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.