|
ETB posted:Interesting post made by the "Finance Buff." If you have $100k in assets and willing to sell your soul to Bank of America and Merill Edge, you get an effective 2.65% on purchases after three months of establishing a checking and brokerage account with them. This includes free trading, no ATM fees, and all the benefits of the BankAmericard Travel Rewards. It seems crazy good, but you have to be loaded to take advantage. God this is so loving tempting, but I'm afraid I might be too lazy to shift around assets and accounts. Fidelity Amex at 2% treats me pretty well, plus Blue Cash Preferred for 6k of groceries and amazon/random gift cards at 6% every year. Baddog fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Nov 14, 2014 |
#
¿
Nov 14, 2014 21:04
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 06:03 |
|
|
Man, this redbird thing looks pretty sweet, especially considering a participating target is right next to a costco we go to every week, so its not like I'd have to go out of my way to make a few bucks. I have a Fidelity amex with 2%, but is there a better card I should be shoving all that revolving cash on if I get a few redbirds? Go for 110k and the southwest companion pass maybe? We only fly them maybe three times a year, so it wouldnt be a *huge* win - but I think with the miles being worth a little over 1% it would end up being better than the flat 2% cash.... are there any other cards with big perks for being able to put a lot of dollars on it?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 4, 2015 05:40
|
|
|
becoming posted:How little is your time worth that you're considering spending hours upon hours of it for three cheap Southwest tickets per year? You also run the risk of the credit card issuers going "uh, you claim you make $80k/year and you're spending $110k... we are going to report this". Add in SARs for good measure, if someone at Target thinks you're up to something. If I got 4 cards, at 2% that'd be $80 every time I go to costco for like 10 minutes work....I dunno about you but that beats my hourly! I hear you on the other stuff, although I think even if it did happen it would just be a waste of time hassle, not long term loss of money or credit...
|
|
#
¿
Apr 4, 2015 07:16
|
|
|
Duckman2008 posted:I keep going back and forth on this question and would love an outside opinion. Your dining expenses are probably not more than 10-20% of your overall spend? So a 2% cash back on everything card should be a big win. I would try to exercise a little restraint and keep the 5% (the citi points kinda suck I think though? more like 4%?) on dining card in your wallet and use it just for eating out. Personally though I use the Blue Cash Preferred to buy gift cards at the grocery store and get 6% back on $6000/year for amazon, eating out, whatever else. The bigger benefit is I get so many dollar-off-gas points for buying all those gift cards that I end up giving some away. Its got an annual fee, but if you come anywhere near 6000 at the grocery store it will more than pay for itself, not to mention I saved close to $700 in gas last year.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 20, 2015 01:42
|
|
|
Got in 6k today, wish I'd seen the warning yesterday. Too bad I just got the wells fargo card that would have gotten me $50 a swipe. I'm all hooked on this MS thing now, at least to get the minimum spend on cards as fast as possible for the bonus. I don't want to be one of those scrubs trying to unload a stack of $100 visa debit cards at target customer service next week though.
|
|
#
¿
May 6, 2015 02:12
|
|
|
TraderStav posted:Successfully worked Steps 2-4, so the Redbird is indeed alive and well. I was confused when I went to the store as there were two Vanilla Gift Cards (My Vanilla $3.95, and One Vanilla $4.95). I went with the $4.95 as that was the most cited cost in my reading and thought there must be an issue with the MyVanilla. I could be very wrong on that though. Cool. I thought from reading that the $500 visa cards were cash only? Maybe thats just the office supply stores.
|
|
#
¿
May 7, 2015 16:05
|
|
|
Swingline posted:Right. Why you being a dick? Its only on the first $750 of spending. So $37.50 of cash back a month. Personally, I buy amazon gift cards at the grocery store to get dollars off gas at the same time as 5 or 6% off the purchase - so the %-off-amazon-directly cards aren't getting much of a workout anymore.
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2015 18:37
|
|
|
Hashtag Banterzone posted:If you haven't gone for the Southwest Companion Pass, I strongly suggest you go for it now while they are offering 50k miles. fyi, I guess chase is getting more restrictive when you open a lot of new cards quickly. I got 2 chase cards and 4 other cards in the past three months, and they just denied me for a chase ink, giving that reason. I'd heard that doing 2 cards/month was reasonable, but I guess not anymore. I'm going to stop applying for cards for now, because I'd really like to get two southwest cards in the Dec-Jan timeframe.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2015 19:27
|
|
|
Blinky2099 posted:I'm trying to start babby's first CC min-maxing and am looking at a few options. Can someone help explain what this post means? If you are gonna do churning and think you ever want chase freedom/sapphire/ink, with the recent changes to chase policy (can't get them if you've opened more than 5 cards in past 2 years) should probably get those first. Sounds like the affiliated chase cards (southwest, ihg, hyatt, british airways) aren't covered in the restriction (yet). The only one I kinda wish I got is the ink for the potential to get 5% back on gift cards at office supply stores, but I'm not all that pressed about it. I'm gonna hold off on the southwest cards until dec-jan time period (hopefully the 50k comes back then), because if you get the 110k points at the beginning of the year the companion pass is good for almost two years - calendar year you get it in, and the following year.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
smackfu posted:I'd be surprised. No foreign transaction fee is a pretty valuable service, once you start spending a few thousand bucks overseas. Most of these have fees, but there are a few that don't. I'd just sign up for one where the fee is waived the first year. Especially one of the hotel cards to get the free night or two on your trip. The 2 hyatt nights are nice! http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/top-credit-cards/no-foreign-transaction-fee-credit-card/
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2015 02:19
|
|
|
Its the small mom'n'pop businesses that don't take amex because they can't swallow the extra cost amex hits them with. I like going to hole-in-the-wall restaurants, so always gotta carry a visa along with my main amex.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2015 19:45
|
|
|
pretty limited, not on any of mine. I had two google play $5 and one $5 apple though.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2015 19:25
|
|
|
Blinkman987 posted:I just booked my two free nights from my Citi Hilton Reserve spend threshold, and basically they offered me 500 HHonors points (a laughably small amount) to hear a pitch. I listened anyway because I'm Asian and can't give up value. It's a pitch for timeshares masked as a fabulous vacation getaway, but basically the deal came out to 3 nights at one of their Las Vegas properties (no blackout dates), two free Cirque tickets, a $200 credit for a future Hilton stay, and 6,000 more HHonors points for $168 total. I just busted my timeshare-pitch cherry on a hawaii vacation. Got a really good deal at westin villas (600 for 5 nights in a studio, ended up getting upgraded to 1 bedroom suite), 12k spg points, and a bunch of other small stuff. They were pretty good about hearing no, it just sucks to take 90 minutes out of your vacation. The salespeople are ridiculously good - I'm very aware timeshares are a terrible investment, but the patter is so fast and she's switching numbers around so well I was kinda going "hmm wait, is this actually not quite as bad a deal as I thought?" Vegas timeshare pitches might be a bit more pushy though. So the big risk is you actually get jedi-mind-tricked into buying a timeshare, which is going to cost you a lot more than the thousand or so you save on a vacation. We went to get lunch afterwards and saw in the window of a realtors shop next door they were selling the same units for 30k less than starwood was pushing them for, despite the saleswoman stating that there were less than 10 units available, they were actively looking to buy more, and they had right of first refusal. So each time they flip a share, they are looking to make at least 30k (which works out to more than 1.5 mill on the actual physical room/unit) - the commission must be nice. Even if you get the timeshare for free, I don't think the monthly maintenance fees+taxes+(risk of getting some sort of special assessment from the association on your 1/52 share of a room), is worth it. Looks like there are some on ebay for close to free too, so people really want out from under them.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2015 19:15
|
|
|
There isn't any need to close them if they have no fees, doesn't look like any of them do. No fee cards will help your credit score as the average age of your account goes up. The percent utilization is what impacts your credit rating, so the more credit you have the better (until a bank tells you you have too much with them, then you can move credit line from old cards to new). You should actually charge something soon on the quicksilver to keep it open before they close it on you. Two-three years is about when a bank will close an inactive account.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2015 02:40
|
|
|
becoming posted:There are still ways to do it; TraderStav posted a write-up earlier in this thread with the new post-June 15 Redbird MS process. I haven't done it myself, but he has, so I assume it's still possible. I'm too lazy to completely maximize, so I just buy $10k of $500 gift cards at the mall for 80 bucks ($4 per card). Makes $120 cash (200-80) on a 2% cash card, or more depending on how you value points. I've been loading up on SPG if I don't have minimum spend to do. Its a big letdown from how it used to be, but still worthwhile if you don't have to go out of your way.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2015 22:03
|
|
|
It took almost three weeks for my $100 southwest gift card purchase to credit about 3 months ago. Then I did another $100 a few weeks ago (right before people started freaking out) and it credited the next day. So seems pretty random to me (in my limited experience). People seem to be freaking out a bit early. Although of course if several thousand new amex plat cardholder have been harassing customer support over why their gift card purchases haven't been credited, maybe its gonna be a self-fulfilling issue.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2015 00:02
|
|
|
Blinky2099 posted:Bank of America sent me a pre-approval for their visa: $200 bonus for $500 spending, no annual fee. I've whored a couple other similar bonuses and plan to do this as well unless there's a reason I shouldn't that I'm not aware of? Temporary 40% cashback sounds good to me. 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?). So think ahead. Personally there are still so many really good bonuses available out there, I wouldn't mess with anything less than $400/inquiry. Or for something that you're going to need (I got the amex everyday to be able to save the MR points from 2 platinum cards when I cancel them). I've seen people who've been doing it awhile seem to draw the line lower, around 300-350 in value.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2015 18:14
|
|
|
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 |
|
#
¿
Oct 4, 2015 01:14
|
|
|
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...
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2015 22:01
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2015 02:05
|
|
|
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?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2015 20:18
|
|
|
The 100k amex platinum offer is pretty much a no brainer the first year. $200 in airline credit (for gift cards) last half of first calendar year $200 in airline credit the next calendar year before next annual fee is charged $100 global entry (precheck is awesome!) Which means you come out ahead already. I'm getting kind of addicted to all the status benefits, its gonna be hard to give it up (gotten some nice room upgrades). The 100k points are worth a minimum of $1k, even if you don't use them the absolute "best" way (I guess flying singapore air or emirates first class). I guess I can flip around between different platinum card flavors every year (ameriprise, mercedes-benz, etc). Wont get the signup bonus (actually I think the ameriprise might be churnable?), but the $400 in airline credit per signup and a global entry credit I can use on someone will offset the fee and I can keep the statuses.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2015 18:35
|
|
|
Tyro posted:
SPG gold has the room upgrade like the marriott.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2015 22:20
|
|
|
Rated PG-34 posted:I suppose that means it's a good time to apply for the Mariott Chase card. I think its the one that's going to survive (mariott bought starwood, much bigger rewards program). So probably time to get the SPG if anything? Maybe the SPG rewards program will be grandfathered.... probably going to have to rush to get the SPG points transferred out to airlines or use them before they get turned into mariott at 1:1 (would be a massive devaluation).
|
|
#
¿
Nov 16, 2015 23:21
|
|
|
I do think I'm gonna stop putting any more spend on my SPG cards, which sucks cus they were my everyday spend cards. I can't get a Chase Sapphire because I've gotten too many cards in last two years. Whats the next best? I'm just going to use Fidelity Amex for now, but is there a points card I should be jumping to? Seems like everyone was always recommending SPG or CSP.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2015 22:23
|
|
|
FunOne posted:I mean things I can do to churn spend on the card for little to no cost. Like the old Treasury department orders. Or reloadable cards. The common term is manufactured spend (MS) for that. Churn is getting multiple of the same card for the signup points. To put a lot of spend on a card, I've just been buying 10 $500 visa debit cards at the mall for $40. If I'm feeling cheap and don't want to pay anything out of pocket, I'll split the order with a 2% back card to break even. So $3000 on the points card, $2000 on the FIA amex. Then hit walmart with the serve to unload the cards. This is getting to the point I only want to do it for minimum spends though. Its too much work/risk just for random 3000 points/miles (or $60 if I put it all on the FIA amex). For SPG points it was kinda worth it, but now.... RIP redbird.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2015 01:39
|
|
|
spongeworthy posted:I just walk up to a cashier and tell them I want to put the gift cards on my Serve card? I use the OneVIP, no fees if you put at least $500 on it a month. I haven't tried loading it at the cashier, since the lines and cashiers are always a shitshow at walmart. The people at the moneycenter or customer service (wherever there is no line) have been pretty cool about loading a bunch of cards. There is an ATM at some walmarts you can load the cards at and people seem to like, but (1) its loving slow as poo poo (2) it doesn't recognize cards or breaks in other ways often (3) you can apparently only load 1499 every 10 minutes or it locks up. So I just talk to people to do it. People also buy gift cards online through various cash back portals which is supposedly more lucrative, but it seems to me like there is a lot more opportunity to get hosed in various ways doing that. With less recourse. And you still have to unload the gift cards somehow, so you probably still end up at Walmart.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2015 19:31
|
|
|
asur posted:Did you get an email or some other confirmation that it was upgraded? I've heard of this, but since I cancelled and Citi completely hosed up my online account for another reason I'm not certain how to check. I thought they just sent me a new card with a chip, but it was actually the upgrade. Check the back of your card, above the mastercard logo, see if it says "world elite". Applied and got another citi aa card yesterday (like 6 months after first one). Now the challenge is actually using the points before the march devaluation. Apparently its impossible to get more than 1 seat in first on cathay pacific to asia (and no seats are available on AA international itself in first or business). Looking around its pretty drat hard to get 3 seats even in business flying nearly anywhere on anything AA partnered. Maybe its because everyone is booking everything up right now before the devaluation. I would just look to use them on short-haul flights after the program changes, but apparently the only airport in range of denver for those flights is Vegas. Which is already dirt cheap.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2015 23:12
|
|
|
Wells Fargo credit card services suck badly. That 5% for 6 months offer is tempting, but even when I was "prequalified" for it, they found a way to dick me out of it. Two hard pulls later all I have is a lovely no-fee card.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2015 19:07
|
|
|
Tots posted:Awesome, will keep that in mind when the rewards are up on the current card. I should also mention that another reason I have this card instead of a better one is because it was easy to get and I don't have stellar credit. As a general rule of thumb, should always keep a no-fee card open and put a charge on it every year or so to keep it active. More credit and credit lines are good for your credit score. Only close it if you're worried you can't keep track of the physical card if its not in your wallet all the time. And amex blue cash preferred is 6% back on groceries up to 6k a year, for only $75 a year. And a $150 signup bonus right now to cover the first two years of fees. Its only ~100 more a year in your pocket than the regular blue cash, but I definitely max the 6k every year on gift cards while I'm getting the $1 off per gallon of gas at krogers, so might as well take the extra money. https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/blue-cash-preferred
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2015 03:24
|
|
|
kazr posted:From what I've heard is that closing an account with American Express is a very bad idea as it will just about automatically bar you from signing up for another one of their cards or at least make it very difficult. Maybe if you close it immediately after the signup bonus posts, but I think its just like everyone else if you hold it for at least a year. I haven't heard of issues from closing an amex before the annual fee posts. You can only get an amex signup bonus once in a lifetime per card though, so its worth it to wait to get a big one.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2016 05:55
|
|
|
khysanth posted:It's the start of a new year and therefore a good time to try and get the Southwest Companion Pass (which is good until December 31, 2017). Just had my wife apply and get approved for the Chase Southwest Premiere (50k bonus with $2,000 spend in 3 months). Next month we'll probably have her get the Chase Southwest Plus (40k bonus with $1,000 spend in 3 months). Hoping to hit 110k points in March to enjoy those sweet sweet 20 months of companion passes. The SW cards don't give any real benefits besides 2x points on SW purchases right? And 3k points on anniversary. I guess thats worth $39, so the plus will just cost $30. I think I did the math right though, and you have to buy $5000 in SW airfare a year to break even over using a 2% cash back card. (.013*2-.02)*5000=30. So I think I'm cancelling them both when fee is due. For next time, you can get the cards in the prior year and just fulfill the minimum spend in January. I cut it a bit close this year (was at the mall buying GC on the 1st), but hopefully it will all work out.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2016 22:30
|
|
|
triple sulk posted:Haha, Serve finally cracked down on the MS idiots and did a mass shutdown of accounts. Good riddance. Do you frequently get irate over things which don't effect you at all? Yell at old ladies for ordering peppermint ice cream or something? Those loving cunts, right?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2016 20:26
|
|
|
Barry posted:Do you really think MS doesn't affect (effect? god I can never remember) the whole credit card bonus game? I kinda find it hard to believe that MS is more than like 1% of cc volume at most. That would be a ton of cash actually. So I guess a signup bonus can be 50200 points instead of 50000 now?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2016 22:34
|
|
|
becoming posted:I get what you're saying, and if it actually didn't affect me, I wouldn't care. The truth is that Serve has gotten significantly less useful for us non-MSers because of the MS idiots drawing tons of attention. As an example, I used to be able to load $1,000 each month from a single credit card and then have Serve send checks to pay for my daughter's daycare. At 2% cash back, that's $240 each year that I no longer make. Not a ton of money, but at the same time, you probably wouldn't just give me the $240 to make up for it, would you? So it does affect me. Serve is still useful to me and I still happily keep an account open and use it to deposit cash (don't have a local branch for my credit union), but it is significantly less useful now. I'm not calling anybody a oval office, but MSers did cost me $240 annually. I guess you are drawing this line between getting money back by passing your cash through serve with a couple of extra steps (instead of just writing a check directly) and someone who is doing the same exact thing, but just paying the credit card bill itself. Seems like kind of an arbitrary line to me? Serve is designed for people who don't have "real" banking at all, so you were still not using it for its "intended" purpose and are not its intended audience. I think the guy who I originally replied to was laughing at *all* MS'ers getting shut down, and that includes people who were MS'ing by washing money through Serve to pay *everything* in their life like mortgage, daycare, taxes, tuition, etc etc etc for that 2% back. Like you. Personally I just kept paying that poo poo with check and did the MS gift/credit-card loop because it was easier for me to deal with.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2016 19:21
|
|
|
dexter6 posted:Could you talk about this a little more? When I switched to Ally bank I lost a way to make cash deposits so something plug in like this would be nice. Get a redcard from target (the prepaid one with 5% off target purchases if they are still offering them). Target customer support is easier/nicer/faster to deal with than Walmart. Then link your redcard to your bank. Take your fistful of cash into Target and load it onto your redcard. Then transfer the money to your bank online. Redcard and serve are both run by amex and the interface/engine is exactly the same. Just you gotta go to Walmart or Family Dollar to load serve.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2016 19:24
|
|
|
becoming posted:I would probably call and talk to customer service about that; that's pretty weird that they'd shut it down for bill payment. Not sure if my usage looks different than yours because I've loaded cash (and maybe even pulled from my bank account), but my account is absolutely still open and from your description, I can't think of a reason why yours wouldn't be. So hang on a sec, you weren't shut down, so why are you upset at all? Just the fear you might be in the future? I don't want to get hung up on terminology, but the MS blogs/forums are full of ways to pay bills which don't usually take credit cards with a credit card round-aboutly. So maybe its not completely "MS", but its close, because its only a small step from doing that to just cutting out the in between bill and paying the credit card invoice itself. I guess your issue is more with the volume than the steps involved. 1K/month is ok, 100k is not, 10k is ?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2016 18:29
|
|
|
becoming posted:I haven't done anything with my Serve account this month, though I do have some cash I've been meaning to deposit, so I can test later. Since I've done all of nothing with it this month, but do have some money in it, they debited a $1 fee, which was five days ago. So, as of five days ago, they considered my account active/alive/whatever. You know you can still use an amex, just wont get points for it? Easier than depositing cash I'd think. Or use a 3rd-party managed amex, like FIA or US Bank or something, and still get the rewards.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2016 20:51
|
|
|
Barry posted:
hate to break it to you....
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2016 02:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 06:03 |
|
|
Shadowhand00 posted:The other nice thing about the platinum is the centurion lounge, especially if you're in an area where you can get regular access to it. drat, I was thinking I needed to buy some puts on them before earnings, and forgot in the general market meltdown.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2016 23:35
|
|