Archive for the 'Credit Cards' Category
Monday, November 5th, 2012
The Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express offers a whopping:
- 6% cash back on purchases at U.S. stand-alone supermarkets (up to $6,000 per year)
- 3% cash back on gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations and select U.S. department stores
- and 1% cash back on other purchases.
The card has a $75 annual fee, but keep in mind that spending $25 per week at supermarkets, that 6% back can earn over $75 Reward Dollars per year ($78) to pay for the annual fee by itself. If you spend $500 a month at supermarkets, that would net you $360 cash back in a year. The Blue Cash Preferred also has 0% APR on purchases for 6 months. After that, your APR will be a variable rate of 12.99% to 21.99% based on on your creditworthiness.
The regular Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express gives you $100 cash back bonus after spending $1,000 in eligible purchases in the first 3 months, pays 3% cash back at U.S. stand-alone supermarkets (up to $6,000), 2% cash back on gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations and select major department stores, and 1% cash back on everything other purchases and has no annual fee.
If you spend less than a combination of $175 per month on groceries and $100 on gas per month, then the Blue Cash Everyday would give you more money back overall. Otherwise, the Preferred above works out better. Both cards offer the simplicity of cash back on the major “need” categories of groceries and gas, great for those that don’t like dealing with rotating categories or don’t travel very much.
If you get some sort of application error, you should try clearing your cookies or using the Private Browsing or Incognito option in your web browser. This worked for me to see the application page.
Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express Card application link
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 59 Comments »
Friday, October 19th, 2012
If you shop regularly at Target, then you’ve been pitched their “REDcard” that gives you 5% off all your purchases at Target stores and Target.com. However, you may be hesitant to sign up for yet another credit card with limited usefulness. I certainly wouldn’t waste a precious hard credit check on one, those are worth $300-$500 a pop. Or perhaps you just don’t like credit cards in general.
A better option for regular shoppers is the lesser-known Target Debit REDcard. It draws money directly from your existing bank account, you don’t have to open up a new Target bank account or line of credit. You simply provide a voided paper check and apply either in-store or via mail-in application (no online application option). They do still require SSN and reserve the right to check consumer reporting agencies, but according to online reports they don’t perform a credit check on any of the three major credit bureaus.
Update: A reader reports that Target checks with ID Analytics, another lesser-known consumer reporting agency. This won’t affect your 3 main credit scores, but it may come into play if another retailer or lender wishes to check your IDA report.
You get the same 5% off (discount taken at register) and other perks like free shipping online. You can even use Target as a free ATM and make a withdrawal at checkout. If you spend an average of $150 a month at Target, 5% off is $90 a year.
Posted in Credit Cards | 22 Comments »
Friday, October 5th, 2012
Whether you have a small business with just one employee or over 100, it’s critical to track your your business expenses and keep them separate from your personal finances. Business credit cards help you do that, along with other perks like giving you some additional float time to pay off the balance, easy expense accounting and categorization, employee cards, business discounts, and my favorite: rewards and/or cash back. Here are the best small business charge and credit cards out there, I’ve included a few options depending on what best suits your needs.
The Chase Ink Cash® Business Card is a nice combination of upfront bonus and ongoing rewards utility. The sign-up bonus is up to $200 cash back after you spend $3,000 within the first 3 months. No annual fee. It’s a credit card with a 0% Introductory APR offer for 6 months on purchases and balance transfers. Here’s the cash back rewards:
- 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services
- 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent annually at gas stations and restaurants
- 1% cash back on all other card purchases with no limit to the amount you can earn
The Chase Ink Bold® Business Card is a premium card with an improved upfront bonus and better rewards, but comes with an annual fee (waived the first year). The sign-up bonus is worth $500 cash or $625 towards travel – 50,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. You get that extra 25% towards any travel booked at their Ultimate Rewards travel portal with no blackouts or restrictions, and their prices aren’t any more expensive than at an Expedia or Travelocity-type site.
You also get 5X points per dollar in select business categories, and you have the improved travel redemption option and you can transfer points 1:1 to programs like United Airlines and Hyatt hotels. This is a charge card, so there is not interest and the spending limit is more flexible. The annual fee is %0 the first year, $95 after that. My recommendation would be to try it out for the first year, and see if the premium benefits are worth it for you. If not, you can downgrade to a no annual fee version.
The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN is a charge card for small businesses where you must pay off the balance each month and you get the famous AMEX perks like purchase price protection, extended product return protection, and AMEX extended warranty. Review here, below are the highlights:
- 50,000 Bonus Points after you spend $5,000 in purchases in the first three months of card membership.
- Triple points on airfare. What makes this card different is that you can now earn 3X points on airfare as well as 2X points on advertising, shipping, and gas purchases on the first $100,000 of eligible purchases in each category each calendar year. Everything else earns 1 point per dollar spent.
- The annual fee is $0 the first year, and $175 thereafter. This way you can try out the card for a year for free. Get unlimited Additional Gold Cards for an additional annual fee of $50 but this fee is also waived for the first year.
- Terms and restrictions apply
The Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express is the small business version of one of my favorite personal credit cards. The sign-up bonus is up to 25,000 Starpoints: 10,000 bonus Starpoints after your first purchase, and an additional 15,000 bonus Starpoints after you spend $5,000 in the first 6 months. $0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $65. Starpoints from the Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program are very flexible with multiple redemption options towards free hotel stays, frequent flier miles, and Amazon.com gift cards. I use them primarily for free hotel stays or topping up my miles accounts for awards, and actually value them at 2 cents a point or more.
The Capital One® SparkSM Cash Select earns 1% cash back on all purchases, plus a 50% bonus on the cash back you earn every year with no annual fee. As long as your card is still open at the end of the year, that’s a total of 1.5% cash back. You can request the cash back as a credit on your account, or in the form of a check. In addition, it offers $0 Fraud Liability if your card is lost or stolen, as well as a year-end Summary to help you track business expenses.
The Capital One® SparkSM Cash earns a whopping 2% cash back on ALL purchases. $0 intro annual fee for the first year, and $59 after that. This card is ideal for those business that make a large amount of purchases. You can request the cash back as a credit on your account, or in the form of a check. In addition, it offers an $0 Fraud Liability if your card is lost or stolen, as well as a year-end Summary to help you track business expenses.
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 3 Comments »
Friday, September 28th, 2012
The Barclaycard NFL Extra Points Credit Card is currently offering 10,000 bonus points after just one purchase. That’s worth $100 in statement credits which you can use to increase your savings rate, or they have other NFL rewards (is this worth it for certain teams? new Cowboys stadium?). You can personalize the card with your favorite NFL team and there are some other NFL-specific perks like 2 points for every $1 spent at NFLShop.com, team pro-shops, and in-stadium. I think it’s a great gimmick as many NFL fans would love to have their favorite team on their credit card, even if the ongoing card rewards are rather mediocre.
This card is issued by Barclays Bank, so it can be combined with applications with other issuers like Citi, Chase, American Express, and Capital One. It’s always good to spread your new card application across different issuing banks. If you apply for multiple cards on the exact same day, then the credit checks won’t show up on the other issuers’ radars.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 10 Comments »
Thursday, September 20th, 2012
The Citi Forward® Card is running a limited-time promotion with Netflix for new cardmembers where they will pay for your Netflix streaming for an entire year if you use the card for payment. At currently prices, that’s $7.99 x 12 = $95.88 + taxes. However, the wording of the fine print suggests that if you have a higher Netflix bill due to DVD rentals, it will rebate up to $10 a month = $120 for the year.
You must register your new Citi Forward Card with Netflix.com as the preferred payment method to pay for your month-to-month Netflix membership. You will receive a statement credit for the total Netflix monthly membership fee (up to $10 per month) on the same statement as the transaction at Netflix.
This actually would work perfectly for us since we are testing out a Netflix + Roku box combo to replace cable TV right now (review upcoming)… but I already have the Citi Forward card.
Basically, if you use Netflix, this is an up to $120 sign-up bonus with no additional spending requirement for what is actually not a bad keeper card with no annual fee. It offers 5x ThankYou points on restaurants (including fast food) and also “entertainment” = bookstores, record stores, movie theaters, and movie rental stores. For many years, the best part of the bookstore classification is that Amazon.com counted for 5x points. Recently there are rumors that Citi is thinking of no longer counting Amazon as a bookstore, although as of the last billing statement Amazon purchases did still work. Perhaps there is some “grandfathering” going on, but FYI. In any case, you still get 100 ThankYou points a month just for paying your bill on time.
- Citi Forward® Card limited-release offer application link
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 27 Comments »
Tuesday, September 18th, 2012
Every so often, I receive e-mails very similar to the one below regarding credit card bonuses. It’s a valid question, so I wanted to make a thoughtful reply.
Do you ever total up the amount that you actually save on your credit cards via bonus points, mileage, etc? Also, I’ve seen you go through he laundry list of credit cards that you have and I have to wonder what kind of impact this has on your credit rating. Can you post an article or reply with this information? I’ve long held the belief that trying to live by simple means can have a big impact on your savings, but I’m skeptical that you can actually save a substantial amount “gaming” the credit card rewards and tiny discounts of the world. Thoughts?
My initial response to these types of questions used to be quite simple – I like doing this stuff, it makes me money, but it’s not for everyone. However, I got to thinking about how currently bonuses are at historical highs and perhaps it can have a big impact on the savings rate of the average family if they are financially responsible already.
First, some quick stats. According to the US Census, the median household income in the US in 2011 was $50,054. According to the BEA, the savings rate is in the neighborhood of 4%. That means a savings rate of $2,000 a year for the average household (4% of $50k).
According to FICO, about 60% of the US population has a “good” to “excellent” credit score of over 700. Combine this with a slight majority (again ~60%) of people having no credit card debt at all, which means there are many households able to handle applying for credit cards and using them responsibly without hurting themselves by carrying a balance (15% interest can quickly wipe out any potential benefit, don’t do it!). Just because you have a credit card doesn’t mean you need to pay a penny of interest, even while taking advantage of the fraud protection and extended warranties.
Thus, I pose the crazy idea that the average household could DOUBLE their savings rate with careful use of credit card bonuses, as it is definitely possible for such families to obtain $2,000 a year in credit card bonuses. Wouldn’t that count as significant? Credit cards are issued to individuals, so that means a household with two adults would need each person to get $1,000 in rewards. Both my wife and I have been approved in the past for the top tier credit cards with a household income in that range and a 700 credit score. This year, we’ve already earned well over $2,000. Here’s a sample of actual cards that we have gotten recently:
I’ve also taken advantage of small business card bonuses:
That’s over $1,000 in currently-available offers listed above, I’m not including all the expired offers. Note: There are many other cards with higher potential value bonuses like the Chase Hyatt card with two free nights anywhere, even at $600/night hotels. Or, I could get a bunch of points or miles and get a good redemption value. But for this exercise I’m just trying to stick with things with close cash equivalents like gift cards that can replace existing spending or be sold easily for cash.
A basic strategy would to apply for a new batch of 2-5 cards (no more than 2 from same bank issuer, best to do all on the same day) once every 3-6 months. Applying for additional credit cards will lower your credit score, temporarily. As time passes, the effect of each inquiry diminishes, until after 2 years the effect is zero. In my mind, the sign-up bonus along with an often-waived annual fee is an agreement for you to try out the card during that first year. If you like it, then you should keep it. If you don’t like it, there is nothing wrong with canceling the card to avoid the annual fee, and it won’t hurt your credit score very much.
Going back to credit scores, you can see all my free credit scores here from all the bureaus. My credit scores actually stay up quite well at about 5 temporary points lost per card, I’m sure many others can chime in that they have earned hundreds if not thousands and also have good credit scores. Is a few thousand dollars a year worth this extra effort? That’s up to you. It is for me.
Update: I forgot to add – credit cards rewards are also not subject to income tax.
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
Posted in Credit Cards | 42 Comments »
Wednesday, September 12th, 2012
There’s a new entrant in the world of 5% cash back credit cards. The U.S. Bank Cash+ Visa Signature card actually lets you choose and change the categories in which you can earn 5% and 2% cash back. Here’s how it works. Each quarter, you can enroll to choose one 2% back category from a list of three options: gas stations, grocery stores, or drugstores. You then get to choose two different 5% back categories from a list of other categories like bill payment, restaurants, or departments stores. Here’s a helpful visual I took from their website which includes all the 5% options:
You can pick the same categories each quarter, or switch them up once a quarter based on your planned spending. The “Bill Payment” category looks pretty useful to me, especially as I pay my insurance bills annually or semi-annually in a lump-sum.
Bill Payment: 5%
Examples include service providers like Comcast, DIRECTV, AT&T and State Farm insurance.
Get cash back every month when you use your U.S. Bank Cash+™ Card to pay for the following common household bills — phone, internet, cable/satellite TV, utilities and insurance. Please note: Purchases made outside of these specific categories do not qualify.
1% cash back on everything else, with no annual fee. As you can see, this card is competitive on its own but with such flexibility I see it as a great complement to the other 5% cash back cards like the Chase Freedom, Citi Dividend, and Discover More cards. If you have multiple cards, simply choose a category that isn’t covered by your other cards. My credit card “swiss army knife” now has another tool.
Another under-appreciated perk? There is no limit on the 5% cash back (or the 2% and 1% back). Most other cards have a cap of $1,500 of spending each quarter, which works out to $75. Let’s say you are buying $5,000 in appliances one quarter, now you can get 5% back on the whole amount if you chose Home Improvement, good for a full $250 cash back. Or say you’re spending $2,500 on airfare and hotels, pick those categories for a full $125 cash back.
Actually, you can do even better because they also offer a $25 Prepaid Visa card each time you redeem $100 or more cash back in a single redemption. Essentially, this means you can get up to 25% extra cash back, making the 5%/2%/1% rewards boosted up to 6.25%/2.5%/1.25% if you cash out at the right time. The way they set it up is more complicated than I would like, but I’ll take it.
Finally, a reader notes that if you have a Platinum Checking account relationship with US Bank, you’ll get yet another additional 50% bonus on credit cards rewards earned. The Platinum level requires $25,000 in deposits, investments, or credit balances including mortgages and home equity loans to avoid a monthly fee. But if you already bank or have a mortgage with them, the rewards bonus may be better than the 1% APY you’d get on your money somewhere else.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 36 Comments »
Friday, August 31st, 2012
My favorite travel rewards card for many years has been the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express. The reason is the combination of flexibility and value. This is the only annual fee card that I’ve kept consistently over the last 5+ years. Why?
- When redeeming towards hotel stays, you can get 2-6 cents of value per point, more than often the value you’d get from airline miles/
- Rather have miles? You can convert 20,000 points to 25,000 miles, which is 1.25 miles per dollar spent, 25% more than most other airline-specific cards.
- You can “top off” a variety of frequent flier accounts to get to that coveted reward ticket level. Your miles aren’t worth anything until you actually use them!
- You can convert just a few miles to keep your other miles from expiring.
Current Sign-up Bonus For New Accounts
American Express has been bumping up the sign-up incentive for the Starwood card once a year recently, so now is a good time to apply if you don’t already have the card. They are giving out up to 25,000 bonus Starpoints – 10,000 bonus Starpoints with your first purchase and another 15,000 points when you spend $5,000 within 6 months. The required spending in the past has been as high as $15,000, and the total bonus has been as low as 10,000 Starpoints. The annual fee is waived during the first year, then $65 a year after that.
(Note: If you don’t see the 25k offer, try clearing your cookies or using the Private Browsing / Incognito Mode of your web browser. Try right-clicking on the link to find this option.)
Either I’ve had one, or my wife has had one, or I’ve had the business card version of this card for the last 5+ years. Transferring points within between household members is quite easy and free. The Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express also has a similar offer good for another 25,000 bonus points – 10,000 after your first purchase and an additional 15,000 when you spend $5,000 within the first 6 months – enough for up to 6 free nights at a Category 1 or 2 hotel. Annual fee waived for the first year.
Starwood Points Convert Easily to Frequent Flier Miles
The first reason why this card is so useful is that Starwood points (or Starpoints) can be converted to miles to major domestic airlines and several international ones, including Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, United, and US Airways (full airline partner list). That means 1 Starwood point = 1 frequent flier mile. The ratio is lower (2:1) for United.
Imagine that you’re only a thousand miles short of a free ticket, but you need to buy a ticket and would really like to make it free. Although there may be other options that involve spending money, you can simply “top off” your balance by transferring as little as 1,500 miles to the specific airline programs that you want. You can even convert a specific number of points. Just need 2,854 miles here and 1,567 somewhere else? No problem.
With most airlines, your miles expire after a period of inactivity. But since any activity counts (not only flying), I could quickly transfer 1,500 miles over in order to save 20,000 hard-earned miles from expiring.
For every 20,000 points you convert, you get an additional 5,000 point bonus. So 20,000 Starwood points = 25,000 miles on the airlines listed above. That’s 25% more miles per dollar than those airline-specific credit cards (although the waived baggage fees are appealing).
Great Hotel Rewards Card
Starwood is a growing collection of over 1,000 mid-scale to very-upscale hotels in nearly 100 countries, from the business-oriented Four Points and Sheratons to the upscale W and Westin hotels. This card has come in very handy for travel to international and bigger US cities.
Short-notice and emergency stays. All room taxes are included when you use points, and there are no blackout dates unlike other hotel programs. I’ve used them in a pinch, burning just 3,000 points for a last-minute $120 a night room at the Vancouver Airport Four Points (Category 2).
Luxury international hotels. I’m usually happy with a Holiday Inn Express by the airport for a business trip, but when traveling for leisure it can be very convenient to stay downtown near the action and sights. In a city like Paris or Rome, this can mean big bucks. With this card, I’ve stayed at $300 a night hotels like the W New York, Westin Madrid, and Westin Venice. Being able to stay up late into the night in Venice instead of having to leave was amazing. If you redeem for 4 nights in a row in a Category 3 or higher hotel, the 5th night is free.
Cash and points option. If you want the best value for your points, don’t miss “cash and points” opportunities. For example, I found a $400 room at the Westin Rome in Italy or W Hotel New York Times Square for 8,000 points + $150 a night. Run the numbers yourself using the booking engine at SPG.com and look for the “SPG Cash & Points” option. The value of 30,000 points can be easily greater than $500.
Finally, as a baseline 9,500 Starpoints = $100 gift card at Amazon.com.
Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express application link
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
Posted in Credit Cards, Frugal Living | 71 Comments »
Saturday, August 25th, 2012
The Virgin America Visa® Signature Card is currently running a limited-time bonus of 20,000 Elevate points after your first purchase of any amount (ends August 31st). I haven’t flown Virgin America before, but they are an airline similar to JetBlue and Southwest in that they are trying to offer very low fares within their specific network of airports. Their frequent flier program uses something called “Elevate Points” where you can book any flight using points blackout dates using variable pricing. So the question is, what can 20,000 Virgin America points get me? More than I thought, actually.
Let’s take the short flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas. A quick search shows me that I could buy a SFO-LAS roundtrip in October for $137.60. If I choose to price out the exact same trip with Elevate points, I see that it costs 5,396 points and a $5 security fee:
In this case, 20,000 points would nearly equate to 4 such short roundtrips. At such a conversion rate, 20,000 bonus points would be worth $491 in Virgin America airfare (2.5 cents per point). What about a long-haul flight? How about a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to New York City:
Here, the LAX-JFK flight came out to either $297.60 or 12,838 points + $5 security fee. This time, 20,000 points would work out to $455 in Virgin America airfare (2.3 cents per point). A similar query for LA to Washington DC yielded similar results. Given that this card does have an annual fee of $49, the net value of the bonus is up in the $400 range, making this a pretty good bonus if you take such flights. In addition, every year (including the first year) you get a discount code good for $150 off a companion ticket.
The rewards system for purchases is 3 points per $1 on Virgin America purchases and 1 point per $1 spent everywhere else. If it were me, I’d manage my spending on this card carefully to earn just enough points to use up all those bonus points. Finally, this card is issued by Barclaycard, which means it should be easier to get approved as compared to Citi or Chase if you’re like me and already have a bunch of cards from the major issuers.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 11 Comments »
Monday, August 20th, 2012
The Chase Sapphire Preferred(SM) Card is a rewards credit card that has upped their sign-up bonus to new cardholders to 40,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. This is quite a good deal, as 40,000 points can be redeemed for $400 cash (real money, via statement credit or check) or two airplane tickets worth up to $250 each ($500 total value). You can buy a more expensive ticket and simply pay the difference. No annual fee for the first year, $95 in future years.
Rewards Program Summary
Points under the Chase Sapphire program are pretty flexible. There are also no earning caps or expiration dates. You also earn a 7% “dividend” on your earned points each year, even if you already redeemed them. I guess this is their way of encouraging you to keep your card, so you don’t waste the “interest”.
Simple cash back. As a rewards card, the Sapphire offers 1 point for every dollar in purchases (100 points = $1, or the usual 1% back). Earn 2 points per dollar spent on dining & Travel! Cash redemptions are easy – you can redeem in $1 increments as long as above $20, so you could cash out $27 or $253 without anything left over.
Points redeemed towards travel are worth 25% more, and easy to use. As noted above, hotel room or airplane ticket redemptions can also be maximized because you can book wherever you want and simply pay the difference. For example, 25,000 points can be used for any ticket up to $312.50, but if say you wanted a $325 ticket you could just pay the $12.50 difference. You’re able to use every last point on this program. On other cards, you would have to go up another tier and spend an extra 10,000 point chunk.
Transfer to airline miles. If you prefer, you can also transfer to British Airways, United Airlines (Continental), Hyatt Hotels, Marriott Hotels, and Amtrak. 1 Sapphire point = 1 mile/hotel point for these transfers.
Ultimate Rewards points are instantly transferrable to other accounts like family members, so you can pool points for trips and such.
More Details
In addition, this card has no foreign transaction fees, making it handy for travel. Chase Sapphire cards also promote a “premium, dedicated service line that gives you access to a live person anytime, 24/7.” I tested this out and it really works! A real person picks up after a couple rings, no phone trees or typing those darn 16 digits over and over. You can use this feature to redeem cash rewards over the phone for free, although booking rewards tickets over the phone costs $20 (doing so online is free).
If you have any issues with approval, call the Chase credit reconsideration line at 1-888-245-0625. Ask them politely for the exact reason why you were denied, and offer to cancel and/or lower your existing credit lines in order to get the new card you want. You should be offered some way to get approved, I have heard many success stories. They want your business.
I’ve gotten the bonus for this card already, and also combined it with the Chase Ink Bold business card which got me another 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Finally, this thing is heavy! It fees like a thin piece of aluminum or other metal sandwiched between plastic. Completing the unique look is the fact that no raised numbers are on the front.
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 94 Comments »
Friday, August 3rd, 2012
Chase has announced a new small biz credit card, called the Ink Plus® Business Card. It turns out to be very similar to the Chase Ink Bold Business card (full review), but with the important difference that the Ink Plus is a credit card where you can carry a balance and the Bold is a charge card that you must pay in full each month. The current APR for both purchases and balance transfers is 13.24%.
The good news is that the Ink Plus also has the same big sign-up bonus, offering 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after your after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open. You can read about my Ink Bold bonus experience here.
To briefly recap, Ultimate Rewards points are very flexible:
- Cash. 1 point = 1 cent in cash, so 50,000 points = $500 cash.
- Travel. 1 point = 1.25 cents towards travel, so 50,000 points = $625 towards travel at the same prices at Expedia or Travelocity (no markups), split up however you like into multiple tickets, down to the penny.
- Frequent flier miles and hotel rewards points. Transfers directly to United miles, British Airways miles, Hyatt hotel points, and Marriott hotel points.
The card also has the following same Ink Bold features:
- Earn 5X points per dollar on purchases made at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV service on the first $50,000 spent annually.
- Earn 2X points per dollar on purchases made at gas stations and hotels (booked directly with the hotel) on the first $50,000 spent annually.
- No foreign transaction fee.
- Annual fee waived for the first year, $95 after that.
I noticed that you can buy Amazon.com gift cards at Staples and OfficeMax and get the 5x points, effectively discounting them 5% in cash (6.25% in travel), which may also help you with the spending requirement. Based on past experiences, you should be able to get this card and bonus in addition to the Ink Bold card as they are different cards. I already have the Chase Sapphire Preferred personal card and the Ink Bold card, so I’ll probably wait for a bit during my no-annual-fee first year and then try out this new card as well for my business.
Many people aren’t aware of the fact that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. The business type is called a sole proprietorship, and you may be a consultant, freelancer, or other one-person business. This is the simplest business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. On a business credit card application, you should use your own legal name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID.
Chase Ink Plus® Business Card application link
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, July 25th, 2012
Citi and Hilton hotels just launched their new Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card, which is their new premium card with a sign-up bonus of 2 free weekend night certificates with no category restrictions, after making $2,500 in eligible purchases within 4 months of account opening. There hasn’t been a big promo from Citi in a while, so this is nice to see as due to the potential value of $500+ (see below).
There are some other features as well:
- No foreign transaction fees on purchases.*
- Free HHonors Gold status(2nd highest) as long as you are a cardmember. This includes free high-speed internet access, free breakfast, and complimentary room upgrades based on availability. You can reach the highest HHonors Diamond status if you make $40,000 or more in eligible purchases in a calendar year.
- Earn 2 weekend night certificates good at select hotels and resorts within the Hilton HHonors portfolio after $2,500 in eligible purchases within 4 months of account opening*
- $95 annual fee.
- Earn 10 HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent on hotel stays within the Hilton HHonors portfolio*
- Earn 5 HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent on airline and car rental purchases*
- Earn 3 HHonors Bonus Points per $1 spent on all other eligible purchases*
- Travel with ease and enjoy global acceptance with your Citi chip credit card.
- Earn an anniversary bonus of 1 weekend night certificate at select hotels and resorts within the Hilton HHonors portfolio each cardmembership year with qualifying purchases*
Two free weekend nights at category 1-7 hotels including Conrad and select Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts can easily be worth $250+ per night, or $500+ total value. Booking the same nights using rewards points would cost 100,000-120,000 HHonors points. Room taxes are included with the certificates. Possibilities:
In the end, this is an attractive offer for casual travelers and want to stay in a really fancy hotel but you can’t imagine paying $300 a night. Alternatively, this card is good for constant travelers where Hilton is your hotel chain of choice. As noted there is a $95 annual fee, but compare with the perks and the $500+ value of two free nights. For future years, if you spend $10,000 in a year the free weekend night that should make it worth it to renew as well.
If you like this deal, also check out the Hyatt credit card issued by Chase if you haven’t got it already. Different issuing banks make it easier to get approved for multiple cards. 
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