Freedom!

I've been eyeing the Chase Freedom credit card for some time, and saw that they had a limited time offer for a $200 sign-up bonus, which is really a 20,000 UR bonus if you have an UR-earning card. As you will read, now I'm down to one UR-earning card: an Ink Plus.  However, as long as you have one UR-earning card, your "Cash Back" cards can transfer their "Cash" on a 1-for-1 basis to an UR-earning card as Ultimate Rewards.  I certainly value an UR point at more than 1 cent, and I use 2 cents as my metric.  That's a long story for another post.

As I wrote in my previous post, I just downgraded my Sapphire Preferred (UR-earning) to a plain old Sapphire (not UR-earning), because I didn't want to pay the $125 annual fee (yours might be $95- it varies depending on the sign-up bonus).

I was in a no-annual fee mood, having just signed up for the whopping $450 Amex Platinum (again see my previous post for my logic).

The reason I signed up for the Freedom is the 5X on Grocery Stores and Restaurants in Q2 and Q3, respectively.  I really can leverage those.  The Sapphires (both Preferred and regular) earn 2X, on Restaurants, so that 5X is pretty attractive.  I don't have a card that earns a bonus on Grocery Stores.  I know there is an Amex card that does, but I just haven't seen enough value to do it given it has anannual fee.

I signed up online, and received the "we'll let you know" page, so I called the reconsideration line and used my standard "I don't need any more credit, and I'm willing to close another card to get the the new card because it has terrific spending categories".  I had two Ink Plus cards, one for each rental property.  I don't really need two and had only been using one.  So closed one of the Inks, and effectively moved the credit line from the Ink Plus to the Freedom.  This is my standard play with Chase- they don't like to give more credit, but they are fine with giving out new cards every quarter or so.

20K UR points for only $500 spend- that's a good value!

Nit: As you've read, I do open and close credit cards, and it's annoying to have to remove the card from my home page, but it still is in my account somewhere.  But Barclays is the worst- I can't remove a closed card from my home page.  I wonder what my home page will look like in a few years. ;-)

New Credit Cards

It had been a few months (seemed like forever!) since I received a new card.

Barclays is losing the US Air card as part of the American Airlines merger with US Air, and they appear to want more cardholders before that happens.  The existing US Air cards will become AA cards, but once the merger goes through next year, Barclays won't be able to issue new cards.

Barclays just raised the bonus on the card to 50K (from 40K).  This is an unusual card because the minimum spend is $1, but the $89 fee is not waived the first year.  Most other cards waive the fee the first year, but have varying minimum spends.  The cost per point is about 2 tenths of a cent, and always get at least 2 cents value per mile, so this was a no brainer.

I already had a US Air card, and I still received instant approval online.

I've been wanting to get the American Express Platinum card to get the 100K Membership rewards bonus for some time.  But the $450 fee is not waived the first year, and I just couldn't make the math work.  Amex used to provide access to the AA Admiral's Club, but they lost that deal earlier this year.  Now, they are building their own "Centurion Lounges", which I've read great reports about.  They are closer to international lounges because they have free food and alcohol, whereas US domestic lounges have very limited free food- usually pretzels, carrots, etc.

I used the script found in this Doctor of Credit Blog post, and after 20 minutes on the phone, I was approved.

I already have 4 Amex cards, which I used on Small Business Saturday.  Amex has a limit of 4 credit cards per person, but the Platinum is a charge card.  The difference is that you can run a balance on a credit card and get charged interest, but a charge card is supposed to be paid off every month.  Since I pay off all of my credit (and charge) cards every month, the difference is not material to me.  But it is to Amex, so now I have 5 Amex cards!

The card also provides a $200 airline credit each year, which can be used for gift cards on AA.  This is per calendar year, so getting it now allows me to get the $200 credit twice for a single annual fee.  So if I decide not to renew the card, it cost me $50 for 100K Membership Rewards points.

That's a good value!!

Small Business Saturday Post-Mortem

Took my wife along, so we could get the $10 back on $10 on her cards too- so we had 9 total cards including my Serve.

First stop was my local wine store, where I spent about $130, so received $130 worth of wine for $40.  (not that I need any more wine!)  However, they did initially object due to the service charges from Amex, but I'm a "good customer", and they did it anyway.  That's the first time I've heard that complaint- didn't hear that last year, or later this year.

Second stop was a nice local restaurant, where the manager split the $100 gift card across my 9 cards- $11.11 on 8 cards and $11.12 on one of them.  Since it's a restaurant, the POS terminal gave him the option to "split the check", but probably first time he split it across 10 "people".

Third stop was another local restaurant, where I decided to only buy a $50 gift card, and use only 5 of my cards.  This was not smooth, as they charged the cards, then voided, then charged the cards again.  The problems were unique to their POS, and I assume I'll get the $10 credits in the end.

Last stop was a local wine bar, where the wife and I had some wine and snacks.  I was surprised not to see the confirmation emails right after we charged the bill to the 4 remaining cards.

The wine bar was listed on the Small Business Saturday map, but was listed in their previous location.  I'm sure I'll have to call Amex and probably only 50/50 chance of getting the credit.

Total savings was $230 (and could be as high as $270).  Score!

Update: I never did get the credits for the Wine Bar, so I've done 3 online chats, and hopefully, the third will get me that last $40 credit.  Just for the record, the first 2 claimed they would process the credit, so no on objected, they just didn't do it.

Lowe's Gift Cards- incredible discount

Just got back from Staples.  They are selling $50 Lowe's gift cards for $40.  I combined this with an Amex Offer for $20 off on $100.

I bought 10 $50 gift cards, and the register rang them each up as $40, so a total of $400.

I used the multiple tab technique I mentioned earlier to get the Amex Offer added to my 4 Amex cards.

The cashier was able to put $100 on each Amex card (after a little help from the manager).

I immediately received the email from Amex saying I had activated the offer.

Summary is: $500 in Lowe's gift cards for $320!!

That's a good value!

P.S. In case you didn't catch the technique earlier, I simply open 4 tabs with my Amex Account page open.  I open the Offers for You section for the 4 different Amex cards in a separate tab.  Then I click the "Save Offer" button in each tab.  This process is necessary because usually if you Save the offer on one card, it disappears from the others.  But with the multiple tab technique, you can get it on all of your cards.

Small Business Saturday

This is a rather complicated topic, but it's covered in depth by a myriad of bloggers.  I'll cover the highlights, and then point you to another blogger for the gory mechanics.

Amex allows 4 cards per person- that includes both business and personal.  You can also add Authorized Users.  I have 4 Amex cards, and my wife is an Authorized user on all of them.  Plus, I have a Serve card, totaling 9 Amex cards.

Amex has "Offers for You" on your online account page at the bottom.  You can "Save" the offer to your card, and then use the card and get the cash rebate.  The problem is that once you Save the offer, it typically disappears from your other Amex cards.  Also, you can only Save the Offer to the primary user's card- not an Authorized user.

The other way to get the Offer is to "Synch" your Amex card to a Social Network (Twitter or Facebook), and get the offer that way.  If you have multiple cards, it can be quite cumbersome to get the offers on to all of your cards.  With Twitter (I haven't tried using Facebook), you simply Tweet the hashtag Amex specifies for the offer from the Twitter account associated with your Amex card (detailed steps in link below).

When there is no hastag, I recently tried opening multiple browser tabs with the Offers for You displayed for each of my cards.  Then I clicked on Save Offer in each tab.  This actually worked for me, but fat-fingered one of them.  So I did get the offer saved to 3 of my cards.  But this doesn't get it onto your Authorized User cards.

The best way to get the offers onto all of your cards quickly is when Amex specifies a hashtag to use to save the offer to your cards.  You can then use Tweetdeck to send a single Tweet from multiple Twitter accounts with just a few mouse clicks, and you're done!

Rather than repeat the steps here, a fellow blogger, Frequent Miler, did a nice job describing how to do this in his post "Create an Amex Sync Machine".

Now that all 9 of my cards have the Small Business Offer saved, I'm going to use my 9 cards to eat a nice dinner at a local restaurant, buy a $100 gift card at a local restaurant, and buy a couple of 2010 Barolo's ($50 each) at my local wine store.

I'll even get the points on the Amex cards!  Now that's really Wine & Miles!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Hosemaster is a former sommelier, and a very funny blogger.

Here's a snippet from his post "Perfect Thanksgiving Wines to Match Your Family's Dysfunction":
"Does your family constantly squabble about money? Bring a very young Barolo and make a point to remark how tight it is. Maybe you have to spend your day listening to the racist remarks of a family member. What could be better than an insipid Pinot Grigio? “A stupid white for a stupid white,” makes for a lovely opening prayer. "

I always stick with American wines for Thanksgiving, and always open a variety, so our guests can try a few and find something they like.

My wife enjoys sparkling wine, though I do get annoyed when I buy an expensive bottle and she puts orange juice in it, but heck- it's Thanksgiving!

Here's what I'm serving:
Bubbly: brought by our guests
White: 2011 Ceritas Chardonnay Heintz Vineyard
Syrah: 2009 Jemrose Cardiac
Field Blend: 2010 Bedrock Pagani
Pinot: 2010 Rivers-Marie Sonoma Coast
Cabernet: 2007 Boudreaux

Hope you and yours have a "functional" Thanksgiving!

$30 is the new $60

With the amazing 2012, 2013 and 2014 vintages in California, I see no reason to spend $60 on a cabernet any more.

I was recently at a couple of tasting rooms near Murphy's, and the tasting rooms were still pouring 2010s and 2011s.  They must have a huge warehouse filled with more recent vintages, but need to sell the older vintages first.

I even received an offer for a 2010 Syrah from a well-known brand at a very discounted price.

I'm going to be picky about what I buy and you should too.

Paul Martin's Amex Synch

If you have an American Express card ("Amex"), you should be taking advantage of their "synch offers".  As with other topics in this blog, I'll defer to the myriad of other bloggers to tell you how to do this.  I  use Tweetdeck (again, well explained by others) to synch all of my cards at once.

I probably find a good deal once per quarter, and today I found Paul Martin's- $25 off $50.

One problem with the Amex synch is that if you do it on the web site and synch one of your cards, the offer usually disappears from all of your other cards.  So I'm going to wait a few days to see if the twitter synch shows up, before synching any of my cards.

There's a Paul Martin's that opened near me recently, and my wife and I have gone there several times for Happy Hour, and once for dinner.  At Happy Hour, they have some nice appetizers at decent prices.  They also have the Parducci Sustainable Red and White- both for $5 per glass.  I find both to be quite drinkable, and for $5, a really good value.

Dinner was good but not memorable, so will probably use the synch offer for Happy Hour.

$25 off $50 is what I call a good value!

Update: The Twitter synch never showed up anywhere, so decided to try using multiple browsers.  I have 4 Amex cards, and I opened a separate Chrome window for each card, and selected the tab for "Amex Offers For You".  I was able to "Save Offer" on 3 cards ,but fat-fingered the third.  Still, $75 off $150 is a very good value!!

Cameron Hughes Lot 555 and one more

I had my wife pick up the 555 at Costco (she couldn't remember, but thought it was $25).  PnP (Popped and Poured- no decant).  I found the wine to be very typical of cabernet, but lacking in structure (no beginning, middle and end- just one consistent taste).  However, I did like and my wife liked and we finished the bottle quickly.  Would work great at a party, but not a case buy.

Since the 555 went so quickly, I wanted to open another cab to compare.  I had bought a case of the Hindsight Cabernet 2012 from a local retailer, so I opened one of those.  This is also a negociant bottling.  I PnP'd this one too, and it was not impressive.  I really need to decant this one next time because the only word that came to mind is "reticent".  I had tried it before I bought it, and I liked it but didn't take any notes.  Will decant a bottle later this week and report back.

This week, my big decision was how much Bedrock wine to buy.  If you haven't heard of Bedrock, you should.  Bedrock's wine maker is Morgan Twain-Peterson, son of Joel Peterson who was and is the winemaker at Ravenswood.  Here's Morgan's bio on his website.

I'm particularly fond of Syrah, and that is one of the great value grapes in California.  You'll find my focus on value throughout this blog.

Morgan makes a variety of field blends, which I really enjoy.  They are actually very similar to Chateauneuf-du-Pape because CdPs are also blends of many different grapes.  However, Morgan's blends have a different composition, with an emphasis on Zinfandel, as opposed to CdP's emphasis on Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre.

The field blends are priced in the high $30s, and are still good values, but the great values are his base Syrah and Zinfandel, which sell to the mailing list for around $20, but are available at retail for around $25.  I highly recommend you try both the Syrah and the Zinfandel, and if you like them, go for one of his field blends or his single vineyard Zinfandels.

I know this sounds like an advertisement for Bedrock, but I'm a member of only around 5 wine mailing lists, and none of them are the high priced/well known wineries.  I don't buy Silver Oak, for example.