Credit cards- change my mind

[retire-early]

Can you explain that? I thought general use gift cards were usually off-limits for bonuses.

So far, Chase, Bank of America, and American Express has been very lenient.

As an example, in Q3, Freedom Flex's 5% cashback category was grocery stores and select streaming services.
This stacked with the 5% cashback on grocery stores for the first year that I have the credit card.
With the stack it was 9% cashback.
I bought three (3) $500 VISA gift cards at Wegmans and received the 9% cashback.

This Q4 stacking of Paypal with drugstores was a last-minute thing.
It was suppose to be just Walmart and/or Paypal, but Chase threw in the targeted offer of 5% cashback for purchases in top spend category which includes drugstores.
CVS is the only drugstore that allows Paypal in store.
This is what I am maximizing.
Walgreens allows Paypal for store pick-up and gift cards can be purchased for store pick-up.

.

 

[Markola]

I also have a Venmo Visa, gives 3% back to your top category permanently. I planned to dedicate it for groceries but, uniquely among my cards, it cannot be auto-paid with our checking account that uses 2-factor authentication. This makes it too much hassle to use.

 

[retire-early]

I also have a Venmo Visa, gives 3% back to your top category permanently. I planned to dedicate it for groceries but, uniquely among my cards, it cannot be auto-paid with our checking account that uses 2-factor authentication. This makes it too much hassle to use.

Permanent 5% with Citi Custom Cash up to $500 for groceries or gas among other categories.

 

[tb001]

For the BofA card, I thought you could only get into the higher tiers if you put the $ in more expensive managed accounts. It seemed like the savings would be offset by the management fees, but maybe I’m missing something?

 

[Sunset]

For the BofA card, I thought you could only get into the higher tiers if you put the $ in more expensive managed accounts. It seemed like the savings would be offset by the management fees, but maybe I’m missing something?

You are missing something. The money does not have to be managed.
I put 100K into Merrill Lynch and buy/sell my stocks and etf's myself.

 

[tb001]

You are missing something. The money does not have to be managed.
I put 100K into Merrill Lynch and buy/sell my stocks and etf's myself.

Thank you! For some reason I thought only certain accounts would qualify you for the card.

 

[retire-early]

You are missing something. The money does not have to be managed.
I put 100K into Merrill Lynch and buy/sell my stocks and etf's myself.

Are all ETFs available?
No fees at all just to maintain an account?

No concern that Bank of America may change the terms of this lucrative offer?
Folks on another message board are saying that it can come as soon as the end of this year.

EDIT
The 75% platinum bonus rewards makes grocery stores have 2% + 1.5% (75% bonus) = 3.5%
Does that change if you order groceries online?

 

[RetiredHappy]

We had ML managed accounts and had the 75% bonus bump on the BOA premium rewards card. You don't need managed accounts to get the bump. If you have $100K spread across BOA accounts and ML accounts, you get the 75% bump as well. We have moved almost everything out of ML managed accounts but have a couple of stragglers with ML waiting for maturity of the investments which will be due next June. I am already thinking about how to have 100K in BOA/ML accounts to continue with the status in 2023. Currently, once you earn the status, you are good for the year although they may change it to rolling 3 months.

I cashed out $4K from my BOA rewards this year and would like to keep doing that every year.

 

[retire-early]

Changes are coming to the BoA Preferred Rewards.
Reportedly a mailer went out.
Whether the existing Platinum tier will remain unchanged or not is the question.

https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/qi8jd5/daily_discussion_thread_october_29_2021/hil33xd/

 

[Sunset]

Are all ETFs available?
No fees at all just to maintain an account?

No concern that Bank of America may change the terms of this lucrative offer?
Folks on another message board are saying that it can come as soon as the end of this year.

EDIT
The 75% platinum bonus rewards makes grocery stores have 2% + 1.5% (75% bonus) = 3.5%
Does that change if you order groceries online?

ML has a TON of etf's , stocks and funds available to buy, they are a BIG brokerage firm.
No fee to have an account, I have regular, IRA, ROTH there.

NOTE: you can get a bonus for moving an account over to ML in addition to having it count in the preferred program.

I've had this benefit for over 2 yrs now, if they change it and it is worse than something else, I will change, but for now it's one of the better CC rewards in town.

For each CC and reward category, they have a list of what is allowed.
For groceries online, I use their Customized Cash CC and have online shopping set, so I get 5.25% on ALL online shopping (Amazon, online groceries, any online store even if I pick up the package at the store later).

 

[Sunset]

Changes are coming to the BoA Preferred Rewards.
Reportedly a mailer went out.
Whether the existing Platinum tier will remain unchanged or not is the question.

https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/qi8jd5/daily_discussion_thread_october_29_2021/hil33xd/

Thanks... haven't heard, will read this.

<edit> After my read, it seems they will be adding higher tiers which makes sense as the top tier is currently $100K across all accounts, and I bet many of their clients exceed this without any additional benefit.

 

[retire-early]

Thanks... haven't heard, will read this.

<edit> After my read, it seems they will be adding higher tiers which makes sense as the top tier is currently $100K across all accounts, and I bet many of their clients exceed this without any additional benefit.

I think the fear is that the lower tiers may change as well.

I will see how the dust settles.
I have their Customized Cash Rewards set for online shopping.

 

[Bongleur]

5. Chase Freedom Flex for Q4 2021 : 8% after fees at CVS using Paypal app. I am buying two $500 VISA gift cards

6. Chase Freedom Q4 : I am using for Paypal 5% for year-end charitable donations

Don't understand item 5. You buy stuff at CVS, pay at the register thru Paypal, and have Paypal charge it to the Chase card? So the 8% is the sum of a Paypal discount plus a Chase discount? Ditto for 6. ?

 

[tb001]

Don't understand item 5. You buy stuff at CVS, pay at the register thru Paypal, and have Paypal charge it to the Chase card? So the 8% is the sum of a Paypal discount plus a Chase discount? Ditto for 6. ?

Using their card with PayPal is one of the 5% cash back quarterly rewards for the card itself. I didn’t realize you could stack in that manner. I’ve been doing the gift cards at Walmart for 5% cash back, which is another quarterly reward, but usually do store cards.

 

[retire-early]

Don't understand item 5. You buy stuff at CVS, pay at the register thru Paypal, and have Paypal charge it to the Chase card? So the 8% is the sum of a Paypal discount plus a Chase discount? Ditto for 6. ?

It was a typo. It is actually 9%.

The offer is on Chase Freedom Flex only.

Here's the info from the FAQ.
https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom-credit-cards/flexfaq
I am told it may be targeted.
Some people are reporting that they did not receive an email from Chase about the Top Spend category bonus for Q4.

If I use PayPal, a Q4 quarterly bonus category, as a payment method for
purchases in my top spend category, can I earn both offers?
Yes, however please note since both your top spend category
and quarterly bonus category offers are earned
as 4% bonus cash back on top of the 1% cash back you earn on every purchase,
and the 1% can only be earned once per purchase,
the most you will earn per $1 spent is 9% cash back:

1% base earn on every purchase
4% bonus earn on quarterly bonus categories
+ 4% bonus earn on top spend category
9% total cash back

.

 

[retire-early]

Using their card with PayPal is one of the 5% cash back quarterly rewards for the card itself.
I didn’t realize you could stack in that manner. I’ve been doing the gift cards at Walmart for 5% cash back,
which is another quarterly reward, but usually do store cards.

Yes, you can stack.
https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom-credit-cards/flexfaq

I used the Chase Freedom Flex to buy a $500 VISA gift card which has a $4.94 fee at Walmart.
After the fee, I am getting 4%.

Had I received Chase's email earlier, I would have bought the $500 VISA gift card at CVS using Paypal.
After the fee, I am getting 7.9%.
I lost out on $19 in cashback.

In Q3 while I still was in my first year with Freedom Flex with the 5% on groceries, the category was grocery stores.
The cashback stacked then too.
9% on grocery stores.

 

[Bongleur]

I can see that buying debit or gift cards for a 4-5% discount would be worthwhile, except I don't know how much spending I have that could be paid for with such cards.

Can a gift card be input into Amazon or Paypal?
Can you tell them to pay for an invoice with two cards, if one runs out of money?

In general, how do you extract the last couple of bucks from a gift debit card? All the profit on these will come "on the margin" - the last 4-5% spent is the profitable part.

 

[Aerides]

In general, how do you extract the last couple of bucks from a gift debit card? All the profit on these will come "on the margin" - the last 4-5% spent is the profitable part.

Easy. Say you're at the grocery store, you have a tab of $98 to checkout. First you run the card with a few bucks remaining - it processes that amount, then you use another card for the balance.

Works the same with most store cards. I have a lowes gift card I'm whittling down. When it gets to $2.25 and I have a $30 purchase, I'll hand them the gift card and then pay the rest however I like.

There is no "profit" in the unspent funds for the issuer, those dollars are accounted for as expense balance, and usually can't expire.

 

[Chuckanut]

Easy. Say you're at the grocery store, you have a tab of $98 to checkout. First you run the card with a few bucks remaining - it processes that amount, then you use another card for the balance.

Works the same with most store cards. I have a lowes gift card I'm whittling down. When it gets to $2.25 and I have a $30 purchase, I'll hand them the gift card and then pay the rest however I like.

There is no "profit" in the unspent funds for the issuer, those dollars are accounted for as expense balance, and usually can't expire.

The profit comes from the zero interest loan the gift card buyer has made to the seller. Not a bad deal if you can get it.

 

[SecondCor521]

The profit comes from the zero interest loan the gift card buyer has made to the seller. Not a bad deal if you can get it.

As well as from the presumably lots of gift cards that get lost and never get used. The companies may have to carry the unused balances on their financial books, but they probably have a very good idea of how much those balances decay / shrink.

 

[Bongleur]

Following a reference led me to the Manufactured Spending sub-sub forum here:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending-719/

In a thread on CC cards getting shut down for misuse, one person said he is having problems with his bank charging for depositing more than 200 money orders per month. Another said he does 80-90 a month. Sound's like MS is a full time job.

Someone said placing bets both ways (on 2 different gambling sites) is a way to turn gift cards into depositable cash but only costs 1-2%.

I'd like to find a way to get a worthwhile rebate on my normal spending, maybe "rounding up" with a gift card. Holiday season spending normally goes up, it could be the right time to establish a "new normal" spending pattern at a grocery store.

 

[Bongleur]

The people who are able to game the system for significant money are high earners who have a lot of legitimate travel expenses -- but they also carry a zero balance. The credit card company makes no interest on them, but make a lot on the volume of fees charged to the merchants.

I'd love to see the comparison of the aggregate net profit from "high transaction zero balance" credit cards vs "low transaction high balance" cards (which are the vast majority of cards).

 

[ychuck46]

Spread them out

I have 4-5 cards that I use. Four pay me from 3-6% on specific purchases (restaurants, gas, food, online orders), some pay 5% on revolving creditors per quarter, and if I don't have something that falls into those cards I have a 2% card on everything version. No purpose in collecting only 1% on anything non-Amazon related.

 

[indiajust]

https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/ Shop for the card that gives you points/cashback/travel... whatever it is you want. 2 is enough cards.

 

[Dtail]

https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/ Shop for the card that gives you points/cashback/travel... whatever it is you want. 2 is enough cards.

If one has the Platinum status at BOA, it can be favorable to have more than 2 cards, if one spends enough.