Archive for the 'Deals & Offers' Category
Monday, February 6th, 2012
New, improved offer! The New Slate® from Chase – No Balance Transfer is now available with 0% APR on both balance transfers and purchases for 15 months, and the best part: NO balance transfer fee! There are different flavors of this card, but you should see it mentioned right at the top of this specific offer link. You can literally borrow money for free and pay it back in 15 months with no interest (keeping in mind you’ll still need to satisfy the minimum payment each month until then). No annual fee.
This is a limited time offer, and very rare these days to find a no balance transfer fee 0% APR offer that is available to all (as opposed to being targeted only to specific customers). You can verify in the Pricing & Terms section of the application, down in the Fees box:
None on transfers made within 30 days of account opening. All other transfers: Either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater.
Make sure you initiate that balance transfer within the first 30 days.
Lower your interest on balances!
This is a great opportunity for those people with good to excellent credit but are still working hard to lower their debt payments with no fees at all, as now you can have all your money applied directly into cutting down your principal instead of having it go towards interest. That way, your balance owed will go down that much faster.
Chase Blueprint is a free feature on select cards that lets you break down your balances into things that you want to pay in full each month and bigger purchases that you wish to pay off over time.
Earn interest with the money?
It’s been a while since I did any sort of credit card arbitrage, but you can still get some pretty high rates with certain rewards checking accounts. For example, Consumer’s Credit Union has their Free Rewards Checking account paying 4.09% APY interest on balances up to $10,000 if you make 12 debit card purchases + one billpay per month. The rate is even guaranteed at least through June 30, 2012. You can join with a $5 one-time fee, even integrated into their online application:
All credit unions have a common bond and their members need to be associated with it in order to join the credit union. At Consumers Credit Union (CCU), our common bond is the Consumers Cooperative Association (CCA). You join CCA by paying a one-time fee of $5.00.
Another good option is U.S. Savings Bonds. Series I bonds bought right now will earn 3.06% for the first six months, and then an unknown rate based on ongoing inflation after that. Even with zero inflation, it will still earn more than any 1-year bank CD… and I really don’t see zero inflation.
If you wish to get cash from this balance transfer offer without it being classified as a “cash advance”, one idea is to ask for the balance transfer as a check or electronically transferred to your bank account. You may need to call them for this. Another option is to request money to be transferred to other non-Chase credit cards that you have, ideally already with a balance on them. This will create a negative balance, after which you request a refund check be sent to you. I know that Citibank had a feature on their site to request a credit balance refund, which only showed up when you have a negative balance.
New Slate® from Chase – No Balance Transfer application link
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 17 Comments »
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
I love Dropbox. I like that it’s a real folder on my computer that is also invisibly synchronized and backed up in the cloud. The best part is that usually I forget it’s even there. Other online storage apps like Box.net or SkyDrive don’t work nearly as seamlessly for me.
The Dropbox free version offers up 2 GB of storage free to start, which you can increase to nearly 20 GB with various tasks. It may not be big enough for a full backup, but plenty for my important files. Check out this Lifehacker guide that details all the possibilities. You get 250 MB free by signing up under a referral link, and I get 250 GB extra too. I’ve only gotten 3 referrals up until now, but with other stuff was already at 4.5 GB free.
Today Lifehacker adds that right now if you install their new Beta version which lets you automatically back up photos and videos from your cameras/phones when connected to your computer, Dropbox will give you even more space – for every 500 MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you’ll receive another 500 MB of space permanently, up to 4.5 GB total. I synced up the photos from my iPhone and already have another free gig and counting. Sweet.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 9 Comments »
Monday, January 30th, 2012
Interest rates looks to remain tiny for a long time, so if you want to boost your interest earned while keeping your money safe in banks, taking advantage of sign-up bonuses is one way to do it. Earning 1% APY on $10,000 is just $100 a year, and it’s even hard to get 1% APY now! Why not double or triple that with some new accounts.
Citibank $50 bonus if you open a Citibank account with $1,000 and complete 1 direct deposit and 1 electronic bill payment for 2 consecutive months. New checking account customers only. There’s no monthly service fee if you maintain a $15,000 combined average monthly balance requirement in eligible products; otherwise $20.00 monthly service fee is applied. Eligible products are linked deposits, loans, mortgages, and investment accounts. $100 bonus available with Citigold account.
Chase Bank $150 bonus when you open a Chase Total Checking account and set up direct deposit (new Chase checking customers only). This account is free if you make a $500+ direct deposit each month, or have $1,500 minimum daily balance.
M&T Bank $100 bonus when you open a MyChoice checking account and set up direct deposit within 90 days. This account is free if you maintain a direct deposit each month or have $500 minimum daily balance. $125 and $150 bonuses also available with upgraded accounts (and higher requirements).
Capital One $100 bonus when you open a Interest Online Checking account by 1/31/2012 using offer code CHEC168DF and make a direct deposit of $250 or more within 90 days. No monthly service fee, and pays 0.75% APY on balances less than $100k.
Posted in Banking, Deals & Offers | 14 Comments »
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
If you’ve been thinking about a 0% balance transfer, here is some news that may help you make your decisions. This is the best info that I have, you can judge me on the accuracy in the future. 
As of right now both the Citi Platinum Select Mastercard and the Citi Diamond Preferred Mastercard have a 0% APR on balance transfers for 18 months and on purchases for 18 months. Balance transfer fee is 3% with a $5 minimum. No annual fee.
In addition, the Discover More Card – No Balance Transfer Fee has 0% APR for 12 months but with no balance transfer fee. No annual fee. My unofficial sources tell me that this will be extended for the rest of February, but after that it will likely end. This matches historical patterns that this is a limited-time post-holiday promotion. More details on the promo here.
As always, these cards should be used as a tool to lower the interest rate on your existing debt to accelerate payoff. If you can pay it off in the proper timeframe, some people have paid off their student loans. Consumer debt is kryptonite to financial freedom.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Clover is a new person-to-person payment system for use between phone numbers. Simple fees (none for personal use), simple interface. If you sign-up via invite from a registered user, you’ll get a $5 bonus (I actually got a $5 Amazon GC + $1 credit, but the link just says $5). The referrer gets $5 too. You don’t even need a credit card or bank account to start, just a phone number (landline numbers work, but it’s optimized for Android and iPhone/iPod Touch users).
I am out of invites, so please randomly choose from one of the links in the comments which are provided by fellow readers.
After you join, go ahead and leave your own referral link in the comments. I have to approve the comments though, so please be patient as it may take a while to show up.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 96 Comments »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
LivingSocial is offering $20 to spend at The Body Shop for $10. Valid in-store only. Valid toward sale and promotional items. Over 65,000 purchased already. Psst guys… Valentine’s Day is less than 3 weeks away 
p.s. Groupon has $6 movie tickets to romantic comedy flick “One For The Money”
Posted in Deals & Offers | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Some of you may not like the idea of trying out a new credit card with an annual fee and possibly having to cancel the card later (even if comes with a big sign-up bonus!), though the effect on your credit score is a lot less than many media articles would lead you to believe. Here are a couple of cards with $100 sign-up bonuses and minimal requirements (indeed, they would have been rock stars in 2008 and 2009) – but are also everyday “keeper” cards with no annual fee. I’ve had both of them for years.
Chase Freedom Visa – $100 Bonus
- $100 bonus cash back after spending just $500 in first 3 months.
- Earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 spend on rotating categories each quarter. 2nd quarter 2012 categories are Grocery Stores and Movie Theaters.
- Earn 1% cash back on everything else. There is no limit on the 1% cash back.
- Instead of cash, you can also redeem points at Ultimate Rewards site.
- No annual fee.
Citi Dividend Platinum Select Visa Card
- $100 bonus cash back after spending just $500 in first 3 months.
- Earn 5% cash back on rotating categories each quarter. 2nd quarter 2012 categories are Home Depot and Home Furnishing and Home & Garden purchases.
- Earn 1% cash back on everything else. There is no limit on the 5% categories, but instead there is an overall limit of $300 total cash back.
- No annual fee.
Which one is better?
Both offer a $100 bonus after spending $500 on the card for anything (40% back). Both offer 5% back on select categories, and the good thing is you can benefit from having both cards since their categories often don’t overlap. Both require you to “activate” the 5% online each quarter, which is a bit annoying but only takes a minute. Both cap their rewards at similar levels (5% of $1,500 is $75 per quarter = $300 per year). Both have no tiers on their 1% back on everything else. The Chase Freedom has no expiration of rewards as long as the account is open, whereas the Citi Dividend rewards do not expire as long as you have activity once every 12 months. Last I checked, the minimum redemption amount was $20 for Chase, $50 for Citi. Overall, they are both very similar in my opinion.
However… in my credit card survey a few weeks ago with over 3,000 reader responses, there was an open-ended question asking which card was the “best credit card on the market today”. The #1 most popular answer was the Chase Freedom card, beating out everyone including travel cards. Where was the Citi Dividend card? Not even in the top 20. The people have spoken, but I’m really not sure why! Better commercials?
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 31 Comments »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
I’m a little late on this one, but check it out you live in the New York City metro area or will be there in February. American Express has another promotion where if you spend $200+ at 2 or more participating merchants on a registered AmEx from February 1–29, 2012 then you will get a $50 statement credit. Register at amexnetwork.com/getmore. In-store purchases only. Registration is limited!
For the best value, note that Costco is a participating merchant. Keep in mind, you’ll have to visit two of them, but given all they sell there (stamps, gift cards, toilet paper) you shouldn’t have a hard time saving $50 off on $200 of stuff you would have spent anyway. Screenshot:
Posted in Deals & Offers | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
(Update: That was quick, looks like they are sold out. Perhaps they will replenish later.)
If you have some American Express Membership Rewards points lying around, perhaps from the American Express Platinum or the AmEx Rewards Premier Gold, then is for you. Reader David reports that right now you can get a $25 Gap gift card for 1,250 points when you redeem by January 29, 2012, which is 50% less than the normal exchange rate for gift cards ($25 = 2500 points). Supplies are limited.
Even if you don’t like Gap clothes, PlasticJungle.com and others from my gift card sellback website comparison will give you up to $83 for a $100 Gap gift card. That works out to a value of 1.66 cents per point (10,000 points = $166), which is much better than any other direct cash-out option, although some people may be able to get better value by redeeming airline miles for award flights.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 4 Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
If you have a Hilton HHonors number, a cell phone that accepts text messages, and a Visa card, you can register at visa.com/hiltonhonors to receive promotion text messages and get 1,000 HHonor bonus points. You can earn another 4,000 points if you spend $100 on your linked Visa card at any Hilton-affiliated hotel by June 30, 2012. You can opt out from messages later on with a reply text of “STOP”.
By the way, if you have a smartphone you can also score additional free points from Hilton and other points programs by “checking in” using the Foursquare app (or Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) when you register with TopGuest. You can get 50 Hilton points every day you check in at a Hilton hotel, for example. You only need to be within 10 miles of the hotel to check in the first time, and in future times I don’t think you need to be nearby at all.
Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Deals & Offers | 9 Comments »
Friday, January 20th, 2012
Looking back, 2011 was a great year for credit card sign-up incentives. The major issuers rolled out some new cards and features and offered up big bonuses to get you to try them out. By picking up the tastiest offers, you could have reaped thousands of dollars in bonuses even with average incomes and without spending more than normal. If you have good to excellent credit, why not earn some money with it? Here’s what Mrs. MMB and I decided to jump on last year:
Chase Sapphire Preferred: $400 cash or $500 in travel
The Chase Sapphire Preferred(SM) Card gives you 40,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. With this new card, Chase is basically trying to make a premium card that competes with American Express, with their Ultimate Rewards rivaling Membership Rewards. (It’s metal and heavy, too!) For example, you can now transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Continental/United, Southwest, British Airways, Hyatt, and Marriott. This the same system the Chase Freedom card uses now as well.
But my favorite features are the cash options and the 25% bonus towards travel. 10,000 points = $100 cash = $125 towards travel at no markup (same price as Expedia, Travelocity, etc). You can mix points and cash however you like, which means 40k points = $500 towards any airfare or hotel nights. No annual fee the first year, $95 after that. For more details, please see my Chase Sapphire Preferred review post.
Chase Ink Bold: $500 cash or $625 in travel
The small business version of the Chase Sapphire, this card also offers a huge sign-up bonus. The Chase Ink Bold with Ultimate Rewards gives you up to 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points – 25,000 after your first purchase and 25,000 after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open. For more details, please see my Chase Ink Bold review post, including details on what constitutes a small business.
Citi ThankYou Premier: $500 in gift card or $665 in airfare
The Citi ThankYou Premier Card is another travel-oriented premium credit card gives you 50,000 ThankYou points after spending $2,500 within 3 months of account opening. The special feature here is that it offers you a 33% premium on when used towards travel. That means those 50,000 ThankYou points can be redeemed for $665 in airfare. They also have their own airfare portal with the same prices as Expedia, and you can also mix and match cash and points if you don’t have enough points to pay for the entire amount. For more details, please see my Citi ThankYou Premier review post. (Now expired)
Delta Airlines – Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card: 30,000 miles + $99 Companion voucher
The Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card is not a great deal for everyone, but it works out very well for us. (It’s actually our second card, I had one previously.) My wife and I both fly cross-country together to a city primarily served by Delta at least once a year to visit the parents. The sign-up incentive is pretty good – 30,000 Skymiles after just $500 in purchases within 3 months.
More importantly, the card comes with a buy-one-get-one-for-$99 companion voucher that saved us $250+ this year since it’s usually during a holiday. We’ve used this voucher before, and the prices are comparable to online travel engines, but you do get stuck with the taxes of $50 or so. The annual fee is free the first year, and $95 after that. You also get a free checked bag on every flight for you and up to 8 travel companions (so one card gets us two free bags as a couple, a $25 value per person each roundtrip). The total one-year value of this card is at least $600 if value a mile at a penny.
Grand total: $625 + $625 + $665 + $600 = $2,515
That’s just for four cards from three different issuers, which is far less than the most cards I’ve applied for in a year on my own. This means a couple could make over $5,000, which is 10% of the 2009 US median household income of $50,221 per US Census. As for us, we plan on making good use of this money to cover future airfare and hotel expenses. This total also does not include any earnings from cash-back rewards credit cards.
If we include the Chase Ink Bold, the required spending total was $11,000. Exclude the Ink Bold, and it goes down to $6,000, which if you use time-shifting techniques like pre-paying bills such as insurance/utilities or buying gift cards for groceries/gas, works out to a reasonable $500 per month. That’s well within our normal spending anyway.
Honorable mentions go out to three other cards:
- The Chase British Airways 100,000 miles offer came back in 2011 (now expired), but both my wife and I already jumped on it previously and have already used it for a luxurious business-class trip around Europe.
- The Southwest Airlines card offered up 50,000 points (also expired) which was good for over $800 in Wanna Get Away airfare after just one purchase of any amount. The current offer is 25,000 points for a still-respectable $416 in airfare. We don’t fly Southwest all that often, so we passed on this card this year.
- The Hyatt Card offers two free nights at any Hyatt in the world after any first purchase, which includes some rather swank hotels. There is a $75 annual fee. My sister got this card and we were pretty close to applying, but we wanted to hold off until we had firm travel plans since I believe you have a certain time to redeem.
My psychic powers tell me that some of you are wondering about this , so here’s the answer: How Opening and Closing Credit Card Accounts Affects Your Credit Score.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 31 Comments »
Friday, December 30th, 2011
Daily deals site KGBDeals has a national deal of 4 Fandango.com movie tickets for $24. Each ticket has a maximum value of $12 (total $48). Deal is scheduled to run through the New Year’s weekend, over 7,000 sold so far. If you use eBates ($10 new user bonus) or Mr. Rebates ($5 new user bonus), can get some additional cash back.
Fandango codes will not be available until promotion end date on January 3rd, 2012. Valid until February 12, 2012. Both tickets must be purchased together in the same transaction for the same movie and showtime. This offer may be applied to IMAX or 3D tickets, up to maximum per-ticket code value.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 9 Comments »
