Archives for February 2006

My $10,000 balance transfer from my Discover Miles Card was safely converted to cash and is now sitting in HSBC earning 4.80% interest. I also made one purchase to get the free 5,000 Miles. I’m happy to say that it all went smoothly. No balance transfers fee were charged, and the 0% APR indeed covered both balance transfers and my purchases as promised, so no interest was charged. I even got my 5,000 bonus Miles immediately after the first statement cycle closed. It’s nice not to have to badger a company for a bonus.

I also received their rewards catalog for their ‘Miles’ redemptions. Ugh, the selection is bad. Converting back to cash-back, it was in the neighborhood of .6-1% back. I can do so much better with my current 2-5% cashback cards. Still, I’m not wasting these points!

As with many credit cards with Points or pseudo-Miles programs, their rewards are supposed to entice you to redeem your points for something you like but don’t realize how poor the value is. Example: 20 GB iPod for 47,000 Miles. Even a 30 GB iPod is only $299 at Apple.com. Even with a simple 1% cashback card, you’d get $470 back – enough for the bigger iPod + $170 in your pocket. To top it off, their gift card selection is funky in that they only offer specific denominations for each store.

Stil, I have 5,028 points to burn. I made an Excel spreadsheet of the rewards I could actually see myself getting. (4,700 points for a football? No thanks.) I also computed the cents/Mile to measure value.

The $100 Airline Credit was my initial goal, but you have to use their travel agent and book 21 days in advance. If they book Southwest, maybe. $100 at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse would be neat since I’ve never eaten there, but I’d need to charge another $7,700 on this card to get there.

Hmmm… Should I just take the $25 cash even though the value sucks? Or get the movie tickets? Right now I’m leaning toward the $50 Old Navy card, even though I haven’t shopped there in years.