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My latest app-o-rama!

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It’s app-o-rama time! My recent round of applications was modest but meaningful as I applied for three cards–one each from Citi, Chase, and Comenity Bank. The cards and the results:

CITI EXECUTIVE SUPER AWESOME AMERICAN AIRLINES 100,000-MILE CARD: It’s hard to say no to 100,000 miles, even at a cost of $250, since those miles will take care of a few plane tickets to see in-laws in Central America. Upon submitting the app, I received the “Please call us immediately to verify information” message. This may be surprising to you, but apparently Citi had already extended to me as much credit as they felt comfortable with, so I had to move some credit lines around. Result: Approved.

CHASE IHG 80,000-POINT DOUBLE TOP SECRET LINK: My wife already has the card, and it would be nice to have two rooms to use each year instead of one, seeing as how we have a whole bunch of kids. (Random fact: I’ve discovered that four kids is the point at which I start having difficulty remembering their names and birthdays.) Upon submitting the app I received the “Please call us immediately to verify information” message. This may be surprising to you, but apparently Chase had already extended to me as much credit as they felt comfortable with, so I had to move some credit lines around. Result: Approved.

MARATHON VISA: This is the gas station credit card and has nothing to do with the mysterious figure known as Marathon Man. I applied because I wrote about this card a couple of months ago and I wanted to try the card out. Comenity’s response: “Your application is now under review. We will contact you by mail within 7-10 business days regarding the status of your application.” I have plenty of credit card fun on my plate with the first two cards, so I’m going to wait to see what Comenity do. Result: Deferred.

And that’s all, folks. Just as you don’t need ten million points, you also don’t need to apply for 20 cards at a time either (although that would be kind of fun). Everybody’s situation is different and nobody knows you better than you.

 

A bevy of big bank bonuses: Chase, Wells, and Citi just keep on giving!

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$300 INK CASH BONUS: This had escaped my notice, but the Chase Ink Cash is temporarily offering a $300 cash back bonus. It’s normally $200. This card has no annual fee and gives you 5% cash back on the first $25K spent on office supplies each year. The link I’ve posted is not an affiliate link since I am not cool enough to have Chase affiliate links, but if you are interested in the card, you might want to consider checking to see if your favorite blogger (besides me) has one. If you don’t already have an Ink card, I have to say the combination of a $300 bonus, 5% on office supplies, and no annual fee is pretty good and might warrant consideration on your part if you’re in the market for a business card.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER $500 FROM WELLS: Thanks to Doctor of Credit for bringing this to my attention–it’s the Business Elite Credit Card from Wells Fargo. There’s a steep minimum spend of $10,000, but you get 50,000 points for your trouble. DOC writes:

The main issue with this card is you can’t apply directly. You must apply through your Wells Fargo Financial Advisor and I presume you’ll also need a legitimate business to be eligible (eBay and Amazon “businesses” will not count). Thankfully the deal isn’t that great, you need to spending a massive $10,000 and you’ll only earn an additional 10,000 points for doing so. If this card earned at a decent rate at certain locations then it may be worth trying to get it, but as it stands I wouldn’t bother with it – even if I had a financial advisor with Wells Fargo and a business that warranted such a card.

I agree that this one wouldn’t be at the top of my list, but still, you can do worse than that. I’m still hazy on the Wells Fargo rewards program, but my understanding is you can get up to $750 of value from those 50,000 points, and that’s not a terrible return on ten grand of spending.

POSSIBLE CITI TRICK?: I received an email solicitation from Citi urging me to convert my Preferred to a Premier. The good thing about having a Premier is that you get a better rate of redemption on your ThankYou points. I noticed this buried in the fine print:

Any fee changes, including the annual fee and removal of foreign transaction fees, will be applied 51 days after you upgrade. All other benefits will be applied to your account within 11 days after you upgrade.

Does Citi want people to upgrade, redeem, then downgrade again? They’re practically begging for it!

On a related note, I’m attempting a hostile takeover of Citibank via Kickstarter–have a look!

ATTENTION PARENTS: In the wake of the very cool Charlotte meeting of the minds, the Deal Mommy has a poll up to gauge interest in a meet-up focused on family travel:

I envision talking about topics such as:

  • Scheduling around a school calendar
  • Saving money without relying on only credit card bonuses
  • Condo Rentals and hotel rooms for families overseas
  • Booking award tickets when you need more than 2
  • Destination Planning for families
  • How to Save on Theme Park vacations

I think it’s a great idea. One of the presenters at the Charlotte meeting asked how many in the room were parents, and there weren’t tons of people raising their hand. On a related note, I’ve noticed my travel habits are different from many in this space, as I don’t fly first class and rarely stay in suites. (Real suites, not “Country Inn and” suites.) So if anybody’s interested, go on over to Deal Mommy and register your opinion.

This is what I did with my points and miles

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Some of you may have noticed a reduced quantity of posts in the last several weeks. The reasons for that: multiple viruses sweeping through the household, a bad back… and a family get-together, courtesy of Ultimate Rewards and Avios! My wife comes from Nicaragua, and since we have four kids and each of her two siblings has three, it’s expensive to get everybody together.

Solution: combine Avios earned from the British Airways card and Ultimate Rewards transferred to Avios to fly her brother and his family up! [Read more…]

USAir credit card improves, a guide to stopovers, and Marathon Man speaks

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USAIR CARD GETS A LITTLE BETTER:Via Hack My Trip, the Barclaycard USAir card is getting a little better. Starting April 30, cardholders will get 1 free checked bag for themselves and up to 4 companions.

ARCANE FREQUENT FLYER RULES–IN PICTURES!: Travel Is Free has another typically helpful post laying out the quirks of the major airlines’ routing rules. Check this out:

Courtesy of Travel Is Free

Why would you want to do a trip like this? As Drew points out, “A trip to Africa would normally be 80,000 miles in Economy, but by making it a stopover on the way to Japan the price is 70,000 miles. Save miles, see more.”

Incidentally, for those of you who have suddenly found new uses for your Avios, there’s a good TIF post about how to save your Avios by breaking up the trip.

ANOTHER WAY TO MAKE MONEY FROM BANKS: How about buying a cheap bank stock? Oddball Stocks reports on M&F bank, currently valued at 30% of book value.

MARATHON MAN SPEAKS: Food for thought from Marathon Man:

We all want to share ideas and help our fellow MSers, and we all have our own reasons for that. I say, go ahead, share and show… but let’s not be specific about things. If we say a certain card exists that says “debit” on it, we need not tell every little step on how to use it. By now most are in tune with this and those who are not should step up (like we had to) and test things, ask questions or go out and learn too. No room for lazy people. As well, if we discover a certain store or chain starts allowing something, let’s not list the darn details so prevalently! Let’s not put the Google Map address on there either. Let’s not even talk about the store itself, just that a certain type of thing can happen at certain types of places. Again, people can go out and test depending on where they live. The thinking here is that if we push push push and constantly tout all these ways to get something out of these retailers, they may see it as a scam even when it’s not, and the overzealous department heads who are smart enough to use Google and find our writings (and they do in fact show up so let’s not kid ourselves!) will change the rules and gone will be the next best MS thing.

We have to be good stewards or custodians of MS and try to do whatever we can to prolong deals, not let them die quickly because we think a new one will come along soon. We must not think that something new will replace something good. When Coins died, it took a long time for the next thing to happen and many readers may not have been around in those days or in the much darker times of the past to understand this, but it happened then and it can happen again.

CHASE’S MILITARY-SPECIFIC CREDIT CARDS: Just when I thought I was familiar with all of Chase’s credit cards, I learn something new. Military Finance has a rundown on Chase’s military credit card family. I have no idea what an MWR is, but you can get 2% there.

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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.