Quantcast

Personal Finance Digest

Former blog

TYPs, MP3s, $200 brokerage bonuses, and weird mattress problems

By





CITI THANK YOU POINTS NOW TRANSFERABLE: Last spring there were rumors about Citibank’s ThankYou Points possibly becoming transferable to a couple of airline partners. Those rumors didn’t pan out, but we now learn thanks to The Points Guy that we have an actual Citibank transfer partner: Hilton HHonors.

The exchange rate is 1 TYP per 1.5 Hilton points; this is not a good deal. TYPs are worth  one cent apiece (1.33 cents if you’re a Citi TYP cardholder redeeming for travel) while we value Hilton points at about a half cent each. The Point Guy values them at 0.7 cents each, but he has more high-class tastes than we do, and high-end redemptions tend to get more value per point.

Even at his loftier valuation, however, it’s still a bad deal unless you happen to have a sudden, urgent need for Hilton points. And that’s not a likely thing since there are already a lot of ways to earn Hilton points–Citi has a Hilton card, Amex has a Hilton card, and various other programs let you transfer into Hilton as well.

This is an encouraging sign for the TYP program, however: like Hilton points, ThankYou Points are fairly easy to earn between the healthy sign-up bonuses Citi periodically offers as well as the promotions Citi runs for existing cardholders. That’s why we’re fans of the TYP program and we’re hoping Hilton is the first of many future transfer partners for Citi.

100 SONGS FOR $0.99 FROM AMAZON: Amazon has 100 Must-Have Baby Lullaby Classics on sale for $.99. Don’t let the title fool you: this isn’t a bunch of annoying children’s songs but instead is a bunch of relaxing classical music from the usual great composers–Mozart, Beethoven, et al. Retitle the album if it makes you feel better. And if you take advantage of the free $2 MP3 credit Amazon is offering right now, it’s an even better deal. (H/T: SD)

$200 FROM SHAREBUILDER: You can get $200 from Sharebuilder if you have $10,000 available to tie up in a brokerage account for a few months. Is this a good deal? The answer, as usual: it depends. You have to keep the cash in the account for six months. That works out to a 4% guaranteed rate of return above and beyond whatever investment performance you get, which really isn’t too bad in today’s low-rate environment. Think of it as a six-month CD if you prefer–you certainly won’t find any CDs with rates like that (if you do, let us know). And it’s certainly better than the only other $10K minimum offer we have on our Best Brokerage Offers page, which is $50 from Merrill Lynch. (H/T: FWF)

WHY STORING MONEY IN YOUR MATTRESS MAY NOT BE THE BEST OPTION: Your kid might find the money and blow all your savings on candy. Or worse yet, you well-intentioned children might mistakenly toss the mattress in which you’ve spent your life building up a million-dollar nest egg. Plus you don’t even get sign-up bonuses for depositing your money in them, so what’s the point? (H/T: FWF)

Citi ThankYou Preferred: 5% back on gas, groceries, and drugstores!

By

UPDATE AS OF 2/8/2013: The old Citi 5% TYP link is dead, here’s a new one.

GOOD DEAL ALERT: Via FWF, we just learned that Citi has another 5% card out. It’s their Citi ThankYou Preferred, and you can get 5% back on gas, groceries, and drugstores for one year! This is a very good promotion–we signed up for this deal earlier in the year and are still reaping the benefits. It also comes with a 15,000 ThankYou Point bonus, worth $150. Somebody at Citi is clearly trying very hard to make their numbers for 2012, so we wouldn’t be surprised if this deal gets pulled in a few weeks. We recommend you include this in your next round of apps if you don’t have a comparable card.

Disclaimer: I make no money whatsoever if you click the link or apply for this card. I wish I did, but I don’t.

Re-Advisor: Getting home for the holidays

By

Over on Fox Business, there is some advice to a lost soul whose goal next year is to get from New York to San Francisco for the holidays. The advice columnist eventually hits upon the right answer, but leaves out some important points, as she spends most of the column talking about cards with rewards for spending. If you want enough for an airline ticket, it is much easier and much quicker to sign up for a card or two as signing bonuses are almost always going to be a quicker way of accumulating points than spending bonuses.

To her credit, columnist Cathleen McCarthy does recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred and its 40,000 point bonus. But she doesn’t say why this card is one of the top choices in this situation.

The reason is that our would-be traveler wants to travel around Christmas, and frequent flyer miles are notoriously difficult to redeem this time of year. The optimal course of action is a card with a large bonus that can be redeemed as a cash equivalent for an airline ticket. Chase Sapphire fits the bill. McCarthy mentions that the points can be redeemed to United miles, and normally that’s a good thing, but not this time of year. Log into United and look for available seats from New York to San Francisco around the holidays and you’ll see what we mean.

So the emphasis should have been: (1) Earning the points through a sign-up bonus, and (2) Points should be flexible cash-equivalents.

McCarthy did ultimately recommend a good solution. The 40K bonus on the Sapphire translates to $500 worth of airfare, which should be enough to cover a roundtrip ticket.

Another acceptable option would be one of the new Citi Preferred cards, which are offering bonuses of 40K and 50K ThankYou points on the personal and business versions respectively. It should be noted that both of these have somewhat high minimum spends of $6K each, so Chase is the simplest option. Citi, however, has a higher ceiling, and here’s why.

The Citi ofers equate to $400 or $500 in airfare, or $900 if you get both. But wait, there’s more: if you get the Citi Premier, you can increase your points’ travel redemption value by 33%. That card is available with a 25K TYP bonus. So if you get all three in the course of next year (trust us, Citi has no problem with folks having multiple cards), that’s 115,000 points which you can redeem for $1,530 in travel expenses. So maybe bring a friend or two home for the holidays, or travel first class, or book a hotel room for New Year’s Eve. Or maybe just get the $500 ticket and redeem the rest for Amazon gift cards to pay for your Christmas shopping.

You see why we like this stuff so much?

A whole bunch of credit card news: New Citi offers, Alliant 20,000, and Bank of America gift cards!

By

NEW CITI CC OFFERS!: Some Citibank marketing managers are apparently engaged in a push to make their annual numbers, as Citi has all of a sudden put out three new offers–thanks to Frugal Travel Guy for bringing this to our attention. There’s a 50K AA offer, which is not too interesting as there are still some orphan links where you can get that–and with a smaller minimum spend as well. What’s interesting is the return of big Citi ThankYou Point sign-up bonuses–40K for the personal and 50K for the business. Both of these have a $6K spend requirement. TYPs are worth 1 cent per point, so these two cards represent $900 worth of bonuses, and yes, you can apply for both at the same time assuming you can pull off the minimum spend. Here’s a good rundown from Nerdwallet on how to use those TYPs, and we here at PFD would like to add that you can get 1.33 cents per TYP if you have a Citi Premier card and redeem those points on travel, making that $900 worth $1,200 with no blackout dates. These offers are good enough that our CC offers page has been updated.

FREE STUFF FROM B OF A UPDATE: We previously mentioned that B of A was giving out free gift cards upon logout. Courtesy of the fine folks at FWF, there’s an easier way to get whatever gift card B of A deems you’re entitled to. Click on this link, click the ‘Don’t have one?” link, then enter your last name, ZIP, and the last four digits of your credit card account number(s). Done! If you’re eligible, B of A will send your gift card in a few weeks. We here at PFD received a choice of a $5 GC from Target, Starbucks or Macy’s for
one credit card, and nothing whatsoever for our other two.

NEW CREDIT CARD BONUS FROM A SMALL PLAYER: Given how concentrated the credit card industry is, it’s easy to find yourself with a lot of cards from a small number of issuers (*ahem*). If you’ve farmed the current crop of offers too intensely, the 20,000 point bonus from Alliant Credit Union is worth a look. Only CU members are eligible, but you can become a member here for $10 (H/T: FWF).

WHY YOU CAN’T MAKE MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET: All you need to see in this link from Gen X Finance is the graph showing when people tend to buy and when they tend to sell. We know we’re supposed to buy low and sell high, but it’s really difficult to do that, and it’s important to know that it’s difficult to do that so that you don’t fool yourself and make bad decisions.

TALK IS CHEAP…: Here’s My Money Blog on Virgin Mobile’s iPhone plans, starting at $30 for unlimited data. Worth it? We here at PFD actually use Virgin Mobile, and we would put “unlimited” in quotation marks, though we’re not sure if our data issues are due to lousy service or our mediocre Android phone.

…BUT FREE FOOD IS CHEAPER!: Since PFD is based in Charlotte, we have to send a shout-out to our hometown grocer Harris Teeter, who just let 70 customers walk out with free groceries when the registers failed. Well done, HT!

IS THERE ANYTHING THEY CAN’T DO?: Five Cent Nickel reminds us that if you lack a spoon, credit cards are useful for eating ice cream, especially if you’re a drunk Minnesota Vikings fan.

Recent Comments

Disclosure

The owner of this website may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website.

Disclaimer

Saverocity is Journalistic in Nature, please obtain Professional Representation prior to attempting anything discussed herein. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.