Archives for December 2024

Navy Federal CU New Member Bonus: Additional $300 w/ New Credit Card

Posted on December 9, 2024 // 5 Comments

Navy Federal Credit Union has a new “Join and Get $300” promotion for new members. Join as a new Navy Federal member by 12/31/2024 and you can get an additional $300 statement credit when you open a new Navy Federal credit card within 14 days of joining. As with most credit unions, you’ll need to open a Share Savings account and keep $5 in there. Additional selected fine print:

1 Offer valid November 1 – December 31, 2024 and can expire anytime without prior notice. To receive the one-time $300 statement credit to your credit card account, you must 1) be 18 or older and eligible for membership, 2) join Navy Federal between 11/1/2024 and 12/31/2024, and 3) open a new unsecured Navy Federal credit card account within 14 days of joining. Offer excludes Navy Federal Business, Home Equity Line Platinum, and nRewards® Secured credit cards. […] Limit one (1) statement credit per member. […] Statement credit will be credited to your account within 8 weeks of credit card account opening.

Navy Federal membership is open to members of the Coast Guard, all Department of Defense (DoD) uniformed personnel, reservists, Active Duty, retired, Veterans, Army and Air National Guard, DoD civilian employees, contractors, and their immediate family. In 2019, they expanded membership to include veterans and their immediate family members including grandparents through grandchildren. If you call them, they will help you look up information on veterans in your family.

This could stack up to be a pretty significant bonus, as the first-year value for these two card bonuses are already $400+ on their own.

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

Frontier Airlines Mastercard Review: Up to 100,000 Miles, Elite Gold Status, Free Checked Baggage

Posted on December 8, 2024 // 4 Comments

New increased offer (up to 100k total). The Frontier Airlines World Mastercard is a niche co-branded card from Barclays, but if you do fly on Frontier regularly, it actually offers some good perks on a relative basis. Many strict, barebones airlines are starting to trickle back some perks to win back customers and Frontier is no exception. For Frontier, it appears that this credit card is a major gateway to these little wins like actually getting to bring on a carry-on or not having to pay a fee to redeem your miles. (I’ve never flown Frontier before, but I’m assuming they must be cheap for you to put up with this stuff!)

  • The standard offer is for 50,000 bonus miles plus a $100 flight voucher after spending $500 on purchases and paying the annual fee in full, both within the first 90 days of account opening.
  • Right now, if you visit this page, you can see how to get an extra 50,000 bonus miles if you are the primary cardmember of a cobranded credit card with another US Domestic Airline, complete verification, and complete an additional application form. You must also spend $3,000 within 180 days of account opening to earn the additional 50,000 miles. That would give you a total of 100,000 Frontier miles. Looks like you must apply by January 31, 2025.

Here are the other highlights of the card :

  • Two Free Checked Bags for primary cardmember. Must purchase flight at FlyFrontier.com using this card. Includes ski/golf bag.
  • Elite Gold Status. Get it upfront for 90 days with account opening and first purchase with your card within the first 90 days of account opening. To keep it, you must spend $3,000 within the first 90 days of account opening. Status will be good for 12 months from the day the account was opened.
  • Pooling of miles between friends and family members is allowed with this card.
  • Zone 2 Priority Boarding for primary cardmember.
  • Award Redemption Fee Waiver
  • 5X miles on eligible purchases at flyfrontier.com.
  • 3X miles on eligible restaurant purchases.
  • 1X miles on all other purchases.
  • 1 Elite Status Point for every $1 spent on purchases.
  • $100 Frontier Airlines Flight Voucher after your Account anniversary when you have spent $2,500 or more in Net Purchases on your Card Account during your cardmembership year (each 12-month period through and including your Card Account anniversary date).
  • $0 annual fee for the first year, then $99.

Elite Gold Status gets you the following benefits:

  • Free carry-on bag for yourself
  • No change/cancel fees* (+7 days from departure)
  • Preferred Seat Assignment at Booking
  • Premium Seating at Check-in (based on availability)
  • Priority Customer Care (both live phone and online chat)
  • Priority Boarding: Zone 1 for you, Zone for 2 everyone in your booking.
  • Family Pooling

Redeeming Frontier miles. They advertise that 50,000 miles can be redeem for “up to 2 round-trip award tickets”, which is technically true but that is for their most limited “value” awards. They also have “standard” awards and “last seat” awards (available to elites only). You will also be subject to taxes and fees starting a $5.60 per one-way. Here is their award chart:

The good news is that this card does give you an easy pathway toward Elite Gold status for the first year and that lets you nab any unsold seat on the plane. But that also means that 50,000 miles might only be worth a single roundtrip award ticket.

You also avoid the award redemption fee with this credit card. Otherwise, they charge an award redemption fee of between $15 and $75 for all award tickets departing within 180 days of booking.

I’ve seen outside valuations place the value of a Frontier mile at about 1.1 cent each. After pricing out some Frontier flights, that sounds about right, although it will definitely vary based on your route. The cheaper, shorter flights are easier to find a “saver” award, while their most convenient, longer routes you should expect to use the “standard” or “last seat” awards. I’d also only agree with this valuation if I had this credit card to ease the hassles.

Two free checked bags are a new feature that was announced 8/15/24 (hat tip to DoC). Here is the fine print:

Tickets must be purchased from FlyFrontier.com or the Frontier Airlines mobile app

· There is no limit to how many times you can use this benefit

· Free checked bag benefit includes golf and ski equipment

· Primary cardmembers must use their FRONTIER Airlines World Mastercard at booking to unlock the free checked bag benefit

Due to the limited footprint of Frontier, I’m not sure if I will add this to my Top 10 Best Credit Card Bonus Offers.

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

Warren Buffett Memo on Estate Planning and Charitable Giving

Posted on December 5, 2024 // 2 Comments

Warren Buffett is known for his annual Letters to Shareholders, but last week he also made some extended comments inside a Berkshire Hathaway news release about to his charitable giving and estate planning. As with most of his writing, it is concise and direct, and thus worth reading the original. Here are a few of my takeaways after reading the “mini-letter”.

Many who diligently save and invest will achieve “runaway” wealth, especially those that live a long time. This includes a lot of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, and many of them choose to give the excess back to society instead of keeping it in the family.

Things didn’t look great when I arrived at the beginning of The Great Depression. But the real action from compounding takes place in the final twenty years of a lifetime. By not stepping on any banana peels, I now remain in circulation at 94 with huge sums in savings – call these units of deferred consumption – that can be passed along to others who were given a very short straw at birth.

It also has been a particular pleasure to me that so many early Berkshire shareholders have independently arrived at a similar view. They have saved – lived well – taken good care of their families – and by extended compounding of their savings passed along large, sometimes huge, sums back into society. Their “claim checks” are being widely distributed to others less lucky.

Regarding wealthy parents and how much to give their children.

These bequests reflected our belief that hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing.

Regarding ALL parents and leaving stuff to their children. Talk to them while you are still alive!

I have one further suggestion for all parents, whether they are of modest or staggering wealth. When your children are mature, have them read your will before you sign it.

Be sure each child understands both the logic for your decisions and the responsibilities they will encounter upon your death. If any have questions or suggestions, listen carefully and adopt those found sensible. You don’t want your children asking “Why?” in respect to testamentary decisions when you are no longer able to respond.

The overall plan is that he is leaving his BRK shares to family foundations, whereupon his three children will be responsible for overlooking their disbursement. Buffett always believed in a “circle of competence”, which means that just because you are good at one thing, that doesn’t mean you are good at everything… Apparently, his circle doesn’t include dealing with the world of charitable grants. His children have agreed to take on this important responsibility, and all three have to agree unanimously for a grant to occur.

Passing on family values, not just money.

Instead, we shared a view that equal opportunity should begin at birth and extreme “look-at-me” styles of living should be legal but not admirable. As a family, we have had everything we needed or simply liked, but we have not sought enjoyment from the fact that others craved what we had.

Filed Under: Family, Giving Back //

Target: 10% Off Gift Cards on 12/7 and 12/8 Only (Up to $50 off $500)

Posted on December 4, 2024 // 5 Comments

Deal will be back 12/7 and 12/8. In what has become an annual recurrence, Target Circle is offering 10% off up to $500 in Target Gift Cards ($50 potential max savings) on Saturday, December 7th and Sunday, December 8th only (2024 press release). Offer available both in-store and online. Before you buy the gift cards, you must activate the offer in your Target Circle account first online or in the Target app. (This is how they prevent people from buying a million gift cards in separate transactions.) Remember to buy all your gifts cards in a single transaction.

  • The offer is available exclusively for members of Target Circle, their free-to-join loyalty program.
  • Target GiftCards can be purchased online or in store
  • New this year, the discount will be automatically applied to Target GiftCards at checkout for Target Circle members.
  • Make sure to use your Target profile (app or online) to make the purchase or enter your phone number at checkout in-stores.
  • Consumers can purchase up to $500 in Target GiftCards to maximize their savings.
  • Target GiftCards never expire, so shoppers who have checked off their holiday lists can still gift the cards to themselves for future use.

5% cash back stacking on top of 10% discount. A reminder that the 5% Target REDcard discount does not apply to gift card purchases, so you should use another rewards credit card. You may wish to use your Discover card as it offers 5% cash back at Target this quarter.

Alternatively, you can also pay for your order with PayPal linked to a Chase Freedom Flex card, as it is offering 5% cash back on PayPal this quarter.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Vanguard Announces New Treasury Bill ETFs: New Best Cash Alternative?

Posted on December 3, 2024 // 3 Comments

Vanguard recently released an announcement that in “First Quarter 2025” they will be releasing two new index ETFs that both hold short-term US Treasury Bonds:

  • Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF (VBIL). Holds Treasuries with maturities of 3 months or less. Estimated expense ratio of 0.07%.
  • Vanguard Ultra-Short Treasury ETF (VGUS). Holds Treasuries with maturities of less than 12 months. Estimated expense ratio of 0.07%.

Currently, I would say the two best options for those who want low-cost exposure to Treasury Bills as a cash alternative without having to manually manage their own T-Bill ladder are:

  • iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV). Holds Treasuries with maturities of 3 months or less (1.2 months weighted average as of 12/2024). Expense ratio of 0.09%. 30-day historical median bid/ask spread of 0.01%. Can be bought and sold at nearly any brokerage.
  • Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (VUSXX). Maintains a NAV of $1. Holds Treasuries with average maturity of 38 days (as of 10/31/24). Expense ratio of 0.09%. Usually must be bought and sold within a Vanguard brokerage accounts to avoid transaction fees.

The advantages of owning properly-managed T-Bill funds are that you hopefully maintain the state income tax exemption of T-Bill interest, while adding the convenience and easy liquidity of ETFs and mutual funds. T-Bills often give residents of states with high local/state income taxes the highest tax-equivalent yield available for a cash equivalent (minimal volatility, minimal principal risk).

For tax year 2023, SGOV reported 96.45% of interest was derived from qualified U.S. Government and agency obligations. In many states, this meant that 96.45% of the interest paid out was exempt from state and local income taxes.

For tax year 2023, VUSXX reported 80.06% of interest was derived from qualified U.S. Government and agency obligations. In many states, this means that 80.06% of the interest paid out was exempt from state and local income taxes.

Ideally, VBIL will be very similar to SGOV with a tight bid/ask spread and nearly all interest eligible for state income tax exemption, but with even lower expenses and thus higher net yields. Something to keep a look out for in early 2025.

Filed Under: Banking, Investing //
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