Just a 46-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). Okay, almost, but not quite.
I am well on the way to $600 Fidelity (Cash) rewards this year.
I took a small detour from this card to get the Chase Sapphire $500 bonus.
I did see a promo for Citi for that could be translated into about $450 cash. BUT there was an initial annual fee of $125. So I scratched this one.
However, I just popped onto MyMoneyBlog this morning, and was probably one of the first to see that I could convert my $500 reward from Chase into $1,000.
I followed the instructions and e-mailed Chase, asking to match a new bonus they are offering to specific customers. They wrote me back in just a couple of minutes. Even better, they will just give me 50,000 bonus points when my statement closes this month. (No waiting until I spend $3,000 - the initial reward was supposed to take 6 weeks after you spend the $3,000). Woohoo!
I am thinking of taking $125 of my $1000 reward to have dh apply for the Citi deal.
& that is how I will make $2,000 on credit rewards in 2011, without hardly lifting a finger. (Okay - maybe closer to $1900 with the fee - but the year is young. More offers are sure to entice!!!)
It literally took me one minute or so to apply for the Chase card through my existing account. It then took me about 30 seconds to cut and paste the e-mail request (& edit slightly) that I sent to Chase this morning. Spend credit cards as would otherwise, and wala. EASY MONEY!
This is also tax-free money, by the way!
For the Sapphire bonus:
I will apply for the Citi card once we are well on our way to rest of Chase bonus. Have to get that one out of the way first, since Citi requires $2k spending in 3 months. (& anyway, maybe something better will come along in the interim. Though $300-ish net back from Citi is a pretty sweet reward in the grand scheme of things!!)
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As an aside, I was going to get off my lazy butt and cancel my Chase Freedom card this morning. I think I will wait until I get these bonus points now. Since I told them in my e-mail I Was such a loyal customer.
If I had cancelled it first, not sure it would have mattered. (Maybe they would want to entice me to stay, even more). But just funny that I hadn't gotten to that. & now I will wait a bit before I get to it.----------------------------------------------------
This $$ will go a LONG way to my overly aggressive mortgage goal for this year. I didn't really think it was possible, but now it is.
I was also going to apply for a $250 bonus to donate to the school. Before all this. So I may still give $250 for the school. That's a tax deduction on tax-free money. Rest will probably go to the mortgage, though I may wait until the end of the year to decide for sure.
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2011 is going down as a record year for credit card rewards! I can usually earn $500 - $1000 pretty easily, and I don't shun EASY money. But, this is far better than usual.
June 21st, 2011 at 01:51 pm 1308664272
June 21st, 2011 at 03:36 pm 1308670610
June 21st, 2011 at 03:50 pm 1308671424
June 21st, 2011 at 04:06 pm 1308672415
Anyway, I was thinking you might be able to turn it into $2000. Glad you saw!
June 21st, 2011 at 04:37 pm 1308674222
June 21st, 2011 at 05:37 pm 1308677846
June 21st, 2011 at 06:04 pm 1308679445
June 21st, 2011 at 06:33 pm 1308681198
Edited to add: SENT! We shall see...
June 21st, 2011 at 07:00 pm 1308682829
I would first like to take this opportunity to personally
thank you for choosing Chase Sapphire for meeting your
financial needs.
As per your offer, a new customer will receive 50,000
bonus points after spending $3,000.00 in purchases within
93 days of account open date.
Further, I would like to inform you that, when you apply
for a card, there are various sign up offers given to the
cardmembers which changes from time to time. Regretfully,
I am unable to honor your request for 100,000 bonus points
offer as your account does not qualify for this offer. I
apologize for the inconvenience.
However, if you were sent an invitation for this offer, I
kindly request you to reply to this email using the Secure
Message Center with the invitation code and the offer id,
and either myself or one of my colleagues will be happy to
assist you.
I appreciate your co operation in this matter and value
your association with Chase.
June 21st, 2011 at 07:17 pm 1308683850
June 21st, 2011 at 07:51 pm 1308685862
June 22nd, 2011 at 12:36 pm 1308746168
June 23rd, 2011 at 12:00 am 1308787257
June 23rd, 2011 at 08:06 pm 1308859585
As far as Ceejay, I have the feeling they will oblige their written promise rather than potentially lose a customer.
June 24th, 2011 at 05:30 pm 1308936635
June 25th, 2011 at 12:36 pm 1309005405
I was wondering how much you typically charge to your credit cards each month.
Also, just quickly scanning the sapphire offer, it looks like they waive the annual fee for the first year. Are you planning on cancelling the card after the 1st year?
Obtaining and/or giving up existing cards will certainly affect your credit rating, which is partially based on your overall credit availability.
June 29th, 2011 at 04:37 am 1309322272
June 29th, 2011 at 07:37 pm 1309376250
I will close the card the second I get the cash in hand. I have done it many times before.
"Are you concerned about the impact on your credit report/score each time you apply for a new credit card?"
No - my FICO has always been 800-ish. Opening and closing 1-2 cards per year has no impact on my credit score. With a spouse we tend to split it up (so no more than 2 cards per year/each, generally).
Average credit card charges are $2k/month. That is $800 gas/groceries, $450 utilities/other, and $750/month health insurance. Plus we charge all our medical/dental bills, etc., on and on. So, often we charge more than $2k. There is very little we do not charge. (& pay off monthly - of course!)
June 29th, 2011 at 07:41 pm 1309376517
I will close the card the second I get the cash in hand. I have done it many times before.
"Are you concerned about the impact on your credit report/score each time you apply for a new credit card?"
No - my FICO has always been 800-ish. Opening and closing 1-2 cards per year has no impact on my credit score. With a spouse we tend to split it up (so no more than 2 cards per year/each, generally). I never keep 1-time reward cards open a minute longer after getting the reward. At this level it has absolutely no effect on our FICO. Likewise, I never keep open any credit cards once the super good rewards dry up. My "length of credit history" is currently zilch, but I still have the same FICO score as my husband who has a 12-year-old card. I don't see that it makes any difference, based on my own credit profile. In fact, I think my FICO is currently 5-10 points higher than his (though we pretty much share most our credit and are pretty identical. But for his one OLD card - my name is not on that one).
Average credit card charges are $2k/month. We charge anything and everything. There is little we don't charge. Health insurance is the bulk of it, then gas/groceries, utilities. In addition to that we often have medical/dental bills, insurance payments, etc. SO I don't have to charge more than average for these things. & of course - we pay the balance off monthly - always have.
June 30th, 2011 at 12:01 am 1309392088
I'll have to consider starting to charge my other bills to credit cards. I typically charge onlyl a couple hundred to my Amex each month, more so now that i'm out of work. I hadn't thought it would be possible to charge much more for that reason, but you've shown me I could do so with utilities, perhaps.
June 30th, 2011 at 01:58 am 1309399133