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HOT DEAL: How I’m getting 10% back at Best Buy this weekend

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I normally take a break from blogging over the weekend, but circumstances compel me to post. What a pleasant surprise it was this morning to see the following message from Best Buy in my inbox:

Woo hoo!
Woo hoo!

There’s a little more info on Best Buy’s home page right now if you’re curious. What all this means for me is 10% back in the form of Best Buy gift certificates (assuming that both my math and Best Buy’s fulfillment processes are correct). How do I get 10%? First of all, you normally get one Reward Zone point back for each dollar spent, and each point is worth 2 cents of Best Buy gift certificates. Triple that and you’re at 6%.

I also get an additional half a point for being Premier Silver (which you get after spending $2,500 at Best Buy in a single Calendar year), plus another point and a half for using my Best Buy credit card. So the two extra points would be worth an additional 4% (these two points are bonus points and are not tripled). But you don’t have to be a Premier Silver or a Best Buy cardholder to make this a good deal–this would be a great way to put some spend on a Starwood card, for example.

Note that if you’re not a Premier Silver, you only get double bonus points, not triple. But then, if you’re not a Premier Silver, promotions like this are a good time to become one. In fact, promotions like this are how I became a Premier Silver in the first place. Double bonus points still gets you 4% plus whatever your credit card rewards are.

Finally, note that as per the fine print, this offer is only good for one purchase, not multiple purchases.

Barclaycard Upromise World MasterCard: 10% back at many hotel chains, office supply stores, Target, and Best Buy

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Barclaycard is (re)launching the Upromise World MasterCard®, and it has one very nice feature to it: 10% off a variety of online merchants, including major hotel chains, office supply stores, Walgreens, Target, and Best Buy. We’ll get to that in a moment.

First, the other details of the card offer. For the most part, there’s not much to see. The $50 sign-up bonus is pretty weak. The card claims 4% cash back at “thousands of restaurants”, and that’s true–you can see the list here–but it’s not as widespread as it sounds and if you’re already getting miles from the airline dining programs, you’d have to cancel and enroll in the Upromise dining program since they’re all part of Rewards Network.

There’s 3% cash back at ExxonMobil gas stations–but there are already cards offering 3% or more on gas without restricting the brand.

There’s 2% back at movie theaters, but not even the most ardent cinephile sees enough movies to make 2% back at the movies worth switching cards for.

And that brings us to the final marketing bullet point, the one worth a closer look: you can get 5% bonus cash back when you use the Upromise online shopping portal with your Upromise card. That’s 5% above and beyond the portal bonus, and it consists of your 1% standard cash back plus 4% bonus cash back.

This can get a little confusing, but not all of the Upromise portal merchants are eligible for the bonus cash. You can find the card’s bonus-eligible merchants here. For the travel hackers reading this, there’s pretty good coverage on hotels:

  • Candlewood Suites Hotels
  • Choice Hotels
  • Clarion Hotels
  • Comfort Inn
  • Comfort Suites
  • Country Inns & Suites
  • Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts
  • Econo Lodge
  • Extended Stay Hotels
  • Fairmont Hotels
  • Holiday Inn Express Hotels
  • Holiday Inn Hotels & Resorts
  • Hotel Indigo Hotels
  • InterContinental Hotels
  • Le Meridien
  • MainStay Suites
  • Quality Inn
  • Radisson
  • Rodeway Inn
  • Sheraton
  • Sleep Inn
  • Staybridge Suites Hotels
  • W Hotels
  • Westin

You can get 10% cash back on all of those. There are a couple of other 10%-eligible merchants which may or may not be of interest to you: Best Buy, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, and Walgreens. Again, keep in mind this is for online shopping only.

Another merchant of note: Target appears on the card-eligible list at 5%, so it seems you could get 10% back at Target with this card, though we’re obliged to point out you could also do that by pair the Target RedCard with the Upromise portal. According to CashBackHolic.com, the Discover and TopCashBack portals also offer 5% back at Target.

We don’t do enough with portals or online shopping to make this card a no-brainer, but we’re considering it. If you’re not into that scene, this card wouldn’t be a good fit for you.

We called Barclaycard to see if we could convert an old Barclaycard rewards card to a Upromise card, but they said we have to apply for new credit to open the Upromise card. If anybody has any experience with this card or with getting Upromise to follow through on bonuses from its portal, please chime in below, as information on this card is rather sparse.

The Chase GM Business Card: Not bad at all

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There’s been a lot of credit card action this week, so we’ve been heavy on credit card coverage. It’s therefore as good a time as any to bring up the Chase GM business card, especially since we can’t seem to find much writing about it on the interwebs.

We wrote about the GM consumer credit card offered by Capital One a while back to point out its shortcomings, but we’re pleased to report the business version, which is issued by Chase for some reason, is better. How?

Simple: no earnings cap. The consumer version lets you get 5% on all purchases, but the amount you can redeem toward a vehicle or lease purchase is capped depending on what type of vehicle is purchased. The amount of the cap can be as low as $500 if you buy a low-end car.

The business version has no limits on either earnings or redemptions, however. It does not have 5% earnings, but it does offer 3% back on gas stations, restaurants, and office supply stores, and that’s not too shabby. There is no annual fee, either.

If you’re interested in buying or leasing a new GM car, we’d recommend getting both cards. Earn up to the limit on the consumer version, then earn beyond that on the business version.

And in light of the events of the past week, with Citibank shutting people down for earning unlimited rewards, we thought we’d make note of the marketing verbiage on this card:

Unlimited!
Unlimited!

That’s right: the lack of limits on earnings is emphasized two times in the first four bullet points.

In light of what happened with the AARP card, all we have to say is…

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my credit card rewards. Prepare for an app-o-rama.

The Chase AARP credit card is back, baby!

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Chase is relaunching its AARP card! It’s actually a decent offer, but we’ll get to the details in a moment. First, you whippersnappers need a history lesson.

A little over two years ago, in one of the great moments of credit card history, Chase launched its AARP credit card. What made this a great moment was that Chase offered 5% unlimited cash back on all purchases for the first six months.

What happened next was a lot of people got unlimited 5% cash back on all their purchases for the next six months. And if you’re surprised by that turn of events, then congratulations–you’ve got what it takes to be a Chase credit card executive! Note that this was the same time that the famous (or infamous) U.S. Mint promotion was going on.

Chase’s response was to double down on ineptitude by taking a heavy-handed approach to people who had earned high amounts of “unlimited” cash back. They decreed after the fact that some people had actually earned too much “unlimited” cash back and couldn’t keep their rewards, and Chase also cancelled cards and in some cases blacklisted people.

Enough people raised enough of a stink about this that Chase eventually relented. Chase’s reneging on the “unlimited” marketing hook is reminiscent of Homer Simpson suing the “all you can eat” restaurant for not letting him have all he could eat. Plus they picked a fight with the credit card holders of one of the most powerful political organizations in the country. It really was a massive train wreck for Chase from start to finish, and there’s an epic Fatwallet thread covering the whole mess.

Chase AARP credit card
“Unlimited”, unless you earn too much

Which brings us to Chase’s announcement yesterday about its new AARP card product. The 3% travel bonus is gone, and in its place we get uncapped 3% on restaurants and gas stations.

New applicants also get a $100 bonus. If you already have an AARP card (which we do–the fact that it wasn’t cancelled by Chase should indicate we’re not as hard core as some other folks), you can convert it to the new AARP product by calling customer service, or you can leave the old reward structure in place.

Keep in mind that while you do need an AARP number to get the credit card, you do not need  to be old or retired to join the AARP. We’re employed and in our thirties. You just need $16 to pay the membership fee, and you won’t need to renew after that, although we can tell you from personal experience that they will send you at least $16 worth of junk mail per year asking you to renew.

Credit where credit is due: this strikes us as a pretty savvy offer by Chase. No other card offers 3% or higher on both restaurants and gas, and those category bonuses are probably a good way to keep the card in a prominent place in their customers’ wallets. Sure, you can get 5% on gas or restaurants with other cards, but no other card combines decent bonuses on both categories. And keep in mind that those of us who seek out high credit card rewards are the tail end of the bell curve: most people don’t like to mess with this stuff, so a simple value proposition like this should do well with their target audience.

Whether it attracts manufactured spend fanboys is another matter. 3% isn’t great, but it’s not bad either. We’re curious to see how long Chase sticks with this offer.

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