Credit Card Rewards and Recommendations

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Credit Card Rewards and Recommendations

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THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

One of the positive changes they are making with the switch to points is eliminating the redemption minimum. You can redeem just 1 point for 1c as a direct deposit or statement credit.
They can be devalued, so just don't keep a ton of points stockpiled. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2022 01:57

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 14:21

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

The various 2% cards are all very similar and probably what you want for straightforward cashback card you do everything with.
The Wells Fargo one is probably ahead of the others for it's not to be underappreciated $200 signup bonus, but if you want to avoid Wells Fargo that's totally fine.

Depending on how much you spend at Amazon, the Amazon Chase Visa might be good too. That has 5% at Amazon/Whole Foods, 2% on some decent categories (restaurants, gas stations, drug stores), and 1% everywhere else. For Amazon cards you can put them into your Amazon account and stick them in a drawer, but if you used this everywhere and use Amazon a lot it would be a good option too.

Also taking this opportunity to push the Alliant 2.5% Visa. You need to have a checking account with them with 1 monthly deposit (Doesn't have to be direct deposit, transfer from another account counts). The extra .5% is nice but not the biggest deal, but it has no foreign transaction fee and an increasingly hard to find extended warranty feature.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2022 14:56

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

With those there are a couple of things to look for.
First is a balance transfer fee, which is a couple %. There usually is one, but it can be waived for a specific promotion.
The second is if they are going to retroactively charge interest if the full balance isn't paid off at the end of the promotion. I'm not sure if this is common, but I would definitely check.
Lastly if you don't also have a promotion for 0% interest on new purchases the held balance is likely going to mean you don't have a grace period and purchases will start accruing interest immediately.

They're best avoided as they are intended to be traps, but they can be to your advantage if there is no balance fee, you pay the entire thing off before the APR kicks back in, and you put the card in a drawer and don't use it for anything else until after it's been paid off in full for 2 statements in a row.

# ¿ May 10, 2022 21:36

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

pseudanonymous posted:

It�s kind of disingenuous to say this and not explain the amount of assets.

It's $100,000. However this is a lot easier to meet than it sounds since you can transfer your IRA there and fill it up with Vanguard ETFs.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2022 16:17

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

disaster pastor posted:

With the holidays coming up and some travel being possible again, I'm looking to see what I could be doing better cardwise, so this is a bit of an effortpost.

My daily driver is the Citi Double Cash. Been great for years, no problems, good cash back, but I've had an Alliant checking and savings acct for over a decade. I've been hesitant to switch to the 2.5% Signature because it requires the $1000 average in your checking for that rate, and I'm bad at the math to tell me how good I am at hitting that (I pretty aggressively put money into savings now, so, for example, given when my bills come due, I was under $1000 for 12/30 days in September, but I was well above $1000 for most of those 18). Should I just do it? Is there an easy way to do the math to be sure?

I have a bunch of other cards I don't use very much but try to use often enough to keep them active: the Amex Cash Magnet and BCE and the Capital One Quicksilver are probably the standouts here. No cards with an annual fee. I got burned here, though; two cards closed in the last two years because I forgot to use them and didn't have a recurring expense on them. Suggestions for good set-and-forget for these?

I have nothing that does me any particular good when traveling, and I frankly don't know much about those cards; even when I read about them, the info mushes together in my head. A friend who does know a lot thinks I should just get an Amex Platinum and not be set, but even accounting for the signup bonus, that's a steep as hell AF when I just don't travel that often. We have one trip to Canada planned in the next few months, and we're going to a wedding in NV next year, but nothing solid beyond that. I like Amex, their customer service is wonderful, but that's still a lot of dang loving money on a card that's really only great for travel as far as I can tell, and with points that I don't think transfer to the Amex cards I have. (I considered the Amex Gold for food purposes, but I'm unsure about the fee there, too, and it doesn't really help the travel.)

As far as I can tell, I could just keep doing what I'm doing and be fine, but at this point I'm interested in what I could be doing better. FICO is generally in the 820s and I've opened one card in the past two years, so my options should be open.

Keeping $1000 in checking instead of savings at current rates costs you $17.50 a year. The extra 0.5% cashback of the Alliant Visa will make up that difference with $3500 of spending.
That's a worse case scenario kind of situation though, you already keep some money in the checking account.
I personally just at the start of every month make sure I have 2 months of expenses in my checking account, being stressed over if an unusually big credit card bill will overdraft isn't worth min/maxxing to get the extra savings APY.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 21:14

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

I merged my various Citi thank you points into a single account (had to call support to do this, didn't work online) and got the full cash back 1:1 value as well as the 10% points back from the rewards+ for all points redeemed. Citi Rewards+, Custom Cash, and Double Cash merged. Cashback was direct deposited into a non-Citi checking account.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2022 20:25

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

dpkg chopra posted:

Can I prepay my CC to keep my utilization down? I need to spend a bit of money over my average, but also need my score to stay as high as possible for a couple of applications coming up.

With nearly every credit card provider what gets reported to the credit bureaus and used to calculate your utilization is your statement balance. So you can make an early payment before the statement comes in and keep your utilization low. But be careful doing this, you'll still want to make sure you pay the full statement balance before the due date each month.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2022 22:44

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

I can give the OP a once-over and update it today or tomorrow, feel free to chime in with anything you think should be added/edited/removed. On the todo list

Remove nerdwallet links/recommendations
Add DoctorOfCredit as a good source for credit card details, specifics and reviews
Add link to dedicated churning thread

# ¿ Dec 1, 2022 21:27

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Atahualpa posted:

I read that you can apply for business credit cards as a sole proprietor using your SSN in lieu of an EIN if you've got something you can claim as income (e.g., Ebay sales). How legitimate is that and would the IRS frown on it in any way? I'm eyeing that $900 SUB on the Chase Ink Business Cash card.

Unless you're using that to do something shady like fake losses to lower your income the IRS will have no issue.
You need to see if your State allows it. I've done it in New York, needed to use my full name as the Business name and SSN as EIN and it was fine. (check this is still the case before doing it, it was a few years ago).

# ¿ Dec 29, 2022 15:12

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Alliant Credit Union has some bonuses up now for its checking/savings/certificate accounts. $400 total possible for new members, $300 for existing (Maybe $200?, might be worth waiting a bit for details to be clearer). The checking account is a requirement for their excellent 2.5% cashback card.
Bank account bonuses are taxable unlike credit card ones, so keep that in mind.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/alliant-credit-union-400-checking-savings-cd-bonus-for-new-or-existing-members-code-fastpass/

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 22:37

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Sirotan posted:

Posting this to the more appropriate credit card thread:

I'm about to embark on a major kitchen remodel and I'm thinking about how I'm going to pay for it. I originally assumed I would take out a HELOC, and right now rates are pretty high. Now I'm thinking about grabbing a 0% APR credit card, charging as many items as I can on it, and paying it off before the promo period ends (seems like 18 or 21 months is available right now). If for some reason I haven't paid off the balance before the interest kicks in, I could open another 0% APR credit card and do a balance transfer. I likely would also have to open a HELOC because I doubt every contractor I'll work with will take a credit card, and it would also give me an out in case I don't qualify for another 0% APR card for some reason. I do know that balance transfers on credit cards usually carry a 3% fee. This is still preferable to the 8% rates I'm seeing on HELOCs at the moment and ofc those are variable and could continue to increase.

Where is the flaw in this plan?? I have excellent credit, lots of open lines of credit because I used to churn on the regular (but haven't for a couple years), will absolutely be diligent enough not to miss deadlines that would cause me to pay interest in the credit card once the promo period ends, etc. I kinda assume I'm gonna need maybe $20-30k on top of what I've got available in cash, so the only issue I can think of right now is I might not get a high enough limit on the card to cover everything involved with the project.

The flaw in this plan is that it is a literal trap. Credit card companies push these offers because the majority of people who use them will not pay the entire balance back before the promotion rate ends.
You do have enough credit and a good plan to potentially avoid the trap and still walk away with the 0% cheese, but just know what you're walking into.

More seriously, the risks are mostly something unexpected happening. Something like losing your job, car getting totaled, or an unexpected injury that prevents you from having the money to pay off in full and on time. Or multiple incidents happening at the same time which many people don't account for. (A car accident which causes an injury that prevents you from working).
Some other details to keep in mind.

Some lovely credit cards will retroactively charge you interest for the entire promotion period if you have even $0.01 balance remaining at the end. This is usually seen in the lovely store credit cards they push on people in checkout, not credit cards from major banks. But it's something to check the terms for.
0% APR doesn't mean 0 payments, you need to make sure to at least make the minimum payment each month on time. Missing a payment will cause all the normal headaches, but will also immediately end the 0% APR promotion period.
You won't be able to do a 0% APR balance transfer to a 2nd credit card offered from the same bank. So if your planning on transferring the balance from your first card to a Chase Slate, the first card should not be with Chase.
Having a card with a high utilization rate will have a significant impact on your credit score, so the 2nd balance transfer card you apply for you might not qualify for as high a credit limit as you might expect.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2023 16:34

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

The 10% bonus is on redemptions, so you can just hold of on redeeming thank you points until you have the Rewards+.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2023 08:32

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Having the Rewards+ gets you an extra 10% on all your Citi Thank You points from other cards like the Double cash and Custom cash. It can sit in a drawer

# ¿ Mar 2, 2023 17:32

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Unsinkabear posted:

That brokerage account will also give you access to their excellent checking account

You don't need to have a Schwab brokerage account in order to open a checking account with them. If you don't have a brokerage account they will open one automatically for you alongside the checking account

# ¿ Mar 5, 2023 21:50

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Store credit cards in particular are the most likely to have that terrible retroactive interest clause.
For those taking advantage of/considering a 0% APR offer:

Check if the offer has the already mentioned retroactive interest if not paid off in full clause
Interest free doesn't mean payment free, make sure you are making minimum payment on time each month
I don't know how normal grace periods are handled at the end of these offers, so my assumption is they try to screw you. Have the card paid off to $0 at the end of the offer with no pending or recurring charges on it. I'd then keep the card unused for 2 billing cycles before starting to use it again to be sure new purchases aren't accruing interest immediately.
If you're putting the extra money into a high yield savings account, that extra interest you're making is taxable as ordinary income. Just something to consider when deciding if this is worth doing.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2023 15:21

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Are you sure your Amazon Prime subscription didn't just run out?

# ¿ Apr 10, 2023 13:52

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Thanks. So, I have to call them to do it? There is a combine accounts button, but it doesn't recognize the Rewards+ card as an option to combine with the Double Cash, so I wasn't sure it was possible.

The combine accounts button didn't work for any of my several citi thank you points cards, they were able to merge them over the phone without any fuss. Afterwards I was able to redeem my Custom Cash and Double Cash points and get the 10% points back from the Rewards+ card.

# ¿ May 30, 2023 20:02

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

I did one of those "move X amount to a new IRA and get $500" type bonuses last year and that extra $500 deposited into my Roth IRA didn't count against the limit. That ruling seems to be because it is treated as interest income, and therefore earned inside the IRA. I'm not too sure about the Amex points redemption though. Normally credit card bonuses and point redemptions aren't taxable because they are considered rebates/reimbursements (another loophole I think nobody cares enough to address). So being able to take a rebate/reimbursement from a non-IRA purchase and put it into an IRA doesn't seem to have any justification for not counting towards the contribution limit.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2023 18:48

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Requesting a credit limit increase usually but not always will have the credit card company do another credit pull, which does have a minor negative effect on your credit score.
If you care about it, and you probably shouldn't, you can check which issuers do here. https://www.doctorofcredit.com/credit-cards/which-credit-card-companies-do-a-hard-pull-for-a-credit-limit-increase/

The main reason they offer it is exactly what saintonan said, they hope you will spend/use the card more.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2023 19:03

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Space Fish posted:

Fidelity 2% cash back card now has no foreign transaction fee.

A good card just got better!

I might pick this up for traveling since the Alliant Visa still doesn't have tap to pay for some reason. (Does support mobile wallets though).

# ¿ Sep 27, 2023 18:58

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

The Fidelity 2% is nice. You can pair it with a Fidelity Cash Management account which is an excellent checking account to deposit the rewards into.
The 2% back on the Double Cash can be boosted just by having the Citi Rewards+ card and merging their Thank You Points programs. Extra 10% rewards makes it a 2.2% cashback card.
The Bank of America Travel Rewards card is a 1.5% cash back card that can be boosted up to 2.625% with BoA's Preferred Rewards program at the $100,000 tier. (An IRA with them counts, so this is more attainable then it sounds). Rewards have to be redeemed against specific travel/restaurant purchase categories which is annoying.
Alliant's Cash Back card is 2.5% cash back with some small requirements with their checking account. I like the card a lot but the physical card not having tap to pay is starting to become a problem.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2024 03:29

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Oh thanks I forgot they had a more traditional straight cash back card, that one just loses the no foreign transaction fee but eliminates the redemption annoyance.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2024 05:50

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

You have to merge the rewards accounts as a one time process. It can be done online, but it didn't work for me so I had to call and have them do it over the phone. After that it's just automatic, though you get the extra points only after redeeming.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2024 03:59

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

I don't think you need to go out of your way to redeem points through the rewards+ card once your Thank You points pools are linked. It should give you credit for any redemption from that pool, I think.

Shell and Citi have some partnership where you can redeem Thank You points for fuel purchases and I accidently did that once when using my Custom Cash card, got an email saying I earned the bonus redemption for having the Rewards+ regardless.

It's probably safest to just redeem rewards using the Rewards+ card though.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2024 20:35

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

I would not recommend credit card churning for someone unemployed. It's extra money if you can make the spending requirements, already have good credit, and can 100% of the time pay the balance in full every month.

As to taxes. Generally you DO NOT pay taxes on credit card cash back redemptions, they're considered rebates in a kind of weird lawyer logic I just don't think the IRS cares enough to argue with.
You DEFINITELY DO pay taxes on bank account bonuses, it's considered interest and taxed as ordinary income.
I honestly hadn't heard about about being taxed on credit redemptions for things like free night stays, I can see it happening rarely with certain providers but probably not most.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2024 23:53

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Mr Interweb posted:

what if i have all those other things besides a job, and also a good chunk of savings?

I still probably wouldn't recommend it, and would say it might be better to wait until you're employed again to help get your savings back up. But if you're just doing your ordinary spending and paying back in full every month and if your ordinary spending is enough to his the bonuses you're after there's no urgent reason to avoid it.

Boris Galerkin posted:

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/reports-chase-sending-out-1099s-for-marriott-credit-card-signup-bonus-for-points-referrals/#comments

Right, in general anything that gives you a portion back after you�ve spent money isn�t counted as income, but everything else is. In those comment threads and from personal experience, you are liable to pay taxes on sign up bonuses, referral bonuses, and things like using your credit card to reimburse your precheck/global entry or whatever memberships.

Most sign up bonuses still should not trigger these, which seem to be more exceptions than common. Could indicate that this is going to start changing to be the norm soon I suppose.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2024 01:08

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

The OP is up to date with recommendations for popular common use credit cards, I don't keep it up to date with current best sign up bonuses. Those change too fast and there are better places (doctorofcredit) for that.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2024 21:24

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Subvisual Haze posted:

Good summary. The link to the original Chase Freedom card is dead, I'm recommend swapping it to the Chase Freedom Flex, which is a straight upgrade of the basic Freedom card. It keeps the same 5% rotating quarterly categories but also adds on 5% bonus through their travel portal, and 3% on restaurants and drug stores. Looking at the Chase credit card page I don't even see the original Freedom card listed currently, so maybe the original Freedom has been flat out replaced by the Freedom Flex.

Edited the Freedom to the Freedom Flex with a note on the extra persistent categories, thanks.
I also added the BoA Unlimited Cash Rewards as an alternative to their travel card.
I think I will remove the regular Amazon store card soon, it's still fine if you have it, but as far as I know there isn't any advantage to it over the Amazon Rewards Visa, which sometimes has extra bonus deals/offers.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2024 00:31

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

I do have a BoA checking account, but my BoA autopay is setup to pull from my Alliant checking account, so it should be possible to setup autopay without banking with them.

I remember it being a huge pain in the butt, and their site is bad enough I had to search for instructions on how to even verify how my autopay is setup/managed. I also think but am not certain that you can't setup autopay right away, might need to wait for a billing cycle to go through first?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2024 17:13

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

My expectation on the 1% direct deposit match is you will need to keep money inside of the account for something like 6 months. So you can split your direct deposit and contribute $100 a month to your RH brokerage to invest and end up with $101 to invest, but you probably won't be able to deposit your whole paycheck and use it to pay your bills/rent/expenses and treat it like a 1% raise.

The 3% IRA match isn't new, and as far as I know is legit without any obvious catches.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 17:28

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

All of that is going to apply to any credit card with a particularly valuable rewards program. They can change the terms, reduce the value of points, or convert the card to another product altogether pretty much whenever they want.

I, with no evidence whatsoever, think the most likely scenario is they use the 3% card to get as many Robin Hood Gold subscribers as they can, and after a little while increase the price and hope enough customers are too locked into using their various offerings to deal with the hassle of switching.

"Gaming" the system probably mostly refers to artificial spend, like the people who bought hundreds of thousands of dollar coins from the mint at 1:1 pricing, deposited those coins right into a bank, and got to keep the points and other rewards.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2024 17:03

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

A secured card counts towards your credit the same as a regular unsecured card.
Having a lower utilization (using less) is better for your credit, but this aspect of your credit score is just current utilization, it doesn't have a "history". (Having high utilization in January wouldn't negatively affect you in April if you didn't have high utilization on your most current credit card statement).
You don't benefit at all from spending more money each month.
The starting limit would let you have a lower utilization, but since a secured card is going to require a deposit I wouldn't bother with it.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2024 18:33

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

You don't even need to transfer them, the "thank you points" for multiple citi cards can be linked into a single pool.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 16:42

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

MockingQuantum posted:

Is this something you have to do manually, or are they all part of the same rewards dashboard in the app or whatever?

It's manual but simple.
There's a button in the webui to merge them, this didn't work for me and I had to call and have a support agent do it, which took about 5 minutes.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 19:06

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

With the double cash card thank you points can be redeemed as cash 1:1, no 50% hit.
I did a cash back redemption with my double cash, got $0.01 per point, and got 10% of the points back since I have a linked Rewards+ card.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 19:49

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 14:21

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

New credit cards can impact your score a few different ways.
Applying causes a hard pull, which is a very minor mark against your score and generally you don't need to worry about these unless you're churning bonuses and have like 8+.

The biggest impact is to your average age of accounts. If you only have 1 card, adding a 2nd will drop your average age in half. The more cards you have though, the less effect this has. Someone with 9 cards adding a 10th is only reducing their average by 10%.

On a positive side, adding a new card will increase your available credit and therefore lower your utilization (assuming same level of spending), which can boost your score.

Credit Karma has a credit score simulator, I think there are other similar tools available as well. I don't know how accurate they are.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 22:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Credit Card Rewards and Recommendations

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