My Credit Card Rewards Maximization Strategy

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Speaking of credit card rewards optimization, I was thinking about how the algorithm might work for me. I’m curious if others have a similar system. Man, I have a lot of cards…

Tier 1 – Special Rotating or Temporary Promotions (5%+ back)

First up, you’d want to check for cards that offer an exceptional bonus cash back. Chase Freedom and Citi Dividend both offer 5% cash back on rotating categories on up to $1,500 in spending each quarter. That’s a possible $75 extra each quarter for each card. Other cards may offer a temporary bonus as well.

  • Chase Freedom® – $150 Bonus – 5% purchases can come from gas stations and local commuter transportation 01.01.2016 – 03.31.2016
  • Citi® Dividend Platinum Select® Visa® Card – Earn 5% cash back every quarter in must-have categories.  Right now, on eligible purchases within the Hilton Portfolio, car rental agencies, movie theaters and theme parks from 7/1/14 – 9/30/14. Enrollment each quarter is quick and easy.

Since I don’t buy that much gas, I would only charge restaurants on the Chase Freedom (but not gas) and airline purchases on the Citi Dividend.

Tier – Permanent Category Bonuses (3%+ back)

Some credit cards offer a year-round bonus on things like restaurants, travel, gas, groceries, and more.

Tier 3 – Everything Else (2%+ back)

Here’s your backup catch-all card. Don’t settle for 1% back here, you can do better. 🙂

If you like airline miles or hotel points, here’s where your personal spending habits may also factor in. I value Starwood points at 2 cents or more per point due to their ability to convert to miles and primarily their value in hotel stays (including Sheraton, Westin, W Hotels) so I actually switch between a 2% cash back card and the Starwood depending on my point balance as I like to keep enough to pay for upcoming hotel stays. My Fidelity cash ends up in a 529 so that’s not as much fun. 😉

American Express cards also offer extended warranty protection that I like for larger purchases as their customer service is always the easiest to deal with when you actually need to file a claim. However, American Express cards aren’t accepted in certain cases (like my auto insurance), so you should have a Visa/Mastercard as a final backup.

All in all, it’s not as crazy as it seems. If the Chase/Citi 5% categories aren’t daily-use categories but things like airfare then I don’t keep them in the wallet (0-3 cards). Out of Tier 2, I only keep the Blue Cash AmEx with me (1 card). Out of Tier 3, I actually have a similar-but-grandfathered Fidelity 2% Mastercard and the Starwood AmEx (2 cards). So the total is really about an average of around 4. I’m thinking of switching to an All-Ett “world’s thinnest wallet” which should cut the thickness in half.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”  

“The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.”

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Wallaby Card – One Card To Rule Them All?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

If you’re like me, you use multiple credit cards to maximize their rewards in different situations. Gas on one card, groceries on another, and maybe yet another one for restaurants. What if you could just charge everything on one dummy card, and have it automatically route the purchase on the optimal card? That’s what Wallaby Financial is trying to do. Thanks to reader JC for the tip.

I just signed up for their beta, but it doesn’t appear that anyone actually has an actual card yet. Founder Matthew Goldman answered some questions in Mashable, TechCrunch, and also this FW forum post. The card is not actually a new line of credit, so you won’t get a credit check although they will want your Social Security number and other personal info (and all your credit card numbers). After a six-month free period for beta users, the service costs $50 a year. Wallaby says that they’ll save you that much and more via the extra cashback they generate. Well, that depends on how badly you optimize your cards now. 🙂

Although the idea appears simple, the implementation will be very difficult. Here are a few examples… On cards with rotating categories, they say you’ll still have to activate them yourself each quarter. If you don’t, will they know? Next, all your purchases are technically charged on the Wallaby card number, and then re-routed to your actual card with the actual retailer name augmented with a prefix. For that reason, Wallaby currently can’t guarantee that you’ll keep your other card-specific features like extended warranty or price protection. They also don’t know how other add-on programs like Dining Rewards or UPromise will work with the program. Lots of questions, but yet another startup to keep an eye on.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Paying Estimated Taxes With Chase Ink Bold Card + PayUSATax.com

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

After getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred card $500 in airfare bonus, I developed a taste for Ultimate Rewards (UR) points. You can cash out UR points at a flat 10,000 points = $100. You can also use them towards travel at an Expedia-like portal for 10,000 points = $125 toward airfare, hotel, and car rentals. The prices are not marked up and you can combine cash and points however you like, so I use 1.25 cents per point as a baseline value. Example of combining cash and points:

Finally, you can transfer them to United Airlines, Southwest, British Airways, Korean, Hyatt, and Marriott rewards at a 1:1 ratio. If you use United and British Airways for international and/or business-class flights, you can get closer to 2 cents per point in value.

Therefore, in my last round of application I decided to apply for the Ink Bold® Business Charge Card which was a small business card offering 50,000 bonus points – after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open. I wouldn’t mind only earning 1 UR point per dollar on most of my business spend, although they do offer 5X points per dollar in select business categories. (More details on the Chase Ink Bold Business Charge Card here.)

Spending $5,000 on a card over three months is not something I usually do and I didn’t have any large business expenses coming up, however, I do have to pay quarterly estimated taxes to Uncle Sam. As a result, I found PayUSATax.com (accepts Visa, Mastercard, and Discover) which had the lowest fee for making tax payments with a credit card at 1.89%. You can verify them as an authorized payment provider here at IRS.gov.

The IRS deadline for quarterly payment was coming up, so I decided to make a $5,000 payment for one quarter now and another $5,000 payment on the next billing statement for the next quarter. This meant I could charge $10,000 ($5,000 x 2) which would earn me 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points ($125 value) and I would be charged a $189 fee ($94.50 x 2). However, this would satisfy the spending requirement and would get me another 25,000 UR points ($312.50 value). Still a nice net win even after taking the fee into account.

As you can see from my statement scans below, the first $5,000 tax payment and $94.50 fee went through separately with no cash advance charges or other issues.

I also received my first 25,000 points on my very first statement:

Another useful perk of Ultimate Rewards points is that you can transfer them over to any other person’s account with no fee. This is handy to transfer between family or household members for pooling points and miles. My small business Ink Bold Business Charge Card UR points are in a different account than my personal Sapphire Preferred points, so I just transferred them over and it showed up instantly.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.  “The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.”

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Opt Out of Citibank Balance Transfer Checks By Mail

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Maybe it’s just me, but Citibank has been sending me more and more snail mail with balance transfer checks inside. I can recognize the envelopes without even opening them. Even though in the past there may have been a good no-fee 0% APR balance transfer offer, I’ve just kept getting 0% with a 3%-5% fee for the past few years so I decided to stop them for both me and my wife due to the sheer volume.

Stopping these balance transfer checks from piling up in your mailbox is actually quite simple; you just have to ask them. Calling in is one option, but the easiest way is to log into your online account and send them a secure online message. Here’s my simple script that you can copy and paste:

Subject: Balance Transfer Checks in Mail

Hello,

I would like to officially request that I no longer be sent promotional balance transfer checks in the mail. I don’t want checks sitting in my mail box. Thank you.

This is the standard Citibank copy/paste reply:

We appreciate the opportunity to assist you and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. As you requested, we have processed your privacy choices. Please allow 30 days for these choices to become effective. If there is any way we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Done! This works for all the card issuers as far as I’m aware of, not just Citibank, and you can keep getting your paper statements. If you don’t want any unsolicited offers of credit or insurance sent to you, you can also enroll at OptOutPrescreen.com. This is not the same situation as these Citibank checks, because if you already have a relationship with them they can send you junk until you opt out.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Miles by Discover Card Promotion: Up to 20,000 Bonus Miles

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Here’s a promo that would work great together with the the ChargeSmart fee waiver for utilities purchases. The Discover® Miles Card has upped their sign-up bonus so that you can get 1,000 Bonus miles every month you make a purchase for the first year – up to $120 in travel rewards. To confirm, look for the following in the Terms & Conditions on the application:

TERMS OF 20,000 BONUS MILES OFFER: Earn 10,000 Bonus Miles for every $2,000 you spend, up to 20,000 Bonus Miles. Purchases must be made within 6 months from the date your account is opened. We are not responsible for merchant delays in processing transactions. This promotional offer is in addition to the Standard Miles earned on purchases. Promotional Miles will be applied within 8 weeks of reaching $2,000 and $4,000 spend amounts. (This promotion is now over)

The $2000 spending requirement over six months works out to $333 per month. What you’d be looking for is $350 per month in utilities (electric, gas, sewer, water) that previously didn’t accept credit cards for payment (at least without a big fee), which now you can pay Discover via ChargeSmart.com with no fees. If you don’t reach that, I would even prepay some utilities and let it apply to future bills. There is also double miles (2 miles/$ spent) on the first $3,000 spent combined on restaurant and travel purchases. If you can charge $4,000 in 6 months, you’d get the max 20,000 bonus miles.

In addition, you’ll still get the standard 1 mile per $1 spent on the utilities charges. 10,000 miles can be redeemed for $100 towards any travel from any vendor. You just have to put a travel purchase (airfare, hotel, car rental) on the card and then go online and redeem your “miles” for a travel credit. So buy any $150 airfare from any website on the Miles card and redeem 10,000 miles for a $100 statement credit.

No annual fee. Rewards do not expire as long as your account is in good standing and the card is not inactive for 18 consecutive months.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Pay Your Mortgage With a Credit Card Via ChargeSmart

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

ChargeSmart is a bill payment service that allows you to pay many bills with a credit card that usually don’t accept such payments, including mortgages, auto loan, student loans, and utilities. Only participating vendors are eligible, but they seem to have signed up several large companies including Bank of America/Chase/Wells Fargo mortgages, Sallie Mae student loans, and Ally Financial auto loans. In general, it works with all Visa, MasterCard, and Discover branded cards.

Benefits

If you have a rewards credit card, this service gives you the ability earn cashback or frequent flier miles on more purchases. You’ll also be able to take advantage of your card’s grace period since you won’t have to pay up until your credit card bill is due (up to 45 days later depending on when you charge in the statement cycle). If you have a card with a introductory 0% APR on purchases, you could extend the interest-free period even longer.

Another side perk would be for $500+ credit card bonuses, where you use this service to meet the minimum spending requirements. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card will get you $625 in travel after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. If you’re a little short, paying a 2-3% fee to reach that requirement is worth it since a $625 bonus on spending $4,000 is effectively 15.6% back. (You’ll also get 1.25% back on your purchases toward travel as rewards.)

Costs

In most cases, there is a fee involved that depends on the vendor. This may or may not be worth it to you, depending on how much you value your credit card points or miles. Here are a few special cases to consider.

Discover Utility Bill Fee Rebate (Expired)
Previously, if you used a Discover card to pay a participating utility vendor, Discover would have provided an instant rebate your Chargesmart fees. Paying my water bill would have otherwise cost me $16.40 for a $500 payment (3.28%), or $6.10 for $50 payment (12.2%). You’ll even earn all the usual rewards that your Discover card offers. I like the Discover More card for their 5% back on rotating categories feature.

Hidden “Large Payment Security Fee”
You should be aware that their initial fee calculator can be somewhat misleading. I was trying to pay a test payment to a mortgage lender for $2,000, and was given a fee quote in Step 1 for $21.95, which was 1.1% of $2,000. Not bad, I thought, you can get 1.5% cash with something like the Capital One Cash Mastercard.

Step 2 is your address information, and Step 3 is your credit card information. So far so good. But in Step 4, they tacked on a “large payment security fee” which added another $25.71 to make the total fee amount $47.66, working out to 2.4% of $2,000. Trying out some different lenders, the final fee amount seems to always work out to about 2.4% for payments over $1,000 or so.

One last wrinkle… there’s a little box that tells me if I sign up to make this payment every month, I’ll get $10 off this first month’s payment. (You can cancel later.) That would make it $37.66 out of $2,000 or 1.88%. That makes it a little better, but not a screaming deal. But for meeting bonus requirements, a mortgage/auto loan/student loan payment is an easy way to charge something you need to pay anyway.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

“The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.”

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Prosper vs. LendingClub: Credit Card Debt Consolidation Loan Comparison

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

What is the best place to lower your interest rates and consolidate credit card debt in order to pay it all off? The first thing to try is to call up your credit card company and negotiate your existing rate down. If that isn’t satisfactory, you could switch issuers and do a balance transfer to a new card with a low introductory rate. If you have qualifying credit, you can take advantage of no fee 0% APR balance transfer offers for up to 15 months.

I would say the next option to consider is P2P lending, which in my experience has lower rates than personal unsecured loans from banks. P2P is gradually becoming an accepted source of loans as shown by announcements of new institutional money coming in from hedge funds. Prosper has been around since 2006 and has done over $300 million in loan volume since inception, and LendingClub has been around since 2007 with over $500 million in loans. Both are now registered with the SEC.

Prosper vs. LendingClub Similarities

  1. Unsecured loans. Such loans are backed only by the borrower’s promise. If there is a default, the lender can’t repossess any property or garnish wages. The primary deterrent to defaults is a poor credit score that will increase future borrowing costs and potentially other side effects including affecting employment.

    Alternatively, you may be considering paying off your credit card debt with a home equity loan. This would change your unsecured debt into a secured debt. The danger is now if you don’t pay off that loan, you could lose your house. If that added risk doesn’t make a difference to you, then a home equity loan or line of credit will probably offer you a lower rate.

  2. Flexible amounts. You can borrow more or less than your actual outstanding credit card balance, and you’re usually given a choice of amounts for the same interest rate. But remember, the purpose of consolidation is to help speed up the process of getting rid of that debt.
  3. Fixed rates over the entire term. The problem with credit cards is that the rates are often unpredictable. “Variable” rates are linked to a benchmark rate, but even “fixed” rates that aren’t guaranteed for X months can just mean they’re fixed until you get a notice that they are now “fixed” at a new, higher number. Given the current low interest rate environment, you should be wary of rising rates.
  4. No prepayment penalties. You can pay off your loan early at any time, with no fees.
  5. No application fee. There is no fee to apply for a loan. If your loan successfully funds and you get the cash, then you will be subject to an origination fee that is rolled into your monthly payments.

Prosper vs. LendingClub Differences

  1. Minimum credit scores. Prosper minimum stated credit score is 640, LendingClub minimum FICO score is 660.
  2. Maximum loan amounts. Prosper maximum loan amount is $25,000, LendingClub maximum loan amount is now $35,000. Both lower the limits depending on credit profile.
  3. Slightly different fee structures. Both companies charge an origination (closing) fee once you successfully get your loan. If you don’t get the loan, no fees. They have slightly different fee schedules, but both have origination fees ranging from about 1% to 5% for the majority of loans. Both charge $15 fees for late payments or failed payments.
  4. Different loan term lengths. Depending on your requested loan amount and other factors, each lender may offer different terms. For example, LendingClub told me that loan amounts from $1,000 to $15,975 are only available with a 36-month term, even though they do offer 1-year and 5-year loans in other cases. However, with a $10,000 loan at Prosper I was given the choice of 1, 3, or 5-year terms. In general, the longer the term, the higher the interest rate at both places.
  5. Check processing fees. LendingClub charges a $15 processing fee per payment made by check. Prosper does not. Both companies allow you to make payments via automatic ACH withdrawal from a checking account with no fees.

Prosper vs. LendingClub Interest Rates?

Their full criteria for determining what rate you’ll pay is not disclosed but is based on a number of factors. Really, the best way to see which one will give you the best deal is to ask each one for a free quote. In both cases, getting a rate quote will involve looking at your credit report, but it will not result in a credit inquiry and will not hurt your credit score. If you do decide to move forward and get the loan, only then it will show up on your credit report.

My experience. I applied for a $10,000 debt consolidation loan at both places. I was offered a 1-year loan at 8.17%, a 3-year loan at 7.49%, or a 5-year loan at 10.85% annual interest rates at Prosper. I was offered a 3-year loan at LendingClub at 6.62% interest rate. For a $10,000 loan over 3-years and including all fees, my LendingClub payment was $307 per month and Prosper payment was $311 per month. So even though the interest rates seem rather different, the final monthly payments ended up closer than expected (though still a $150 difference in total payments over the whole 3 years).

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Citi ThankYou Preferred Card Review

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

The Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card from our partner Citi is a rewards credit card where the primary feature is currently an Intro 0% APR offer for 15 months. Here are the highlights:

  • Enjoy 0% Intro APR on purchases for 15 months from date of account opening and 0% Intro APR on balance transfers for 15 months from date of first transfer; after that, the variable APR will be 15.49% – 25.49% based upon your creditworthiness*
  • There is a balance transfer fee of either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater*
  • Earn 2X Points on Dining Out & Entertainment
  • Earn 1X Points on All Other Purchases
  • Points are redeemable for gift cards to popular retailers, restaurants, and department and home stores. 2,500 ThankYou® Points can be redeemed for a $25 gift card at thankyou.com
  • No expiration and no limit to the amount of points you can earn with this card
  • No annual fee*

I’ll be pretty frank here. The rewards program on this card is not great. There is not currently a sign-up bonus. You get double points on dining and entertainment, but nothing else. ThankYou points can be useful, but are not even easy to get a cash value of 1 cent per point. The good news is that there is no annual fee, so you can keep your ThankYou points account active without having to pay an annual fee.

Bottom line. Perhaps the card features will change in the future, but at the current time I would definitely recommend the Citi Double Cash Card over this card. The Citi Double Cash earns 2% cash back on all your purchases and the introductory 0% APR on balance transfers is for 18 months. Alternatively, check out the Citi ThankYou Premier Card which has an annual fee but a lot more perks in return.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Chase Exclusives: 10% Extra Cash Back on Chase Freedom, 1% Cash Back on Chase Mortgage Payments

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Chase Freedom VisaChase Exclusives is a program that encourages you to open a Chase checking account whenever you have any other relationship with Chase. I closed my Chase (formerly WaMu) account a while back after they slowly started making it harder to keep as a secondary account, but some of these perks actually seem pretty good. I remember hearing something about them, but never actually took a good look at the details until now.

10% Extra Cash Back on Chase Freedom
The Chase Freedom® – $150 Bonus is a popular cash back card that features 5% cash back on rotating categories and 1% back on everything else. This quarter you’ll get 5% back on all purchases at gas stations and on local commuter transportation. (up to $75 cash back a quarter based on $1,500 in purchases). Check out my page on 5% cash back credit cards for more info.

However, if you have a Chase checking account, they will add an additional 10 points. Since 100 points is worth $1, that’s basically saying every purchase on the Chase Freedom earns 1.10% cash back and every 5% category purchase earns 5.1% cash back. For someone like me that puts everything on their credit card for easy expense tracking, that can add up especially with smaller purchases.  Currently, the Chase Freedom has a promotion offering a $150 Bonus after you make $500 in purchases in your first 3 months from account opening and an additional $25 Bonus after you add your first authorized user and make a purchase within this same 3-month period.

1% Mortgage Cash Back program
If you have both a Chase checking account and a Chase mortgage, you can earn 1% cash back on your mortgage payments (principal + interest). You have to have the checking account open before the mortgage closing, and enroll in automatic payments from said account within 60 days of closing. If you take the option of having your 1% cash back applied towards your loan principal, that works out to shortening a 30-year fixed mortgage by 9 months if you stick with it. (They really should make this an option on other mortgages, paying just 1% extra instead.)

I don’t know how good Chase mortgage rates are, but I’d probably get a quote now from Chase just to see if they are competitive. Overall though, it would probably be better to just get a better interest rate and pay extra towards your principal as if you had a higher mortgage (takes discipline).

$150 New account opening bonus
Thinking about opening a new account? You can also get a $150 bonus through this link if you open a Chase Total Checking account with $100 and set up direct deposit (new customers only). To avoid monthly service fees, you must do any one of the following each statement period:

  1. Have monthly direct deposits totaling $500 or more made to this account, or
  2. Keep the daily balance in your checking account at or above $1,500, or
  3. Keep an average balance of $5,000 or more in your checking and other types of qualifying Chase accounts.

Chase Freedom 150 Banner

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

“The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.”

 

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Poll: Do You Use AutoPay To Pay Bills Automatically?

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

One common recommendation for new parents is to save time wherever you can. So tonight, for the very first time, I have signed up for the AutoPay feature for my most heavily-used American Express card to have it pay the credit card bill in full each month by withdrawing money from my bank account automatically. I don’t have to do anything.

Usually, I don’t like giving any vendors the right to suck money (“pull”) from my checking account. It feel invasive, somehow. I prefer to use my bank’s online BillPay feature to send (“push”) money after I get my paper bill and verify all the charges are legit. I also like to see my electric bill to monitor our power usage, and the water bill to make sure there aren’t any leaks, etc.

However, with a newborn I can potentially imagine forgetting to pay a bill, so maybe automation is a good idea. I have never had any problem disputing a wrong charge with AmEx, and I have an checking to savings overdraft buffer at Ally Bank so I won’t be dinged with overdraft fees. If it works out, after looking around it appears that almost every bill that I have can be set to AutoPay. What you do think?

Do you use the AutoPay feature to pay any bills?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


The Ethics of Credit Card Rewards and Bonuses

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

The NY Times has a regular column called “The Ethicist”, and it recently talked about credit card rewards. A reader writes in and asks:

When shopping at big retailers, take up the offer for a new credit card to take advantage of the, say, 10 percent discount. Then when the bill comes, pay it and cancel the account (and risk a slight but temporary dent in your credit rating). I think this isn’t ethical.

The Ethicist disagreed:

That 10 percent discount is a sale by another name. It’s designed to get you in the door and shopping. As long as you buy something, you’re helping to make the store’s promotion a success. These credit-card offers never ask you to promise that you’ll keep the account open. They just ask you to sign up. After that, it’s up to the store to make you feel as if additional purchases are in your interest.

Whenever you are dealing with a big business, I always prefer to look at these things from a practical point of view. Retailers and financial companies are not offering these promos out of the kindness of their hearts. Their promotions are carefully planned to make them money overall, often in ways most people don’t even know about. Does a sale on milk mean that you have to buy all your other groceries at the store? No, but since you’re there you probably will buy something else. Are you obligated to? I don’t see how.

The real reason why credit cards have to offer things like $500 to sign-up for a new credit card is that people are really lazy. Most people have the same bank account they opened when they were 18 years old, and the same auto insurance company as their parents because by default that was their first insurance company. Most people that qualify for promotions have good to excellent credit scores and don’t even carry balances. It’s just that change is hard, and new customer acquisition costs are notoriously high in the financial industry.

You’ll notice that many sign-up bonuses now require a minimum spending requirement. Again, this is to make you put the card in your wallet or purse and use it several times, hopefully building up that habit. Also notice how credit card rewards focus on “everyday” categories like groceries. Another small psychological nudge.

I always look at new credit cards as trials. I will try them out, and see how I like it. I give them a chance – that’s all that I owe them. If I do, then I keep it. I’ve paid annual fees on the Starwood American Express card for years because I ended up discovering the benefits are worth it to me. If I don’t like it, then I cancel. That seems like the ethical thing to do.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


No Fee 0% Balance Transfer For 12 Months – Discover More Card

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Update 2/24/12: Confirmed that this offer will expire at the end of February. Last year it also started in January and ran until the end of February, and didn’t come back until the next January. So get your applications in now if interested!

Update 1/9/12: Reader CC writes in with her success story, which differs from some previous reports of a one Discover card at a time limit. Please let me know if you have a different experience. I forget to add before – if you apply for the card and don’t get the credit line you want, call them up and tell them you want to do a $X,XXX balance transfer and they may work to accomodate you.

A few updates- I called Discover and they changed the policies again

1) you can have more than 1 credit card
2) You have to open a new card to get the promo they won’t apply it to the old one.
3)If you call and speak to a rep and give them a balance to transfer they will recalculate the credit line
4) They will let you transfer the old credit line to the new one ie I had a $7.3K balance on the old one so they left it open with $500 and gave me a new card with a $7K balance. I was able to keep my 5 yrs of credit history with the 1st card active. I’ll probably transfer the line back to the original place in a yr.
5) I just saved a year of interest on my Citibank student loans for $6,550 with 15 minutes of work 🙂

Back for 2012! Limited-time only. Just in time for some New Year debt-busting action, Discover has brought back the Discover More Card with No Balance Transfer Fee, offering 0% intro APR on both balance transfers and purchases for 12 months. You can literally borrow money for free and pay it back in 12 months (keeping in mind you’ll still need to satisfy the minimum payment each month until then). Use this opportunity to lower your interest rates and make every cent you pay go towards shrinking that principal. There are different versions of this card, so please use specific application link. No annual fee.

When you see the application, be sure to scroll down to the “Important Information” and verify that you are getting 0% for 12 months and no balance transfer fee. You should see the following text at the top under “Interest Rates and Interest Charges”:

APR for Balance Transfers: 0% intro APR for 12 months from date of first transfer, for transfers under this offer that post to your account by July 10, 2012.

And then the following a bit lower under “Fees”:

Transaction Fees * Balance Transfer – Intro fee of $0 for transfers that post to your account by 8/10/2012 with the 0% intro APR balance transfer offer described above. After that, 3% of the amount of each transfer.

Application Quick Tips
In order to get the highest credit limit possible, be sure to maximize your reported income as much as you can legitimately. You can no longer include the income of other people living with you, but do include things like freelance income, overtime, rental income, interest and dividend income, alimony, child support, etc.

If you wish to get cash directly from this balance transfer offer without it being classified as a “cash advance”, one tip is to request money to be transferred to other non-Discover credit cards that you have. This will create a negative balance, after which you request a refund check be sent to you. Citibank and American Express are recommended for this because they have automatic features on their websites to request a credit balance refund.

Arbitrage Opportunities?
Don’t have higher interest debt you wish to refinance? Really, the only thing I could see buying with this 0% money would be a US Savings I Bond that will earn you 3.06% for the first six months, and then a different rate based on inflation for the next 6 months. You can buy $5,000 in electronic bonds per person per year, and another $5,000 in paper bonds if you use your tax refund ($20k total for a couple).

Offer Comparison
Now, the Chase Slate® currently has a similar offer going, also 0% introductory APR for 15 months with $0 balance transfer fee. The good thing about Discover is that you can transfer balances on a Chase card to Discover, while you can’t transfer existing Chase balances to another Chase card. Other than that, why not take advantage of both? 🙂

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.