Achieving Credit Card Spending Bonus

Our recent App-O-Rama’s have us with quite some spend to achieve, this post will outline how I plan to manage it so that we don’t miss out on any of the credit card spending bonus that come with new card signups.

Hilton Cards in this post I highlighted a series of Hilton Card applications that I made; Hilton then went on to Devalue their program which threw a spanner in the works, but I still like the position we are in with them and think that we will get considerable value from the cards.  If you are sitting on Hilton Points please make sure you book awards before March 28th when the program will effective half the value of your points!

At the time of the Hilton Applications I also decided to add on 2 other cards.  The reason for this was the merger between American and US Airways – I was concerned that with this merger earning opportunities would vanish, and I wanted to get them in whilst I could.  When applying for credit cards it is always best to do them in a Batch, rather than apply every month when one takes your fancy.

Here is the state of play for the latest App O Rama

• Hilton Honors American Express Fee Free 40,000 points after $1000 in 3 months (His)
• Hilton Honors American Express Fee Free 40,000 points after $1000 in 3 months (Hers)
• Hilton Honors Citi Reserve Fee $95 2 Free Weekend Nights (up to the new Cat 10!) after $2,500 in 3 months (Hers)
• US Airways Barclaycard Fee $89  (Waived for first year) 40,000 US Airways points after $1
• CitiBusiness Visa Fee $85 (Waived for first year) 50,000 AAdvantage Points, after $2500 in first 4 months plus $150 Statement Credit for AA Purchase

So a total credit card spend required of $7,000 in 3 months (and 1 more month for the Citi Business)

Strategy

1. Purchased 1 $1,000 Amex Gift Card on each Hilton Amex – Spent Met (warning, I have heard that this can trigger a review if on day one you put a large purchase on the card, but I personally have never had any problems.  I buy the cards through BigCrumbs for cash back too, read more about the process in this post

I have since started cashing out the gift cards using Amazon Payments, for more ways to cash out see this post 4 ways to cash out gift cards however I will now stop using Amazon Payments and start using that for the CitiBusiness Card

2. Swiped the US Airways card for a small transaction today, Spend Met

3. Spend $500 on Amazon Payments next month for Her Citi Visa Reserve, leaving $2000 to hit the Spend (next month we are visiting two high end Conrad Properties which will more than meet that). Spend Met

4. Spend $700 on Amazon Payments per month for the next 3 months on the CitiBusiness Visa, and build in regular spending to keep the Cardinals off my back. Spend Met

5.  Spend $300 Amazon Payments per month for 3 months using the Amex Gift Cards then increase the amount to $500-$600 until they are drained.  Cash Liquidated

At the time when I purchased the Gift Cards I wanted to just have the spend met and forgotten about, in doing so it has allowed me to focus on meeting the spend by manufactured spending on the others, easily meeting $7,000 in 3 months!