today, complete the spend for the 100k between jan 1 and jan 5 (90 days from today). Points post sometime in Jan, and you have the pass all of 2016 and 2017. I'm not sure both 50k offers are still active though?
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Oct 8, 2015 20:18
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nickutz posted:With Chase Slate I think you have 60 days from account opening to make any balance transfers you want without paying the transfer fee. It shouldn't be a problem with multiple. When it comes to things like this it's never a bad idea to call and confirm. Interest Charges on Purchases: Once you take advantage of this offer, you will have a new promotional balance on your account. As a result, you will lose your interest-free period (also called your grace period) on new purchases unless you pay your entire balance in full each month (including any promotional balances that you add by using this offer). New purchases include any fees added to your purchase balance, such as an annual fee, if applicable. This means that while you will enjoy the promotional rate on the balances that you add by using this offer, you will pay interest on your new purchases. The wording seems a bit unclear. Maybe I'm stupid. Especially: "you will lose your interest-free period (also called your grace period) on new purchases unless you pay your entire balance in full each month (including any promotional balances that you add by using this offer)" I take that to mean that the promotional balances part is NOT counted as a purchase. I just don't want to be wrong. Safe to make multiple balance transfers?
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Oct 9, 2015 03:31
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Baddog posted:You are in the window now to get the points in early 2016. Get approved today, complete the spend for the 100k between jan 1 and jan 5 (90 days from today). Points post sometime in Jan, and you have the pass all of 2016 and 2017. Man that SW deal sounds like a steal to be honest. I hope it's still around come January cause I can't make those minimum spends until I'm done with the minimum spends I just opened until then without buying gift cards or whatever.
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Oct 9, 2015 14:21
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Baddog posted:You are in the window now to get the points in early 2016. Get approved today, complete the spend for the 100k between jan 1 and jan 5 (90 days from today). Points post sometime in Jan, and you have the pass all of 2016 and 2017. I believe Plus is only at 25k. I probably should have phrased my post a bit better in that I'm waiting until there are two 50k offers before I pull the trigger.
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Oct 9, 2015 14:25
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