(04-20-2017 06:23 AM)markygras Wrote:  I don't recommend ever canceling cards. Once you've gotten the sign-up bonus, it's feasible to "downgrade" the account to a no-annual fee card, so Chase Sapphire Preffered to say, Chase Freedom.

I cancel after I get the bonus so I can repeat the bonus in 24 months

Closing credit cards has pluses and minuses. It often depends on the issuer.

It will, in general (unless its a pre-paid or low balance card) lower your credit score. Both the number of the accounts, and your overall credit available (and percentage used) are positive factors increasing credit scores. Closing an account reduces all of these, except maybe percentage used if you don't use any credit that you have available.

It will impact how long your average credit history is as well, but whether thats a positive or a negative depends on the relative age of the account compared to the average age of your accounts. Keep in mind that closed accounts often do stay on your report for some time after being closed, and I can't exactly say which of these factors are impacted by this roll-off period.

In general, I think downshifting to a no-fee card is the best approach, especially if it doesn't count as another pull (which temporarily lowers your score, but also may impact you under 5/24 Chase rule if you want to apply for a Chase card). It may also start the clock running with non-Amex issuers to get another bonus in the next few years on the same card product. With your no fee cards, so long as they're not low balance/prepaid cards, keep them around forever.

I will note, I just got an annoying note that my Amazon Chase card is being closed for non-usage. Even if I start using it, they've said they're closing it anyway. Its not too big a deal for me, as I have in excess of 300K in available card limits. However some of you might be in a different position and a warning certainly would have been nice. I'd suggest to use each of your cards on some kind of modest purchase every once in a while, to avoid this, in case it becomes systematic across issuers.

This is a decent run-down of some alternatives and sweet spots on Award Wallet.

Here

PM me to join and I'll send u a free upgrade code for first time Award Wallet users. Indispensable tool for keeping track of your balances across programs and issuers. I have five upgrade codes left.

No, I didn't die when Hyatt devalued. I'm still here.

Just a reminder. Your MR Rewards points with AMEX will devalue from 2c/point to 1.33c/point as of June 1, for redemptions on biz and F flights booked via amextravel.com. Thats a fairly massive devaluation. There is still good value in AMEX when you're generating 5x or 3x(gold Amex) on airfare purchases, but for existing points balances, better to book those trips prior to June 1.

I use my MR points (or have been, over the last stretch) to book premium class tickets b/c these tickets are treated as revenue tickets - meaning they earn miles, count towards status etc. Being able to book a 1500 Biz class RT on Qatar from BKK to LAX for 75K MR rewards points and earn 54,000 AA RDM (as an Exec Platinum with my bonuses) in the mix, 30K or so EQM as well, that has been just gold. After June 1, that price is going to be 112K MR points for the same flight - still not bad, but not the ridiculous steal it was before.

Clear out those MR balances if you have a good use. Churn and burn.

Global, what is the logic behind the high-fee cards, from the perspective of the banks?

Chase for example. Fee is $450, yet they offer $300 reimbursement for travel. What is their thinking here? How does it benefit them overall? Why not just charge $150 and be done with it?

I'm curious about this, because unless you understand the motivations behind these cards, you're letting them game you in subtle ways.

Already I spend more, because of the barely-conscious rationalisation that "I'm earning points with every dollar", or some such logic.

The banks have a couple of motivations.

First, the cost of acquiring a customer is $2-300. If they get you and keep you as a customer with this incentive, it makes sense. That is why they want you to use the card right away and give you additional bonuses to have cards issued in the names of other family members. It makes it sticky.

All the other bonuses they can tie to the card - insurance, gold status with a loyalty program, lounge access etc. - have incremental costs to the bank but are dwarfed by the stickiness they create. Your question about $450-300 is a good one. I suspect it is just to create multiple tiers with a higher perceived value. If they charged only $150, some people would not perceive the value to be as great. Reverse psychology is my guess.

The banks make about 3% gross revenue on everything that goes on a card. There is a very fragmented market and the issuing bank only gets a piece of that. There are players all along the way that get a cut. But their objective is to put all of your spend on their card rather than a competitors.

The real money is made when you carry a balance. That is more lucrative than the 3%, and is not shared by the issuing bank with others in the food chain.

(05-29-2017 06:03 AM)Hypno Wrote:  The real money is made when you carry a balance. That is more lucrative than the 3%, and is not shared by the issuing bank with others in the food chain.

Ironically, banks use various derogatory names for card users who pay off their balances every month.

Quote:DEFINITION of 'Deadbeat'

A slang term for a credit card user who pays off his or her balance in full and on time every month. A deadbeat, also called a “nonrevolver” or a “transactor,” gets this derogatory name by being a potentially less profitable customer for a credit card company than a revolver, or someone who carries a balance from month to month.

By not carrying a balance, a deadbeat doesn’t incur any interest charges, and by paying on time, he or she doesn’t incur any late fees. However, so-called deadbeats in the credit world also don’t rack up bills they never pay, so they don’t generate significant losses for credit card companies like true deadbeats, who don’t pay their bills.

Why would a credit card company want a deadbeat as a customer if they don’t earn interest or late fees from them? Because credit card companies still earn money from deadbeats. One way they earn money is that merchants pay about 3% of each credit card transaction in fees to the credit card company. So if a deadbeat charges $2,000 a month, even if he or she pays that balance in full and on time and doesn’t give the credit card company the opportunity to charge 10% to 30% in annual interest, the credit card company is still earning $60 from that customer in the form of the 3% fees the merchant pays on the $2,000 in charges. Credit card companies can also make money from “deadbeats” by charging an annual fee for the privilege of using that card.

Deadbeats usually feel like they come out ahead by using a credit card over cash or a debit card. They use credit cards for the convenience and consumer protections they offer. They also use them for the grace period that lets them keep their cash in their bank accounts between the time they charge a purchase and the time the credit card bill is due. This grace period is usually about three weeks.

Another big draw to nonrevolvers are credit card rewards program. Since deadbeats don’t carry a balance and don’t pay any interest, a rewards card that offers 1% to 5% back on purchases means it’s possible for a deadbeat to make money from using a credit card, in contrast to the majority of consumers who pay money for the privilege of using credit.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadbeat.asp

(04-20-2017 10:22 AM)Hypno Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 06:23 AM)markygras Wrote:  I don't recommend ever canceling cards. Once you've gotten the sign-up bonus, it's feasible to "downgrade" the account to a no-annual fee card, so Chase Sapphire Preffered to say, Chase Freedom.

I cancel after I get the bonus so I can repeat the bonus in 24 months

If a card has an annual fee, I will cancel (or downgrade) just before the fee is due. Sometimes it's worth waiting a little more than 12 months even if they charge the fee, then you can call them within the next few days, cancel/downgrade and have your fee refunded. Tell them you forgot to cancel and want your money back, no bank has ever declined to refund the fee. Why wait? Because some cards give an annual bonus (e.g. free one night hotel stay).

If I call to cancel, I will first ask them if it's possible to waive the fee for another year, because I like the card but the fee is a little high. It used to be easier to have an annual fee waived, but now it almost never happens. The second question is whether it's possible to downgrade to a free card. If it is, I do that. Otherwise I cancel the card.

The reason why I try to keep my cards as long as possible is that your credit score is a little higher if the average age of the card is higher. It's not a big deal, but still worth keeping the card open if it's free.

Actually you should always cancel at the 13th month if your card has some sort of "anniversary gift". The certificates are yours to keep once its posted in your account.

This includes Marriott / Hyatt card where they give you a free annual night. After you cancel, you'll get your AF refunded but keep the certificate.

Hilton has an ongoing matching program matching program going on, where they'll match to your existing status in another program. Rather easy, no faxes, screenshots will do (and I'm not telling you to fake it, but it certainly wouldn't be tough).

Hilton Gold is solid, with continental breakfast, and Hilton Platinum another step up the chain. Its worth two minutes to match.

If you have a platinum AMEX your already entitled to Hilton (and SPG, and then by the law of SPG/Marriott equivalency, Marriott) Gold. You just need to link your AMEX to your Hilton Gold or SPG Gold accounts.

They'll make you show a stay as well in an upload, but i think it just needs to be within 12 months of your request.

Life miles has a promotion for booking.com. 4 points per dollar spent on booking.com. That is, to me, up to a 20 percent rebate depending on how you utilize your life miles. Registration is required (I cannot tell if its targeted). Anyone else get the emall?

(05-29-2017 03:48 PM)Putin Closes Wrote:  Actually you should always cancel at the 13th month if your card has some sort of "anniversary gift". The certificates are yours to keep once its posted in your account.

This includes Marriott / Hyatt card where they give you a free annual night. After you cancel, you'll get your AF refunded but keep the certificate.

It depends on the terms of the card, but most of the cards I sign up are free for the first 12 months. Most of the Marriott cards are like that. After the 12th month they bill you the annual fee, which is around $95. In exchange, you get a free night at a low or medium tier marriott; its not usually worth the $95 but ymmv.

In terms of cancelling to start the 24 month clock for your next bonus, usually this goes from when you earned the bonus, not when you cancel. So lets say you take the marriott card, you are a baller and you spend the requirement in month 1. You can cancel in month 12 and then get a new card and bonus in month 25, even though month 25 is only 13 months from month 12. That's how it work for Marriott at least. Double check with any specific card. A long time ago I didn't get a bonus from Hilton due to a slightly different technicality.

If you need to get to Europe last minute, this is probably the best flight deal in the world right now.

https://www.norwegian.com/us

Type in New York-Newburgh-Stewart to Belfast, UK

How do you guys with low monthly spending hit the $4000 in 3 months. Im new to this whole points thing. I read about in the past where you could get money orders, but I dont think that works anymore. I was thinking about buying Amazon gift cards or Airlines miles or something. Im young single living in a 3rd world country without much to do, so I only really spend on groceries.

(07-10-2017 07:45 PM)DMario Wrote:  How do you guys with low monthly spending hit the $4000 in 3 months. Im new to this whole points thing. I read about in the past where you could get money orders, but I dont think that works anymore. I was thinking about buying Amazon gift cards or Airlines miles or something. Im young single living in a 3rd world country without much to do, so I only really spend on groceries.

You can still do the money order with re-loadable card thing, but It's going to be impossible to do that from PNG.

Do you have any upcoming expenses coming up? Anything that you need to pay off (loans)?

I remember at one point I just told my parents to fuel up, shop their groceries, and do other crap with my card; they'd pay me with cash.....just to add up my costs. They spent about 2200, so I only had to do 1800 on my end.

(07-10-2017 08:17 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

(07-10-2017 07:45 PM)DMario Wrote:  How do you guys with low monthly spending hit the $4000 in 3 months. Im new to this whole points thing. I read about in the past where you could get money orders, but I dont think that works anymore. I was thinking about buying Amazon gift cards or Airlines miles or something. Im young single living in a 3rd world country without much to do, so I only really spend on groceries.

You can still do the money order with re-loadable card thing, but It's going to be impossible to do that from PNG.

Do you have any upcoming expenses coming up? Anything that you need to pay off (loans)?

I remember at one point I just told my parents to fuel up, shop their groceries, and do other crap with my card; they'd pay me with cash.....just to add up my costs. They spent about 2200, so I only had to do 1800 on my end.

Only expenses I have Is a car note. Not sure If I can pay that with a credit card. Looks like the amazon gift card might be the route to go. I always buy a lot of things from there.

(07-10-2017 07:45 PM)DMario Wrote:  How do you guys with low monthly spending hit the $4000 in 3 months. Im new to this whole points thing. I read about in the past where you could get money orders, but I dont think that works anymore. I was thinking about buying Amazon gift cards or Airlines miles or something. Im young single living in a 3rd world country without much to do, so I only really spend on groceries.

A few ideas other than manufactured spend which is a bit of a pain in the ass to execute.

-Buy gift cards for yourself or others. If you use Amazon regularly, buy an Amazon virtual gift card for yourself to meet spend requirements. An Amazon gift card is easy to use: Amazon uses it automatically until the balance is 0. I also bought UBER gift cards online and in stores.

-Use credit cards to pay rent (you'll have to pay a fee). If you use websites like Cozi to pay rent, it's very easy. Alternatively, there are companies that will take credit card payment for a fee and send a check to the landlord. Williampaid used to do it, but their website is offline now. I think there is one called Plastiq and maybe others.

-If you have to pay income or property taxes (or your parents do, for example), you can use credit cards to pay them for a fee. Same thing with utilities like electric.

-If you don't spend enough to qualify for big spend requirements, look for cards with smaller spend requirements. Don't fall into the trap of ramping up your spend and buying shit you don't need just to meet these requirements, it's false economy. For example, buying frequent flyer miles is generally a bad idea unless you know exactly how you'll use them and the redemption value is higher than the price.

Check out flyertalk, doctor of credit, etc. for current offers. For example, Amex PRG normally requires 5K spend in 3 month to get $500 worth of MR points, but there are targeted offers for $2K spend. Sometimes they come up in flyertalk discussions.

I'm finding more and more often I'm not getting my fees waved, but they are giving some nice bonuses. Citi gave me 10k ThankYou points if I spent $3k in 3 months recently.

I also managed to get my Barclays Arrival+ fee waved for all of eternity.

(07-10-2017 10:09 PM)Brodiaga Wrote:  

(07-10-2017 07:45 PM)DMario Wrote:  How do you guys with low monthly spending hit the $4000 in 3 months. Im new to this whole points thing. I read about in the past where you could get money orders, but I dont think that works anymore. I was thinking about buying Amazon gift cards or Airlines miles or something. Im young single living in a 3rd world country without much to do, so I only really spend on groceries.

A few ideas other than manufactured spend which is a bit of a pain in the ass to execute.

-Buy gift cards for yourself or others. If you use Amazon regularly, buy an Amazon virtual gift card for yourself to meet spend requirements. An Amazon gift card is easy to use: Amazon uses it automatically until the balance is 0. I also bought UBER gift cards online and in stores.

-Use credit cards to pay rent (you'll have to pay a fee). If you use websites like Cozi to pay rent, it's very easy. Alternatively, there are companies that will take credit card payment for a fee and send a check to the landlord. Williampaid used to do it, but their website is offline now. I think there is one called Plastiq and maybe others.

-If you have to pay income or property taxes (or your parents do, for example), you can use credit cards to pay them for a fee. Same thing with utilities like electric.

-If you don't spend enough to qualify for big spend requirements, look for cards with smaller spend requirements. Don't fall into the trap of ramping up your spend and buying shit you don't need just to meet these requirements, it's false economy. For example, buying frequent flyer miles is generally a bad idea unless you know exactly how you'll use them and the redemption value is higher than the price.

Check out flyertalk, doctor of credit, etc. for current offers. For example, Amex PRG normally requires 5K spend in 3 month to get $500 worth of MR points, but there are targeted offers for $2K spend. Sometimes they come up in flyertalk discussions.

I second the suggestion to meet spending requirements by filling up your Amazon gift card balance. To me, given my spending on the site, it's like a cash balance in a checking account. Just beware that when I first tried to do it, Amazon that it was potential fraud and I was locked out of my account for two days.

(07-10-2017 07:45 PM)DMario Wrote:  How do you guys with low monthly spending hit the $4000 in 3 months. Im new to this whole points thing. I read about in the past where you could get money orders, but I dont think that works anymore. I was thinking about buying Amazon gift cards or Airlines miles or something. Im young single living in a 3rd world country without much to do, so I only really spend on groceries.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...GoldMoney

From previous posts:

Quote:I wanted to update this thread with some information that may be valuable to those out there who are interested in hitting credit card spends for the purpose of acquiring certain signup bonuses. While there are a number of ways to hit these spends, one of the most common ones is the gift card -> money order -> bank deposit -> pay off credit card sequence. Between the time it takes to facilitate all of this and the fact that gift cards will run $6-10 per $500 card (plus money order fees), there are some costs (in both time and money) that begin to add up. GoldMoney can make this process much more efficient.

Deposits can be made with bank account transfers AND with CCs, (among a few other methods) with only a .5% processing fee. Withdraws can be made to bank accounts also at a .5% clip. So, one can open an account, deposit the necessary amounts required to hit spends via CC, wait for the gold/deposit to post, cash out, and use the previously deposited funds to pay off the card. With a total of 1% fees (plus or minus the fluctuations of the gold market), one can easily hit a spend of $1-10k with under $100 in fees and never have to leave the house.

NOTE: At this time, GoldMoney does NOT allow CC deposits via Amex. This might change in the future, but please consider this if you are considering opening an account an depositing via Amex.

I can vouch that this has worked for me and saves a lot of time and hassle. Let me know if I can explain further or if you’d like a referral link.

Quote:Want to make another update. Unfortunately, GoldMoney appears to have caught on that they can milk CC deposits for a bit more than .5 percent and they have added an extra 2 percent to CC deposits. Still can be a valuable tool for hitting credit card spending requirements for bonuses, but long-term gold investing/purchasing with a CC is much less attractive at this point.

More info:

https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-59663...=goldmoney

New Points Break List is out:

http://www.pointswithacrew.com/current-i...ble-table/

I just canx'd my gold amex to avoid the annual fee. I was trying to find a way of getting rid of the fee without closing the account, but I didn't see any. Did I miss something? The rep on the phone offered other cards, of course, but it seemed like the only way to get rid of the fee was to canx the card.

Re: Manufactured spending, that Goldmoney tip is nice, despite the fluctuation risk for gold prices. Can invest in kickfurther or kiva loans at no cost, but this opens you up to default risk as well as floating that money for months at a minimum. On the topic of float, can also overpay cell phone, cable, internet, utility bills and again float the money up front instead of paying monthly on these payments. I've prepaid $1000 on cable and cell phone bills before to knock out some bonuses.

Another relatively easy way is to pre-pay your taxes, or use tio.com to pay off any number of bills. You're going to pay 2-3%, but if you're getting a big sign up bonus, it's most likely worth the cost. Most of the low hanging fruit in MS is gone.

So it looks like I’m going to have anough EQMs to hit status again on American this year; however, with the new EQD requirement I’ll be a couple hundred short.

Any hacks to meet the EQD threshold? If I buy a refundable ticket in 2017 for a 2018 flight and refund it in 2018, might that work?

(10-27-2017 12:59 PM)nmmoooreland20 Wrote:  So it looks like I’m going to have anough EQMs to hit status again on American this year; however, with the new EQD requirement I’ll be a couple hundred short.

Any hacks to meet the EQD threshold? If I buy a refundable ticket in 2017 for a 2018 flight and refund it in 2018, might that work?

Almost certainly no, for two major reasons. The first being spends and miles are tied to actually flying, so if you don't fly you wont get miles or AQD, second, if the flight is in 2018, it would go to that year.

Otherwise people could just buy multiple J RTW flights in January of a year, get the points/AQD and status that comes with it, then refund them.

The sad fact is that the airlines are putting more and more hoops, and the ultimate rule of the game is like Vegas in that "you're not allowed to win". If you figure out a clever hack that allows you to recoup more than 1-3%, then that trick is likely on borrowed time.

Flyertalk.com is a forum with much more expertise in this area, so might be worthwhile to ask there.

(10-27-2017 12:59 PM)nmmoooreland20 Wrote:  So it looks like I’m going to have anough EQMs to hit status again on American this year; however, with the new EQD requirement I’ll be a couple hundred short.

Any hacks to meet the EQD threshold? If I buy a refundable ticket in 2017 for a 2018 flight and refund it in 2018, might that work?

AA will (or may have already) send an email asking if you want to buy up to status. Are we talking the lowest status here? I think that one isnt worth much especially because pretty much all the benefits are accorded by getting an inexpensive annual fee credit card (free baggage, semi-priority boarding) that will also come with a sizeable sign up bonus. Should you want to do this - PM me - I'll send you my link for sign-up, or get one from someone else so someone gets paid the referral fee.