Pay For Black Friday Gifts With Credit Cards
Yeah, you read that right. You should make the credit card companies pay for your holiday spending! (You thought I meant something else?) Since they offer juicy incentives to get you to switch to their credit card, take advantage of these loss-leaders and use the money to pay for your gifts. Sure, technically it may take you a bit to actually get the check or gift cards in the mail, but a few hundred dollars can go a long way. Just remember to pay off your balances in full, or they win!
I chose one card from three of the major issuers - Chase, Citibank, and American Express, and you can get at least $100 from each one. If you apply for all three on the same day, it is more likely that you’ll be approved for all of them since they won’t be able to see that you applied for other cards.
Free $100 Cash
The Chase Sapphire Card is a new rewards credit card that is offering 10,000 bonus points after any first purchase on the credit card, which can be redeemed for $100 cash. No annual fee.
As a rewards card, it offers 1 point for every dollar in purchases (100 points = $1, or the usual 1% back). The nice part is that redemptions are easy - you can even redeem in $1 increments as long as above $25, so you could cash out $27 or $113 without anything left over. There are no earning caps, or points expiration dates.
Free $100 Gift Card + Cashback from Restaurants & Amazon.com
The Citi Forward card is offering 11,000 ThankYou points for making just $250 in purchases and electing for paperless statements within 3 months of account opening. That’s enough points to exchange for $100 in gift cards from stores like Sears, Staples, Overstock.com, Macy’s, or Gap. No annual fee.
In terms of ongoing rewards, you get 1 reward point for every $1 you spend on other purchases like most other cards, but this card offers a special 5 reward points for every $1 you spend on books, movies, music and restaurants. You also get 100 points each month you pay your balance on time and don’t exceed your credit limit. See my Citi Forward card review and Amazon.com & restaurants follow-up for more details.
Free $150 in Gift Cards
The American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card offers 15,000 Membership Rewards bonus points when you spend $1,000 in your first 3 months of Card membership. MR points are very versatile, and can be converted to 15,000 frequent flier miles in a number of programs (or 10 Southwest credits), or you can simply get $150 in gift cards at several stores like Home Depot, Crate & Barrel, or Macy’s. You can view the reward options at MembershipRewards.com. I think you can also get cash equivalents at a reduced ratio.
You can also earn another 15,000 Membership Rewards bonus points when you spend $30,000 per calendar year. No annual fee for your first year. After that it is $175, so remember to cancel within the first year if you don’t want to continue.
Find more in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 11/25/09, 2:56am | Trackback
November 25th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Wouldn’t signing up for three cards end up hurting your credit score in the long run? Interesting idea, but want to be careful about using it.
November 25th, 2009 at 6:30 am
It would hurt your credit score in the short term. In the long term it’s actually good to have several cards if you use them right. As always just think about what your short term needs are…if you are planning to need to have a good credit score soon don’t do this.
I’ve recently started doing the credit card game, and I have mixed feelings about it. I’ve made maybe $500 without any real work, but you do have to factor in time and stress in making sure you aren’t making a mistake somewhere (one of my new cards offered to double my rewards but I had to check the fine print to see that it was going to make me pay an annual fee). I also realize that $500 is just a few extra days at work for me, so the whole thing does sometimes seem kind of silly. It’s kind of fun legally stealing other people’s money though, so that’s mostly why I’m doing it.
I like the citi forward card a lot. 5% on restaurants and Amazon is nice. I’ll be cancelling pretty much everything but that card and the ones I had before I started this.
Does anybody know how long one should wait before playing the game again? If I cancel 4 or 5 cards now, can I sign up for all the new credit card offers again this summer? Chase recently rejected me for the saphire card because of all the cards I’ve been stockpiling lately, so next time I’ll know to get them all at once.
November 25th, 2009 at 9:04 am
remember, canceling credit cards can hurt your credit. so be careful when you cancel them too.
November 25th, 2009 at 9:06 am
How do you keep track of so many cards? How do keep them active after getting them? Do you should get cancel them. That’s lot of cards in your credit report.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Applying for any credit card will “ding” your credit score temporarily about 5 points and lasts about 6 months, afterwards it bounces back (although it can vary a bit based on your credit history). As long as you have a good credit score, the hit shouldn’t be too bad, especially if you do not carry a balance that is large relative to your credit limit. I set a personal limit of about 3-4 cards every 6 months, and usually only if I get at least $100 unless the pickings are really slim (which they have been for a while).
On canceling cards:
Credit Score Myths - Don’t Cancel Old Accounts
Keeping track of cards is easy. No charges = no statement. I just put them in a business card holder and if I want to keep them I charge something on them once a year. If I don’t care, I do nothing and the company can close them if they want. I just make sure the old cards and the cards with good limits stay open.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
On too many credit cards:
Can Having Too Many Credit Cards Hurt Your Credit Score?
November 25th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
So… do you actually sign up for these cards and take advantage of the “free goods”, or you like informing the readers?
Wouldn’t all this credit card signing up and canceling affect your credit score?
November 25th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I have both the Chase Sapphire card and the Citi Forward card, and use the Forward card actively for restaurants and Amazon.com. I got the 11,000 ThankYou points already (see review) and the Sapphire card is just for the $100.
I don’t have this specific American Express card, but I am thinking about applying if I need the frequent flier miles. I am trying to time it with my own flying so I can maybe transfer a whole bunch of MR points for the Southwest companion ticket (unlimited companion tickets for a year).
November 25th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I just don’t worry about FICO anymore. If it was not a scam, then we would have a clear understanding of how the FICO score is actually calculated and concrete steps to raise your credit score. Use the cards, but pay them off each month. If you cannot, then don’t use them. Just my 2 cents.
November 25th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Yes, I know the best thing for my credit score might be to keep all of the cards (without annual fees of course). However it’s not that important to me whether my score is 780 or 810, so I’d rather just cancel the ones I don’t need when I’m done. Plus, you never know what perks they will throw at me when I try and cancel them. I’ll probably keep my now useless chase card (no 3% anymore) because it has a fairly high credit limit and it could be a good anchor card.
I just bought myself a wii fit plus with my proceeds from my starwood american express card, so I’m excited about that, and I’m happy to cancel that one since it has an annual fee and I don’t fly a lot.
November 26th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
So how long is it before I can apply for the Sapphire again? I got my $100 few months ago and closed the account shortly after (for some reason it still shows up in my chase web page. Although I’ve verified by email that the account is closed)
November 26th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
@unimax, I have several credit cards/store cards and one gas card that I pay in full every month. How I keep track of it is by using Bank of America’s “my portfolio” which is based on Yodlee.com (you can also use other services like mint.com, justthrive.com which I also subscribe to). I look at it every few days and I copy whatever the balance is and I paste the amount in the proper Bill Pay amount. If Online Bill Pay existed when I was younger, I’d probably would be driving a paid-off Benz right now.
Tracking your accounts online is just a smart way to money management. There just isn’t an excuse anymore.
Oh and by the way, cancelling a credit card that isn’t charging an Annual Fee is not wise. You will lose whatever history for Fico and plus it lowers your total amount of utilization, which will potentially keep you at a lower FICO for quite some time. Just keep the card in a sock drawer or something and forget about it. Now if the card does charge an annual fee, by all means cancel that puppy. Knock on wood, I have not been hit by any annual fees on the credit cards I do have.
December 4th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I have 800+ credit score (not other debt but a 280k mortgage) and already have the Chase Sapphire card (as my only credit card at the moment. I used to have 3 but AE closed 1 Corp and 1 personal card about 2 months ago due to low activity). I applied for the Citicard after seeing this article (I was going get another CC anyway as a backup), but got this response from Citi.
o Your credit bureau report shows you have no revolving
accounts with a balance.
Well, I guess being frugal and paying off every month before the due date and not leaving a balance can hurt you too. Well,
December 4th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
@Henry, I have heard conflicting things about 0 balance on credit cards (though it looks like in your case, Citi is just thinking up a new excuse to limit credit exposure). I have heard that if you keep it zero when you apply for a mortgage, your MORTGAGE FICO goes up. That makes sense to me because you want the lowest DTI ratio you can have when applying for a new mortgage. But for regular credit, you need to show a balance to show proof you actually use your cards. That never really flew with me though. What I typically do is just use all three credit cards (plus my Citi-issued gas card) every month. My issuers have no excuse to lower my limit or close my account. I am a “deadbeat” and proud of it….they only make money off my transactions and never my interest. It has never gotten that bad and I am most certainly proud of that. I protect my credit like I protect my cash…I worked hard at repairing it and it will stay that way.
December 8th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Henry, MakingItWorkNJ - I am kind of surprised of “showing no balance” thing. Except in cases when you haven’t bought anything since the last payment, there is always some balance on the credit report - the amount you just spent on purchases this month. At least this is what my credit report showed, and I also always pay off my balances in full, mostly with automatic deduction - the current purchases.
If you get your free credit report,you’d see the same thing. So I am not sure what Citi didn’t like.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
A follow up/update from my previous post on December 4th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
After requesting a free credit report from Transunion after my Citicard application was rejected, I found that there is an incorrect account type for my other Chase credit card (reported as open account vs revolving account) on the credit report; hence the reason for Citi to reject my application with the reason “Your credit bureau report shows you have no revolving accounts with a balance.”
I have since filed a dispute with TU for the correction and they contacted Chase to correct that. I will write back to Citi and see if they will accept my application this time around.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
@Kitty, there is a difference between regular balance and high balance. The bureaus will always report a High Balance if you use your card but then there is a balance that closes at your statement date. That balance is what I’m talking about. For example, say your statement closes on the 31st of the month. You have a balance of $1000. You pay this balance on the 30th. Your high balance (assuming that’s the most you spent thus far) will show the $1000, BUT your regular balance will be $0.00. From what I was told doing my own credit rebuilding/repairing, that’s what mortgages (and I presume auto lenders) like to see. There’s like so many FICO models based on your credit history, it isn’t just one. A model for mortgages, a model for auto loans, a model for credit cards that’s all under the FICO umbrella. A bunch of credit card underwriting has changed, no doubt, because of the Great Recession. I am happy with the 3 CCs I have that allow me $8500 (total) in case of emergency (and right now, thanks to my car, I have it, but I am managing that so that I go back to PIF [paid in full] status in a couple of months, so it looks like Discover and BOA will see a little interest coming their way, but I prepared for that eventuality…). I spent MANY months repairing my credit to the point that I am not a respectable human being in soceity. All three of my CCs are rewards cards and I almost have no doubt that I can double my $8500 limit by the end of 2010.
@Henry, please let us know how Citi treats you. I really would like to see any updates.