Welcome to the Frequent Miler Week In Review series. Every Saturday we bring you some of the best posts from around the web. Enjoy!

This Week Around the Web

Doctor of Credit:

• Applied For The SPG Cards Before The 30k Bonus? Ask To Be “Matched”.  If you applied for the SPG card before the current 30K promotion went into effect, here’s what to do.

Miles to Memories:

• The Easiest Hotel Status Match I Have Ever Experienced.  An eternal status match?

The Free-quent Flyer:

• New Staples Visa gift cards got you down? Try these two weird old tricks. How to deal with the gift card stickers that won’t come off.

One Mile at a Time:

• Delta Cloaking Partner Award Space. Delta isn’t showing partner award space for one-way award searches. The solution?  Search round-trip, then call.  Read the post for details.

MileCards:

• When to use the Qantas website to find AAdvantage award space. Excellent practical advise to help you get the most from your AAdvantage miles.

Have a great weekend!

The post Dealing with sticky Staples gift card problems; Matching SPG 30K; status matching forever; more… appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Plastiq is a card-based payment service that allows consumers to use credit cards to pay bills where credit cards are not normally accepted.  Common examples include rent, mortgage, tuition, etc.  Plastiq usually charges a flat 2.5% fee for this service, but thanks to an ongoing promotion (details here) Plastiq has been offering reduced rates (1.99%) when you pay with American Express or MasterCard.

Now, Plastiq has taken things further by offering free MasterCard payments to Utilities when you schedule 6 or more payments.

Does it matter?

In my case, all of my utilities can already be paid by credit card for free so I don’t have any good use for this special rate.  If your utilities don’t allow credit cards (or charge a fee for paying with a credit card), then this is a good deal since it will let you earn rewards while paying your bills.

How to schedule payments

I’ve found that the first time I add a biller to Plastiq, I’ve been unable to setup recurring payments with a new payment source until after I’ve made at least one immediate payment.  This shouldn’t happen.  If you get an error when setting up recurring payments, try sending a small one-off payment first.  Or, better yet, contact support@plastiq.com for help.

Important Notes

• To secure these promotional rates, sign up for a new account using this link: http://plastiq.com/promos/r/FM-2 (or, use a similar link found on another publication). Disclosure: I will earn a $5 referral fee for each person who signs up via this link, regardless of whether or not you use the service.
• If you signed up for Plastiq during the earlier promotion (found here), then you do not have to sign up again. You will automatically qualify for these rates.
• If you signed up for Plastiq without going through a promotional link, you can re-register with a different email address in order to get the promotional rates.
• Once you have signed up for the service using the above link, you can browse directly to Plastiq.com to pay bills and you will receive these special rates for as long as the promotion is active.
• The end date for this promotion has not yet been set.  One way to lock in lower rates is to setup recurring payments.
• Payments can take a few weeks to process, so make sure to have payments sent well in advance of their due date.
• If you pay your landlord for utilities, please contact support@plastiq.com.  I don’t know whether or not they’ll be able to help you get the promotional rate, but they asked that people contact them in this situation.

Questions?  Is Plastiq reliable?  What payments are allowed or not allowed? Can gift cards be used?

Answers to all of these questions and more can be found here: The Complete guide to Plastiq credit card payments.

Never miss a Quick Deal, Subscribe here.

The post Pay Utilities by credit card for free appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

This morning, via Frequent Miler’s Quick Deals,  I posted a new Plastiq credit card bill payment offer: Pay Utilities by credit card for free.  To get this deal, you must sign up with a promo link (found in the Quick Deal), schedule 6 or more utility payments, and pay with a MasterCard.  As I wrote in that post, I can already pay all of my utilities with a  credit card for free, so this new deal doesn’t excite me, but others may find it helpful.  And, in case you’re wondering, the earlier deal (Pay mortgage, rent, and other bills for only 1.99% fee with Amex or MasterCard) is still available.  Even though the two deals have slightly different signup links, my understanding is that if you sign up for one you will be automatically enrolled in the other.

On the topic of Plastiq, in today’s post, the top 5 answers are on the board…

Question: Will I earn 5 points per dollar by using my Chase Ink card to pay?

Answer: No

Plastiq payments are coded as utilities, and Chase Ink offers 5X points for some purchases that Chase categorizes as utilities (e.g. phone and cable), so this was a sensible question.  I ran a test payment, though, and used the technique I described in another post to check whether or not I earned 5X (see: How to see which purchases qualify for Chase Ink and Freedom bonus categories).  My test purchase didn’t qualify for 5X.

Question: I need to include a pay stub with my payment. Can I have Plastiq send the bill payment to my house so that I can send the check to the payee along with the pay stub?

Answer: No

Here is Plastiq’s longer response:

In short, this is not allowed. The workaround here is that there is a memo section included on the check where the cardholder can put their name, account number, and other critical information the payee requires from the pay stub. We’ve found that this works more often than not for all parties.

Question: Can I use Plastiq to pay my credit card bill?

Answer: No

Question: Can I combine payment sources into one payment?

Answer: No

Many readers have asked about this.  When paying with gift cards, you can’t make a single payment that is larger than the value of the gift card minus Plastiq fees.  This is a problem for those who need to make large payments.  The only solution is to make multiple payments.  In most cases, payees have no problem accepting multiple payments for one bill.  With loan payments (such as mortgages), though, payments may be applied to principal rather than to the monthly bill.  Usually, if you have all payments sent on the same day, this won’t happen, but it really depends upon the bank that handles your loan.  I’d recommend calling your mortgage or loan broker to ask them how it will be handled.

Question: Is Plastiq reliable?

Answer: _______________ (please fill in the blank with your own experience)

I’ve made many bill payments through Plastiq and haven’t had any serious problems. Most of my bill payments have been electronic deposits (ACH), but I made one payment by check.  All payments were delivered in about a week for ACH payments, and two weeks for the check payment.  So, from my own experience, the answer is yes, Plastiq is reliable.

However, quite a few readers have reported problems with Plastiq.  Reported issues include:

• Errors when trying to make payments (Note: this happened to me when I tried to schedule a recurring payment with a new payment source. After I made a single immediate payment, the problem cleared up)
• Extremely long payment delivery times
• Extremely long wait for a returned payment to be re-credited (Note: I had one cancelled payment which was re-credited immediately so YMMV)
• Requirement to send rental agreement or invoice when paying individuals (Note: this hasn’t happened to me, but YMMV)
• The worst complaint I’ve read is one in which Plastiq supposedly withdrew money from the payees bank account without permission!  MileNerd passed along the story here.

Another issue with Plastiq is how they’ve changed the rules as stated to me via email and phone conversations multiple times.  Here are a few examples:

• Initially I was told that contributions to 529 plans were allowed. Later, they reversed course and stopped allowing them.
• Initially I was told that people could lock in promotional rates long term by scheduling recurring payments and that those rates would be honored even if the customer changed the funding source.  Since then they found that, due to a technical limitation, changing the funding source will cause the rate to be recalculated.
• Initially I was told that people could use Plastiq to pay their roommate for their share of the rent.  It turned out that wasn’t true.  Plastiq does not allow payments to individuals unless that individual has provided goods or services.

Plastiq is clearly experiencing growing pains, and a number of customers have suffered for it.  However, based on my own experience, I’d guess that most people have little or no trouble.  Is the potential for trouble a good reason to avoid Plastiq?  Obviously each person should make up their own minds about that, but for me its worth the risk.

Consider that almost everything I write about on this blog has potential problems and risks:

• Credit card applications may be denied
• Credit card companies, prepaid companies, or banks may forcibly shut down your accounts
• Shopping portals may not correctly track your purchases
• Gift cards may be improperly activated
• Deal purchases may be cancelled
• Reward flights may be hard or impossible to find

I could go on and on.  All of the things listed above have happened to me at one time or another. And, yes, they’re a pain to deal with.  However, the rewards in this hobby can be fantastic.  So, I keep plugging away despite the problems and risks.  And, obviously, each reader should evaluate their own tolerance for trouble and risk before diving into any of these endeavors.

Related posts

Please also see:

• Complete guide to Plastiq credit card payments
• An easier (and now cheaper) way to increase credit card spend: Plastiq
• How to increase credit card spend from your couch, (almost) fee-free

The post Chase Ink 5X? Send check to self? Pay credit card bill? Combine payments? Is Plastiq reliable? Top 5 Plastiq questions answered… appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

By Julian, author of Devil’s Advocate…

It feels a little weird to say this, but Citibank’s been crushing it lately. Not only have they made enormous strides with their flexible ThankYou points currency, but they’re doing a lot of the little things well too. In fact, recently when one of their customer service representatives asked if there was anything else they could do for me and I suggested they mow my lawn, he didn’t make it sound like it was completely out of the question.

Thanks for coming over, Citi. Just knock off that rust and I’m sure you’ll be fine.

A perfect example of Citibank’s resurgence is a minor but extremely useful feature they’ve added to their recent website redesign. When you sign up for a credit card with a bonus spend requirement (such as $3,000 spend in 3 months to get 50,000 American AAdvantage miles), it’s always a pain to try and keep track of how much you’ve spent thus far and how close you are to the deadline. In fact, a lot of banks don’t even tell you the actual deadline, though the clock usually starts from the date your application was approved (not from the day you get the card).

With Citibank it’s sometimes even been difficult to figure out the actual bonus, given the number of application links floating around without landing pages. In those cases, the only way to know what you’re applying for is based on the past experiences of others. Thankfully, in recent months Citibank has at least been confirming the bonus offer in the approval letter you receive via regular mail.

But now there’s an even easier way to see your bonus, your ongoing spend, and your deadline right on citi.com.

The spend tracker.

If you’re in the middle of a signup bonus spend for a Citibank AAdvantage card and you’ve already set up online access, sign into your account, then click on “View Miles Summary” at the right side of the screen.

This will take you to your rewards details, which at first glance shows the miles earned on your last statement along with the benefits of the card. But scroll all the way down the page and you’ll find… the magic bonus spend tracker!

Look at that! It’s literally every piece of information we want to know about our bonus spend, all in one place. We’ve got the deadline listed, the number of days to go, the amount of spend we have left to do… even the number of bonus miles we’ll get upon successful completion. It’s even got a pretty little circle graphic representing our life ticking towards Missing The Bonus Doom.

Make sure you get your bonus… avoid doom!!!!

A few important notes.

Keep in mind that the Citibank spend tracker is only updated at the end of each monthly statement. Before your first statement closes, you’ll see the clock ticking away but no spend accumulating on the graphic…

This is normal, so do not panic. It will update at the close of your first statement, and since it’s the very first month of your card, it’s easy to determine before then your total spend by just looking at your account balance.

Also, if you aren’t in the middle of an ongoing signup bonus spend, you won’t see any tracker at all. That might seem obvious, but I figured I’d mention it.

Finally, I have only been able to personally confirm this spend tracker exists on AAdvantage cards, so I can’t yet say for sure that it applies to other Citicards like the ThankYou cards. But if one of our Frequent Miler readers with a new ThankYou card would like to let me know if they can see the spend tracker (and maybe even e-mail or tweet me a screenshot), I’ll be happy to update this post and give them a hat tip. (UPDATE: Commenters NRTBound and Horace both confirm the tracker also appears on the Citi Hilton Reserve card. BenT reports there’s also a tracker for the Hilton Reserve’s $40K anniversary spend and Better by Design notes one for the $100 statement credit. Thanks for the data points, everyone!) And if Citibank doesn’t have this rolled out for all their cards yet, I’d be surprised if they don’t do it very soon.

Since I’m the type of person who claims to be ultra organized but who is actually just kinda organized, I find this new Citibank feature to be incredibly useful. I’m not aware of any other major banks with an online tracker like this, but I hope others follow Citibank’s lead on this one. Oh, and to any other banks reading this, the generous retention bonuses are a good feature to imitate too.

“Bet You Didn’t Know” is a series written by Julian, author of the Devil’s Advocate series at Travel Codex.  In each installment, Julian presents a single cool tip for earning and/or using points and miles.

Other Recent Posts From The “Bet You Didn’t Know” Series:

Avoid Getting Suckered by International ATM’s

Amex Business Card Apps Without a 12 Month Wait

3 ways to automate multiple Twitter accounts for Amex Offers

Find all the “Bet You Didn’t Know” posts here.

The post Bet You Didn’t Know: Citibank’s New Online Bonus Spend Tracker appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

In the post, “319,000 points after $33K spend” I wrote about my wife’s latest round of credit card aplications.  Unbeknownst to her, she applied for 8 cards in total and was approved (at that time) for 5 of them.  For review, here were the 5 that were immediately approved:

• Bank of America Virgin Atlantic: 75K bonus after $12K spend (at 1.5 miles per dollar) results in 93K miles
• Citi ThankYou Premier: 50K after $3K spend (at 1 point per dollar) results in 53K points
• CitiBusiness AA: 50K after $3K spend (at 1 mile per dollar) results in 53K miles
• Amex Business Gold: 75K after $10K spend (at 1 point per dollar) results in 85K
• Amex SPG Business 30K after $5K spend (at 1 point per dollar) results in 35K

And here were the applications that were still under review:

• Bank of America Virgin Atlantic: 75K bonus after $12K spend (2nd application)
• Bank of America Alaska Business: 25K bonus after first purchase
• Amex SPG Personal: 30K after $3K spend

I can now happily report that all three of the pending apps have been approved!

Caution

I do not recommend signing up for this many cards at once.  Only sign up for cards if you know that you’ll be able to pay off the balances in full each month, and that you can meet the minimum spend requirements.

Virgin Atlantic second application

This one required a call to BOA’s customer acquisition team (phone number found here).  The application had been closed as a duplicate.  After confirming over the phone that a second card was really wanted, the application was reviewed and approved!

Alaska Business

The application for this card never showed up on BOA’s online application status checker (maybe that page doesn’t show business apps?).  Anyway, the approval letter and the new card appeared in our mailbox a week later.

Starwood Personal

This one was held up by my poor counting skills.  Of course I knew that Amex has a strict 4 credit card per person limit (plus any number of charge cards).  The place I failed was in counting my wife’s current credit cards.  It turns out that 1+1+1 = 3.  That’s how many credit cards she had before this round of applications.  Then, she applied for two more (SPG personal and SPG business).  So, Amex approved the business card immediately, but held onto the personal card until they could find out if my wife wanted to give up an existing credit card to get this new one.  She sacrificed her EveryDay card.  Luckily her new Business Gold card will keep her Membership Rewards points alive.

Subtotal

Here are the newly approved cards and the expected rewards from each:

• Bank of America Virgin Atlantic: 75K bonus after $12K spend (at 1.5 miles per dollar) results in 93K miles
• Bank of America Alaska Business: 25K bonus after first purchase results in 25K miles
• Amex SPG Personal: 30K after $3K spend (at 1 point per dollar) results in 33K points

Total points/miles from newly approved cards: 151,000

Total spend required from newly approved cards: $15K

Final tally

With the cards that were initially approved, I reported the following totals:

• Total points/miles: 319,000
• Total spend required: $33,000

Now, with the above subtotals added in, the final total comes to:

• Total points/miles: 470,000
• Total spend required: $48,000

Was this a good haul?

470,000 points & miles is pretty awesome, but $48,000 spend is ridiculously high.  As I explained in the prior post, I can handle this level of spend because I’ve built up my manufactured spend techniques over time.  Those less comfortable with big spend would be better off signing up for fewer cards and by limiting to cards with smaller spend requirements.

The post 470,000 points after $48K spend appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

One of the best features of Citi’s ThankYou Rewards program is that anyone can share points with anyone else.  Most other major programs have much less lenient about sharing (you can find info about sharing points with the major transferable points programs here).  The only catch is that shared points will expire if not used within 90 days of sharing.

Last week, as a way to inch us closer to Necker Island, my wife moved her ThankYou points to my account.  Then, in order to take advantage of Citi’s 25% transfer bonus (which expired on Sunday), I transferred those points to Virgin Atlantic.  Two days later, the miles (including the 25% bonus miles) appeared in my Virgin Atlantic account.

Why this is interesting

In order to transfer ThankYou points to miles, you must have a qualifying ThankYou card: ThankYou Premier, Prestige, or Citi Chariman.  At the time, my wife had none of those (she has since signed up for the Premier).  By sharing her points with me (I have the Prestige card), her points became more valuable.  I already knew that it would be possible to use shared points for up to 1.6 cents per point value by buying flights, but I wasn’t 100% sure about transfers to miles.  Now we know for sure.

The post Yes, shared ThankYou points can be transferred to miles appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

For the past 6 months I’ve been happily earning two extra points per dollar on all purchases with my Citi Forward card.  Those two points per dollar were in addition to the 1 to 5 points per dollar the card normally earns (sadly the card is no longer available to new applicants).  So, I’ve been earning 7X at restaurants, bookstores (including Amazon.com), and movie theaters, and 3X everywhere else!

The reason I was earning so many points was that I had simply called Citibank to ask about retention offers.  You can read the details in this post: How one call led to a points bonanza and rethought plans.

Then, mid August came, and my miraculously awesome Forward card lost its superpowers.  It’s still awesome for its 5X categories, but its no longer my go to card for all purchases.

Calling Citi

I called Citibank to see if they would give me another retention offer.  We started with my AA Executive card (which I really did need to get rid of before the annual fee became irrevocable).  I was offered a lower interest rate.  No thanks.

Next card: Prestige.  Lower interest rate? No thanks.

Next, Citi Forward.  Lower interest rate? Nope.

Then, ThankYou Preferred.  Lower interest rate?  I’ll pass.

You get the picture.  We cycled through all of my cards and the nice phone agent was as surprised as I was that she couldn’t offer me anything useful.  But… my wife was nearby…  So, I asked the agent if she could check my wife’s cards.  With my wife’s permission, she did so…

My wife’s offers

My wife has two ThankYou Preferred cards.  For each card she was offered 2 additional points per dollar for six months.  Unfortunately, the offers were limited to a 35,000 bonus points each.  Still, that’s pretty good!  With these two cards, we can easily earn a total of 70,000 points in addition to the points earned by default.  Citi even sent helpful reminders via email:

And the fine print states:

*For the next 6 months, starting from the date you’ve accepted this offer, you can earn two additional ThankYou Points per dollar spent on purchases made with this card account. Purchases exclude balance transfers, convenience checks, cash advances, items returned for credit, fees and interest charges. All purchases must be posted during the promotional period. You may earn a maximum of 35,000 additional points with this offer. Points earned under this offer may take up to 2 billing cycles to post to your card account. The account must be open and current to earn and redeem ThankYou Points.

The post My wife scored another 70,000 points. I got a rock. appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Last week, I travelled with family and friends to a number of national parks: Arches, Bryce, Grand Canyon, and Zion.  We used Amtrak points (transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards) to make the journey west from Ann Arbor, Michigan.  The first leg of our trip was in business class on the Wolverine route to Chicago.  The next leg was aboard the California Zephyr where we enjoyed private sleeper cars — all meals included.  We detrained in Utah and visited the parks by way of rental cars before finally flying home from Las Vegas.

I’ll follow-up soon with more details about the trip, but since it’s relevant, here’s a short review of the train ride: great.  It was a fantastic low-stress way to travel west and to see the sights along the way.  Even the food was pretty good.

Coincidentally, we were still enjoying our trip when I received an email from Amtrak:

Subject: Gregory, we’re making updates to the Amtrak Guest Rewards program

We’re making the Amtrak Guest Rewards program even better

We’re updating our Amtrak Guest Rewards^® program because we want to make the Amtrak^® experience even more rewarding for our most loyal customers. Beginning in January 2016, earning points will be simpler, building them up will be surer and redeeming them will be easier with lower redemption minimums—starting at just 800 points. In short, it’s everything you’ve always loved, only better engineered to fit your life. You can see all the details about the 2016 Amtrak Guest Rewards program here.

Thank you for being a valued Amtrak Guest Rewards member. We look forward to seeing you on board soon.

Upon clicking the link to learn more, I found the following details of Amtrak’s 2016 Guest Rewards program, which begins January 24 2016:

• Passengers will earn 2 points per dollar
• Passengers will no longer earn a minimum of 100 points per trip.  This means that the days of rail running will soon be behind us.  See: Rail running: pursuing Amtrak status to save on hotels.
• Those who pay for business or first class will earn additional points: 25% for Business class and 50% for Acela® First class.
• Point prices will be determined by ticket prices.  That is, more expensive tickets will require more points.  We already knew this was coming.  See: Amtrak revenue based: Amtrak to tie award prices to ticket prices.
• Points will be worth 2.9 cents each with the exception of Acela routes where points will be worth closer to 2.6 cents each.
• Awards start at 800 points, so you’ll get less value for points with cheap fares.  When fares are less than $23, consider paying cash instead.
• Acela route awards start at 4000 points.  When Acela fares are less than $100, consider paying cash instead.
• Amtrak will eliminate blackout dates for awards.
• Amtrak will make it easier to keep points from expiring. Going forward, all account activity (both earning and using points) will count to reset the clock for 36 months.
• Points & Cash redemptions will be available.
• Point rebates due to cancelations or changes to lower fare routes will result in a 10% points penalty.  For example, if you cancel a trip that cost 10,000 points, you will receive only 9,000 points back.
• Amtrak will add close-in change penalties: “If modifying a non-sleeper ticket within 24 hours prior to departure, or a sleeper ticket within 14 days prior to departure, an additional “close-in” penalty of 10% of the points redeemed will be collected (waived for Select Executive).”

My take

When we previously learned that Amtrak was going to tie award prices to ticket prices, I figured that the game was over.  I assumed that Amtrak would massively devalue their points.  Instead, they shocked me (in a good way) with their award calculator that seems to value points for most awards at 2.9 cents each.  For a fixed value program, that’s excellent.

With Amtrak’s current zone based award scheme, point values for awards vary tremendously from one situation to another.  With some awards you can get much more than 2.9 cents per point value, whereas with others you may get much less.  With the trip I took last week, I spent 40,000 points per room rather than paying the cash ticket price of $1,591.  In other words, my points were worth just shy of 4 cents each for this award ($1,591 / 40,000).  If we had ended our trip in Denver, we would have paid just 25,000 points, for a ticket priced at $1,315.  Had we done that, our points would have been worth 5.3 cents each, but we also would have missed the best part of the trip (or we could have booked a coach award from Denver to Utah for the final daytime journey, but it was great to have bedroom access all day and three additional included meals).

Despite the fact that the current scheme sometimes allows for better redemption opportunities, I’m pretty happy with the new program.  Under the 2016 program, it will no longer be necessary to cherry pick certain routes for awards.  In the future, getting good value from your points will be easy and automatic.  As long as the ticket price is $23 or more ($100 or more for Acela routes), you’ll get fixed, decent value from your points.

NOTE: View from the Wing points out two scenarios in which point values will be less than expected under the new program: 1) With paid fares, it’s possible to apply AAA and other discounts. With award redemptions, apparently, you will not be able to apply those discounts; and 2) Saver fares will not qualify for redemption.  Both seem like fairly minor points to me: 1) A 10% discount brings the point value for regular routes down to 2.6 cents per point — still a good deal. And, in my experience, sleeper cars are discounted by far less than 10% so the point value will be closer to 2.9 cents in those cases; and 2) I’ve never encountered Saver fares in my regular use of Amtrak pricing.  Saver fares are non-refundable and appear to be limited to certain routes and to coach seats.  For some, that could indeed be a problem, but my guess is that most people won’t encounter that limitation often.

Recommendation: Consider transferring now

Currently, it’s possible to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Amtrak points 1 to 1 as long as you have a premium card such as Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus.  If you know that you’ll be riding Amtrak in the future, you should consider transferring points to Amtrak prospectively.  Since it appears that Amtrak has moved its credit card partnership from Chase to Bank of America, its very likely that Chase will soon stop allowing transfers to Amtrak.  I’m not saying that you should definitely make the transfer, just that you should consider it.  Whether it makes sense for you depends on how likely it is that you’ll use the Amtrak points and how you might have used your Chase points otherwise.

Recommendation: Consider booking future trips now

If you’re considering a 2016 Amtrak trip, it makes sense to price out the award now.  If the current award price is less than the expected future price, then book now.  Otherwise, if possible, wait until January 24 2016 to book.

• You can find current award prices here: amtrakguestrewards.com/redeem.
• You can estimate future award prices by pricing your trip at Amtrak.com then entering the total price here: agr.amtrak.com/rideon/#

The post Amtrak Guest Rewards 2016 — Better than expected. My take and recommendations. appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

My Virgin Atlantic account currently shows a balance of over 557,000 miles.  With most programs, I’d be pretty happy about that.  In this case, though, the total is less than half needed for a single award: A week on Richard Branson’s Necker Island.

In the post, “Considering the 1.2 million mile Necker Island challenge… Who’s with me?”, I wrote about Virgin Atlantic’s Necker Island award.  For a “mere” 1.2 million miles, two people can stay for a week on Richard Branson’s Necker Island.  If you prefer to pay cash, Richard normally charges over $28,000.  Regardless of whether you pay with cash or miles, a week on Necker Island is expensive.

Honestly, I think its ridiculous to spend 1.2 million miles (or $28,000) for a week on an island.  Even with Virgin Atlantic miles (which are generally considered less valuable than many other types of miles), there is so much more one could do for far fewer miles.  That said, one of the things I love about the miles & points game is that it makes it possible to do things that I would never do otherwise, such as:

• Fly in a fully enclosed suite
• Stay in hotel suites that normally cost over $1500 per night
• Spend a week on Richard Branson’s private island

In a way, the Necker Island award represents the ultimate splurge, but I still wouldn’t recommend it for most people.  With the same effort required to earn 1.2 million Virgin Atlantic miles, you could earn enough airline miles and hotel points to travel in luxury for far longer than a week.  Keep in mind, too, that the Necker Island award does not include airfare to and from the Virgin Islands.

Still, despite my advice to everyone else, I’m going for it.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I enjoy challenges, and this is a big one.  Plus, I expect that the trip itself will result in interesting new content for this blog.  If I wasn’t a blogger, I probably wouldn’t do it.

Miles in the bag

I started with only about 1000 miles in April.  I don’t even remember where those miles came from.  Since then, I’ve amassed just over 556,000 additional miles, as follows:

• Approximately 450,000 miles earned from five credit card signup offers (plus the spend required to earn the bonuses)
• Approximately 106,000 miles transferred from my wife’s Citi ThankYou account while Citi offered a 25% transfer bonus (85,000 ThankYou points became 106,250 Virgin Atlantic miles)

Miles on the way

Two recent credit card approvals should lead to another 180,000 miles.  That will bring my total to approximately 737,000 miles.  At that point I’ll be 463,000 miles short of my goal.

Plan for the rest

As long as Bank of America continues to offer the not really 90,000 miles signup bonus for the Virgin Atlantic card, I should be able to meet my goal with only 5 more approvals.  Easy.  That is, it’s easy for a person with advanced manufactured spend experience.

If the 90K-ish offer goes away, I’ll look instead for Citi or Amex to offer additional transfer bonuses.  Previously I was hesitant to transfer my valuable transferable points to Virgin Atlantic, but I finally decided on an approach that makes it easier: I’ll transfer my wife’s points rather than my own.  Even though my wife’s transferable points are just as valuable as mine, and I fully manage both sets of accounts, it’s somehow easier for me to give up her points.  It doesn’t make any sense, but there you go.  In return, I’ll invite her to accompany me to Necker Island.

Previous Frequent Miler posts about Necker Island

• Considering the 1.2 million mile Necker Island challenge… Who’s with me?
• 420,000 miles closer to Necker Island
• Half way to Necker Island
• An interesting find on my way to Necker Island
• New BOA approval process and a stumble on my way to Necker Island

The post Necker Island: 557,000 miles in the bag, 180,000 miles on the way, and my plan for the rest appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

One of my earliest experiments with reselling came in 2012 when the British Airways shopping portal offered 36 points per dollar for first time users shopping at Nordstrom.  I knew I wanted to take advantage of the deal, but there was very little that I wanted to buy from Nordstrom.  Instead, I spent slightly over $4,000 on GPS watches and Beats headphones.  Thanks to the amazing 36 points per dollar deal, I earned more than 150,000 points.  I then shipped the watches and headphones to Amazon to be sold via their Fulfillment by Amazon program (slightly out of date details about Fulfillment by Amazon can be found here).

Since shipping and selling fees were involved, I expected to lose a bit of money from the transaction, but I thought it was still well worth it.  I thought of the loss as the price for buying miles cheaply.  As it turned out, Amazon somehow sold more watches than I gave them, so I actually made money on the deal (see: How Amazon paid me to collect miles).  After that experience, I bought and sold merchandise almost every time I encountered a fantastic portal opportunity.  For example, when the Southwest portal offered 15 points per dollar for shopping at Sears.com, I bought enough tablet computers to earn 110,000 points and a Southwest Companion Pass (see:  Sears 15X: Shopping for 110,000 points).  Again, I sold the tablets through FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), but this time I incurred the expected loss.

My buying and selling ramped up to new heights in March 2013 when I managed to earn a million points and miles in one month.  Slightly over half of the million points were from credit card signup bonuses.  Most of the remainder came from creative buying and selling.  The two approaches actually complemented each other in that it was a breeze to meet the minimum spend requirements from my new credit cards: I simply bought more stuff to resell.  For review, please see:

• Million Mile Madness: Final Tally
• Million Mile Madness: What I bought and sold
• How NOT to earn a million frequent flyer miles for $1000

Burned out

My Million Mile Madness challenge was successful, but it wasn’t fun.  Every day of the month was spent searching for new deals to purchase, packing items to send to Amazon, tracking sales, dealing with product returns, and dealing with gift card issues.  For examples of the latter, please see: Million Mile Madness: Bumps in the road.

After completing the challenge, I quit reselling.  There continued to be great opportunities, but I simply wasn’t interested in spending my time dealing with the inevitable issues.  I was burned out and wanted nothing to do with it.

Deep in SYW points thanks to Discover

Discover’s incredible Double Cash Back for 12 months offer for new customers has indirectly lured me back into reselling.  The deal was simply too good to ignore… especially when Discover Deals offered 10% cash back from Sears… and, especially with Discover It offering 5% cash back for department stores (Sears.com counts!)… and, especially while the Discover Deals portal paid out for the purchase of gift cards from Sears, the use of gift cards from Sears, and the use of SYW (Shop Your Way) points.

Here’s a summary of how it all stacked:

• Go through Discover Deals to Sears.com: 10% cash back
• Buy gift cards and pay with your Discover It card: 5% cash back (thanks to the department store bonus)
• Go through Discover Deals to Sears.com: 10% cash back
• Buy items offering 100% back in points and pay with gift cards: 100% back in SYW points (see: Roll gift cards into points for triple rewards)
• Go through Discover Deals to Sears.com: 10% cash back
• Buy items you actually want and pay with points: No SYW points earned when using points to pay.

In total, it has been possible to earn 35% cash back which will be doubled to 70% cash back. 

While I have been happily going through the steps described above, I hadn’t planned to do reselling.  My plan was to buy things that I actually wanted and needed.  For example, I recently used SYW points to buy clothes and shoes from Lands End; new glasses and contact lenses for my son from Sears Optical; and some gardening tools from Sears.com.  Only the last type of purchase earned portal points, so the Lands End and Sears Optical purchases will ultimately amount to “only” a 50% rebate.  It’s still an amazing deal no matter how you slice it.

In order to take full advantage of this deal, I’ve been prospectively buying Sears gift cards and using the gift card credit to buy 100% back in SYW points items whenever they’re available.  This has resulted in large amounts of Discover Cash Back, and huge amounts of SYW points.

Re-dipping my toes into reselling

My hand (toe?) was forced when I received an email from Sears’ Shop Your Way telling me that nearly $600 worth of points were about to expire.  Yikes!  I tried, but I couldn’t think of anything that we actually needed that added up to $600.  And, unfortunately, you can’t buy gift cards with SYW points.  So, I went back to my old standby – I bought a few tablet computers for resale.

I found a tablet that Amazon would allow me to sell as new (many brands do not allow this), and that was competitively priced at Sears.com.  After creating my Amazon Seller listing (to ensure that I really could sell it as new), I bought three tablets for about $200 each.  Amazon then inconveniently lowered their price from $199 to $179.  Not only would I have to pay for shipping and seller fees, but I’d have to cover the price gap as well if I wanted my tablets to sell quickly.

I listed the tablets at the same price as Amazon, and the tablets did indeed sell quickly.  On the surface, it appeared that I had suffered a bit of a loss.  Let’s look at the numbers:

• I paid $587 in SYW points for 3 tablets (The total was $597, but Sears supplied $10 in surprise SYW points)
• Amazon sent me $484.88 after the tablets were sold (they automatically took out fees, shipping charges, etc.)

That looks like a $102.12 loss, right?  That’s true, but only if you forget about the portal…

Discover Deals reported that I had earned $59.70 in cash back from the purchase of the tablets.  In the long term, that $59.70 will be doubled to $119.40.  Suddenly my loss is looking like a profit!  This is especially encouraging when you consider that I had already earned a total of 25% cash back in the process of acquiring the SYW points and that total will later double to 50%.

Of course, if one or more of the tablets are returned as defective (it happens), the numbers won’t look nearly as good.  As things stand now, though, reselling appears t have been an easy and successful way to convert my SYW points to cash.

Going forward

As I reported recently, Sears has changed their terms & conditions within a number of portals.  They appear to no longer provide portal rewards for the purchase of gift cards or the use of SYW points.  So far, a number of readers have reported that they have continued to earn Discover Cash Back from these types of purchases, but more experimentation will be needed to understand exactly where we stand with this.

It’s also important to note that Discover Deals has dropped the payout for Sears from 10% to 5%.  If history is any guide, though, we will probably see the payout go back up to 10% during holiday season.  In fact, the current 5% rate is scheduled to expire at the end of September, so I expect to see 10% return in early October (Sears may disappear entirely from the portal for a few days first. If so, don’t panic, it will be back).  If the 10% rate returns, and if portal rewards for gift cards and SYW points continue as they have in the past, I’ll continue to buy gift cards and to roll gift cards into SYW points prospectively.

The post Re-dipping my toes into reselling appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

This year’s best promotion has little to do with airline miles or hotel points.  Instead, it comes from Discover.  In particular, Discover promises to double all cashback earned for 12 months by new Discover It cardholders.  This is a nice perk for those who would otherwise earn 1% cashback from the card for regular spend and 5% cashback for spend within Discover It’s rotating 5% categories.  This is a fantastic perk for those equipped to take advantage of the Discover Deals cashback shopping portal.  By stacking shopping opportunities it’s possible to earn 50% or more cashback for purchases you would have made anyway.  Then, when redeeming Discover Cashback, it’s possible to get more than face value by redeeming for discounted gift cards.  As I’ve written about before, my favorite option is to get $40 National Car Rental gift certificates for $20 each in Discover Cash Back.  Honestly, though, I’ve earned so much Discover Cashback lately that I can’t possibly use it all on car rental certificates.  Instead, I expect that I will redeem most of the cashback for regular old statement credits.

The ability to double, triple, or quadruple dip portal rewards (as described here) depends on a lot of things going right:

• For a double-dip, an online merchant must allow earning portal rewards for both buying and using store gift cards.
• For a triple-dip, the same online merchant must fit into a category in which Discover It offers 5% cashback.
• For a quadruple dip, the same merchant must offer store rewards and must allow earning portal rewards when store rewards are used to purchase merchandise.
• For all of the above, the portal in question (i.e. Discover Deals) must allow earning portal rewards even when their credit card is not used to make the purchase.

Regarding the last point: the Discover Deals portal’s terms do suggest that you must pay with your Discover card to to earn cash back.  In practice, however, I’ve earned cashback countless times despite using other forms of payment (e.g. I’ve used: other credit cards, or gift cards, or store rewards).

CAUTION: Some readers have reported having their cashback “clawed back” by Discover due to not having paid with their Discover card.  This may be true, but I actually think that a more plausible explanation is that cashback was clawed by by the merchant in question when the merchant realized that the order was not eligible for portal rewards, and/or when items were returned.  In those cases, it would not be surprising if a Discover customer service agent thought that the reason had to do with the form of payment.

Regarding the first three points above, Sears is the only merchant I know of that has reliably fit all three criteria.  Recently, though, new developments put the reliable old Sears’ double, triple, and quadruple dips into danger…

Sears backs off rewarding purchases of gift cards or purchases made with points

Sears recently added new language to their terms on a number of portals.  We first wrote about the changes here: Warning: Portals No Longer Paying for the Purchase of Sears Gift Cards.  Not only did Sears add language stating that buying gift cards wouldn’t earn rewards, but they banned earning rewards when using Shop Your Way points as well.  The new language, as found on a number of portals, states:

Not eligible on online purchase made using Sears Shop Your Way points. Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents.

Even though this new language showed up only on Cartera portals (which includes most airline mileage portals: AA, United, Southwest, Delta, etc.), we wrote:

Sears generally handles all portals the same way, so the ones without the gift card exclusion are probably just slow to update

and, in another post, we wrote:

Even if some portals do not yet have language like this, it is likely that they will work the same way as portals that do have the new terms.

Experiments

In the post, “Sears nixes portal rewards on gift cards. There may be hope yet,” I pointed out that Sears used to have similar language against gift cards but that it wasn’t consistently enforced.  More specifically, it was enforced for e-gift cards, but not for physical by-mail gift cards and not for gift card reloads.  Clearly, it was time to experiment!

In order to see what works and what doesn’t, I selected three portals and made four separate purchases after clicking through each one.  In total, I made 12 test purchases to see which would result in portal rewards and which wouldn’t.  Here were the tests, all of which were conducted on September 1:

United MileagePlus Portal (a Cartera portal):

• Click through portal to Sears and buy $10 physical gift card. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and buy $11 e-gift card. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and reload gift card with $12. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and buy $13 item with SYW points

Southwest Rapid Rewards Portal (a Cartera portal):

• Click through portal to Kmart and buy $10 physical gift card. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and buy $11 e-gift card. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and reload gift card with $12. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and buy $13 item with SYW points

Discover Deals Portal (not a Cartera portal):

• Click through portal to Sears and buy $15 physical gift card. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and buy $11 e-gift card. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and reload gift card with $12. Pay with Discover It card.
• Click through portal to Sears and buy $10 item with SYW points

Of the three portals tested, the Discover Deals portal is the only one without language on the Sears’ page prohibiting rewards on purchased gift cards or with the use of Shop Your Way points.

I made sure to vary the dollar amount of each purchase through a given portal so that it would be clear which purchases earned rewards and which did not.

Results

The results are pretty simple.  None of the purchases made through the Cartera portals tracked.  However, all of the purchases made through Discover Deals tracked.  I received the following email from Discover Deals on September 3:

On September 1, I had made a total of $48 worth of purchases from Sears through the Discover Deals portal.  The portal at the time was offering 5% cash back, so: 5% of $48 = $2.40.  That’s the exact amount reported.

Neither MileagePlus Shopping nor Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping show any pending rewards on my account.  That’s not proof that the portal purchases didn’t work.  Sometimes portals can take weeks before reporting rewards.  However, the quick turnaround on my Discover Deals purchases suggests to me that I would have heard by now from the other portals as well.

All of the above results have been reported within the Frequent Miler Laboratory.

Wrap Up

Amazingly, Sears appears to be rewarding purchases made through portals exactly as stated in the terms.  That is, of the three portals I tested, the two that explicitly disallow rewards on the purchases of gift cards or with SYW points seemed to enforce those conditions (note that, despite the wording of this sentence, I believe it is actually Sears that enforces the conditions, not the portals).  The one portal that I tested that did not have the same language, Discover Deals, did report rewards for all four test purchases.

What this means:

Within any portal, pay close attention to the terms listed for the particular store in which you want to shop.  Not all portal / store combinations enforce those terms exactly, but Sears appears to do so at least with the three portals I tested.

For the Discover Double Cash Back for a Year promotion, this means that we’re still in business!  Unless / until the Sears terms change within Discover Deals, double-dip, triple-dip, and quadruple-dip opportunities will continue.  And, I think it is very likely that Discover Deals will increase Sears cash back to 10% in early October.  We’ll see!

Cautions:

• There is always risk that Discover may take back cashback awarded when a Discover card is not used for a purchase. This would affect purchases made with gift cards or with merchant points (such as Sears’ SYW points).
• If you are not awarded cashback when using a form of payment other than your Discover card through Discover Deals, you will not get help from Discover’s customer support.
• Sears’ terms may change at any time.
• Sears may change how they enforce the terms at any time.
• All of my tests were with very small purchases.  While it’s unlikely, its possible that results would differ with much larger purchases.

The post The promo of the year lives on appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

In March, I wrote that the Chase Amtrak card was no longer being offered to new customers.  This was disappointing because the credit card is key to unlocking a special redemption option:  Once you’ve racked up $200 in Amtrak charges, the credit card gives you the ability to convert Amtrak points to Choice Privilege hotel points at a terrific 1 to 3 ratio (5,000 Amtrak points become 15,000 Choice points).  Even without Amtrak points, one could take advantage of this by transferring points 1 to 1 from Ultimate Rewards or SPG to Amtrak, and then from Amtrak to Choice.

Soon after I wrote about the demise of the Amtrak card, a working application link was found: Amtrak zombie links found; should you hop on?  Unsurprisingly, that link soon stopped working, but I had impulsively signed up just in time.

Obviously, Choice points can be used to book Choice hotels.  And, in some cases, it’s possible to get fantastic value from those points.  See, for example, this Loyalty Traveler post: Clarion Collection Hotel Temperance Malmo, Sweden food alone worth 8,000 points.  And, as Travel Is Free documented, it’s also possible to use Choice points to book many of Travel & Leisure’s Top 500 hotels thanks to the ability to redeem Choice points for Preferred Hotel & Resorts properties.

The end is near

Chase sent letters to cardholders to let them know that the Amtrak card would be discontinued.  Most people were told that their card would be converted to a Chase Freedom card — which is a pretty good swap in my opinion.  We have until the end of September to use our cards as Amtrak cards.  After that, they will function as Freedom cards while we wait for our replacement cards to arrive in the mail “approximately 6 to 8 weeks after September 30th”.

It appears that Bank of America will very soon offer new Amtrak credit cards.  I think it is likely that Amtrak’s Choice transfer option will be extended to those who signup for these new cards.  I doubt, though, that I’ll signup for one anytime soon… unless they surprise me with a very large signup bonus.

Preparing for the transfer

Just in case I decide to transfer Amtrak points to Choice before my card turns into a Freedom pumpkin, I called Amtrak to find out more about their $200 spend criteria.  To date, I had only spent $5 on Amtrak with my credit card.  I asked the Amtrak agent the following question: if I spent $200 today, when would I be able to make the Choice transfer?  The answer given was that it is tied to the credit card’s statement closing date: once you meet the spend criteria, you can make the transfer after the current statement closes.  I looked up my card’s closing date: September 12th.  So there was still time for me to charge something to the card and for the charge to clear before the statement closed.  I immediately bought a refundable $200+ round trip ticket for next summer.  Theoretically, after my statement closes on September 12th, and until my card changes to a Freedom card at the end of the month, I’ll have the ability to transfer points to Choice.

Is it worth doing without a redemption plan?

The biggest problem with Choice points is that they expire on December 31, two years after the year in which they were deposited into your account.  I believe that means that if I transfer points from Amtrak to Choice this month, any remaining points will expire at the end of 2017.  Unlike most other points programs, account activity (e.g. earning or using points) doesn’t reset the clock on your existing points.  That alone is a good reason not to acquire Choice points without a good plan for how you’ll use them.

Another huge issue with Choice points is that bookings for the US and Canada can be made no more than 30 days in advance of your stay, and bookings for other locations can be made no more than 60 days in advance.  Choice Privileges elite members get expanded booking windows, but even top tier Diamond members must book within 100 days of arrival.  That too, in my opinion, is a terrible policy that may make it difficult to use your points.

Decision

I bought a refundable Amtrak ticket in order to meet the $200 spend criteria for transfers to Choice, but its very unlikely that I’ll actually make the transfer.  If something comes up before the end of September in which Choice points prove to be a good option, then I’ll go for it.  Otherwise, I’ll let this one go.  Care to convince me otherwise?  Please comment below.

The post Should I bet on Choice? appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Discover’s top execs have gone completely crazy.  Either that or their bonuses are dependent upon customer acquisition and retention and not on profit.  Either way, it means free money for us.  A lot of free money!

Earlier, I labeled Discover’s Double Cash Back for a Year promotion the Promo of the Year.  The ability to combine Discover It’s 5% categories with Discover Deals shopping bonuses and get all of that cashback doubled is absurdly generous.  Now, Discover execs have slipped completely off their rocking chairs and are offering 10% cashback for all Apple Pay purchases between September 16 and December 31 2015.

Here’s a quote from Discover’s press release:

From September 16, to the end of the year, cardmembers who pay with their Discover card using Apple Pay will automatically earn an extra 10% Cashback Bonus on up to $10,000 of in-store purchases. Discover it Miles, Miles and Escape cardmembers will earn an extra 10 miles per dollar on up to $10,000 of in-store purchases.

How good is this deal?  even by itself, it’s huge.  Discover has promised to give 10% cashback (or 10X miles for those with a Discover Miles card) up to $10,000 in spend per cardmember.  That means that each card holder can earn up to $1,000 in addition to rewards their card would have earned anyway.  Suppose, for example, you can find a store that accepts Apple Pay and sells $500 Visa gift cards, each with a $4.95 fee.  In that case, you could, over time, buy $10,000 worth of gift cards, pay $99 in fees; and earn $1000 from this promotion, plus at least 1% from your Discover card’s usual rewards (1% of $10,099 = $100.99).  In other words, the $1000 bonus would be pure profit!

How good is this deal when combined with Discover’s Double Cash Back offer?  It’s crazy.  Nuts.  Insane.  $1,000 in cashback will eventually double to $2,000!  And, that’s on top of the crazy amounts of cash back you’ll already earn through Discover It’s 5% categories (doubled to 10%), and from shopping through the Discover Deals portal!

What you need

In order to fully take advantage of this deal you’ll need three things:

• An iPhone that supports Apple Pay (iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, or 6S Plus)
• A Discover card enrolled in the Double Cashback (or Double Miles) offer
• Access to one or more stores that support Apple Pay and let you buy gift cards with a credit card

See below for advice on all three…

How to get an iPhone 6

If you don’t already have an iPhone 6, you can obviously just go and buy one (but you might want to wait a few weeks until the 6S is available) and/or upgrade from your existing phone.  It will cost you, though.

For those with AT&T service, or those willing to switch to AT&T service, I’ll remind you of another option…

Free iPhone 6: You can get a free iPhone by signing up for the Citi AT&T Access More card and spending $2,000 (details here).  Doctor of Credit published a link to the phone’s available through this deal.  Both the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are currently available.  I expect that the 6S models will be available soon as well.  Just FYI: It has been reported that signing up for new AT&T service results in a hard credit pull so be prepared for two credit pulls if you’re new to AT&T and you sign up for the Access More card.

You can find the signup link for the AT&T Access More card on my Best Offers page.  FYI: I do not earn a commission for this card.

If you go this route, do it soon.  You won’t be eligible for the free phone until after you’ve met the $2,000 spend requirement.  And, obviously, you won’t be able to use Apple Pay until your phone arrives.

When you signup for the Access More card, you’ll be given a unique phone offer link from which you can purchase a new phone. The cost of the phone will even count towards the $2,000 spend requirement!  Once you’ve met the $2,000 spend requirement, Citi will then credit your account for the cost of the new phone, up to $650 (exclusive of taxes, shipping, fees & wireless service).

Authorized user option: I have to admit that I don’t know for sure that adding an authorized user card to Apple Pay will work, but I expect it will. The idea is to find a friend who has an iPhone 6 and then add that friend as an authorized user to your Discover account.  Then, drive your friend to the closest Apple Pay friendly store that sells gift cards and ask them to use Apple Pay to buy those gift cards for you.  Finally, take that friend out for a nice dinner – they just helped you make a bunch of money!

How to enroll in Double Cash Back or Double Miles

There was a period of time when it was possible to enroll existing Discover cards into the Double Cash Back for a year offer.  Unfortunately, in late June, Discover stopped allowing existing cardmembers to enroll.  If you enrolled in-time, then you’re good to go.  Or, if you signed up for a new Discover card since the promotion began, then you’re good to go as well – you would have been automatically enrolled.  What are your options if you’re not enrolled?

Sign up for a new card: If you don’t already have a Discover card, I absolutely recommend signing up for one now.  For many people, the Discover It card is the best bet thanks to its rotating 5% categories and its access to cash back from the Discover Deals portal.  For those who prefer keeping things simple, the Discover It Miles card is hard to beat.

Sign-up links for both can be found here. FYI: I do not earn a commission for Discover cards. For the Discover It card, though, we’ve published a friend’s referral link.  If you signup with that link, both you and my friend will earn $50 cashback, which will later be doubled to $100.

Sign up for a second card: If you already have a Discover card, it is possible to get a second one, but you must be a cardmember for at least a year. According to Doctor of Credit, this is the official word from Discover:

A cardmember can be the primary cardholder on two Discover accounts, and can only be considered for a second account once they have had the first account for at least a year

Ask a relative to signup: If there’s someone in your family that would trust you to manage their account (a spouse, perhaps?), then consider asking them to signup for a Discover card, and to add you as an authorized user.  You can then earn double cash back (or miles, which are really cash back too) for a year with your authorized user card.  Keep in mind, though, that all rewards will post to your family member’s account.

Stores that support Apple Pay

Apple provides a list of stores accepting Apple Pay.  The list includes interesting stores such as:

• BI LO
• Duane Reade
• Meijer
• ToysRUs
• Walgreens
• etc…

I don’t know how well the list is kept up to date, though.  The same page says to look for the following symbols when checking out:

I’d recommend looking for these symbols in stores you frequent.  When you find stores that sell useful gift cards and let you pay with Apple Pay, please report your findings in the comments below.

Wrap up

This is seriously one of the best deals I’ve seen in a long time… In fact, I’m having a hard time thinking of a better deal ever.  My niece recently signed up for the Discover It card and so now I’ll look into getting her upgraded to an iPhone 6 so that she can participate in this deal.  I might just sign up for the Access More card so that I can get her a phone free and clear.  And, of course, my wife will apply for her first Discover card soon.  Let’s just hope that Discover is still in business a year from now when they have to start paying out on all of these Double Cash Back promises!

The post The NEW Deal of the Year: Preparing for Discover Apple Pay and $2,000 appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Plastiq, a bill payment service that makes it possible to pay almost all bills by credit card (mortgage, rent, professional fees, etc.) has been running a couple of ongoing promotions (click each link for complete details):

• Pay Utilities by credit card for free
• Pay mortgage, rent, and more by credit card. Plastiq offers 1.99% Amex and MasterCard promo rate!

As of close of business on Monday (5PM Pacific Time), September 14th each of the above promotions will end.  You can lock in those rates longer term, though, by scheduling repeating payments now.  As long as you schedule the payments while the promos are active, it is my understanding that you’ll continue to pay the promotional rates rather than the usual 2.5% fees that Plastiq usually charges.  If you make a change to a scheduled payment, though, fees will be re-priced.

Questions?

Please see “Complete guide to Plastiq credit card payments.”

Related posts

• An easier (and now cheaper) way to increase credit card spend: Plastiq
• Chase Ink 5X? Send check to self? Pay credit card bill? Combine payments? Is Plastiq reliable? Top 5 Plastiq questions answered…

Never miss a Quick Deal, Subscribe here.

The post Plastiq promos end Monday. Last chance for no fee utility payments, and 1.99% fees elsewhere. appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Last week, Discover announced that support for Apple Pay would begin on September 16th (Wednesday).  To encourage its use, they further announced that, through December 31 2015, customers who pay with their Discover card using Apple Pay will earn an extra 10% Cashback Bonus (or an extra 10 miles per dollar) on up to $10,000 in purchases.  That, in itself, would be pretty exciting, but this deal also overlaps with an ongoing promotion giving Discover cardholders double rewards for a year.  By stacking these two deals, Discover customers can get a total of 20% back on all Apple Pay purchases (10% back now and 10% later) in addition to rewards normally earned by their credit card.

Full coverage of this combination of deals can be found here: The NEW Deal of the Year: Preparing for Discover Apple Pay and $2,000.

What is the “Deal of the Year”?

There are two great deals here: The Apple Pay 10% rebate; and the double rewards for a year offer.  It is the combination of those two deals that I refer to as the “deal of the year.”

How do I enroll in Double Rewards for a Year?

Currently, this offer is available only to new cardholders.  The offer began with the unveiling of the Discover It Miles card.  As a result, all Discover It Miles cardholders are enrolled in this offer.  The offer was later opened up to new and existing cardholders of other Discover cards, but Discover then stopped allowing existing cardholders to enroll.  If you are unsure whether or not you are enrolled, simply call the number on the back of your Discover card and ask.

If you are not currently enrolled, the only way to enroll is to sign up for a new Discover card.

How do I enroll in the Apple Pay deal?

You do not have to enroll in this offer. Simply add your Discover card to Apple Pay on your qualifying device and then use Apple Pay through the end of this year to make in-store purchases.  As long as your Discover card is the selected payment card within Apple Pay, you should automatically get 10% cashback (or an extra 10X miles) from Discover.

Is my Discover card eligible for the Apple Pay deal?

All Discover consumer credit cards are eligible.  I believe this leaves out only business cards, gift cards, and debit cards.

If I have two Discover cards, can I earn twice the rewards?

Discover says yes.

How many Discover cards can one person have?

Two.  Once you’ve had your first Discover card for more than a year, you can apply for a second one.

How do I get Apple Pay?

You will need either an iPhone 6 or an Apple Watch linked to an iPhone 5 or iPhone 6.

How do I add my Discover card to Apple Pay?

The press release describes the process as follows:

After upgrading for free to iOS 9, Discover cardmembers can go to the Wallet app to get started. If cardmembers already have a Discover card on file with iTunes, all they need to do is enter the security code, or they can choose to add a new Discover Card.

Why can’t I add my Discover card to Apple Pay?

Discover support for Apple Pay begins on Wednesday, September 16th.  Until then, you won’t be able to add your Discover card to Apple Pay.  Based on the language in the press release, it sounds like you will also have to upgrade your phone to iOS 9 before adding your Discover card.  We’ll see.  Its possible that they’re simply trying to encourage upgrading your phone’s iOS version.  On Wednesday I’ll try adding my Discover card to Passbook, without first upgrading to iOS 9, to see what happens.

Can I add my spouse’s Discover card to my Apple Pay?

Yes, that should work.  I added my wife’s Amex card and Bank of America card to my Apple Pay account without any problem.  I was then able to use Apple Pay in stores to buy things (including gift cards) with my wife’s cards – with her permission, of course.  Your spouse will be alerted that their card has been added to Apple Pay.

Can I add multiple Discover cards to one iPhone?

Yes.  I can’t try this until support for Discover appears on Wednesday, but I’ve added multiple cards from Amex without trouble so I expect that Discover will be the same.  One caution: it may be difficult to distinguish the two cards within the Wallet app.  For that reason, it may make more sense to do one card at a time.

Can I add Discover, Visa, MasterCard, or Amex gift cards to Apple Pay?

In my experience, no.

Can I get an iPhone 6 for free?  Can I get one cheap?

Yes, you can!  One approach is to signup for the Citi AT&T Access More credit card.  Details can be found here: The NEW Deal of the Year: Preparing for Discover Apple Pay and $2,000.

Options for getting a discounted phone, or a free phone for a month, can be found in this Big Habitat post: 9-11-15 Need an iphone 6 for up to one month for free? Here’s how….

Will in-app Apple Pay purchases count for 10% cashback?

Discover says no.  There’s always a chance that it will work anyway, but I wouldn’t count on it.  On the other hand, Discover’s rep, Cassie, got the starting date of the promo wrong, so who knows…

Can I use an iPad with Apple Pay?

Some iPad models do support Apple Pay, but only for in-app purchases.  So, no, that won’t help you with this deal unless Cassie (see above) was wrong when she said that in-app charges do not qualify.

Will stores allow large gift card purchases to be made with Apple Pay?

Yes. I can’t promise that your local stores will allow it, but it has worked for me.  In the past few days I tried Apple Pay at several merchants in the southeast Michigan area.  In each case I brought a variable load Visa gift card to the register, asked to load $500, and paid with Apple Pay.  I had no problems.

Which stores accept Apple Pay?

Apple provides a list of stores accepting Apple Pay.  The list includes interesting stores such as:

• BI LO
• Duane Reade
• Meijer
• ToysRUs
• Walgreens
• etc…

However, the list is not complete.  I found Apple Pay at Rite Aid, for example, even though it is not on the list.

Look for this logo in stores that you frequent:

When you find the icons, try out Apple Pay.  The icons alone don’t prove that the technology is currently in-place and working.  I tried a couple of stores that showed an icon like the one on the left, but they didn’t work.  For example, see the photo of the register at my local CVS store:

I tried buying gift cards at CVS with Apple Pay.  At first, the register seemed to accept it, but then a message appeared that said something like “this register does not support contactless payments”.

Where can I buy $500 Visa or MasterCard gift cards and pay with Apple Pay?

The answer to this will vary by location.  I had success at a couple of different drugstores and a toy store.

What types of $500 gift cards are available?

In my area, I found only Vanilla brand Visa or MasterCard gift cards.  There are pros and cons to these cards.

Pros:

• Some Vanilla card fees are only $4.95 per card.  That’s $1 cheaper than most competing variable load cards.
• Upon first use, you can use any 4 digits as the PIN so there is no need to write down or memorize a PIN.
• One Vanilla cards do not have the word “gift” written on their face so they may be accepted in more places.

Cons:

• Vanilla gift cards can’t be used at Walmart to load Bluebird or Serve.

How can I liquidate Vanilla Visa or MasterCard gift cards?

Here are a few options:

• Use for regular spend.
• Use to pay bills wherever credit cards are accepted.
• Use as debit card to reload Serve at Family Dollar.
• Use to reload REDbird at Target (note: some Target stores do not accept gift cards as payment, so YMMV)
• Use to pay friends through a service like Venmo or Paypal.  You will likely incur a fee, but since you will get at least 10% back for the purchase of the gift card, a 3% fee won’t kill you.
• Use to pay bills that are not normally payable by credit card via a service like Plastiq.  As above, you will incur a fee, but it could be well worth it.

See also: Beginner’s guide to buying & liquidating Visa & Mastercard gift cards.

The post Can I really buy $500 gift cards with Apple Pay? How can I get an iPhone for free? Does my Discover card qualify? Discover’s Deal of the Year Questions Answered appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Bank of America has recently unveiled their new Amtrak branded credit cards: Amtrak Guest Rewards World MasterCard and Amtrak Guest Rewards Platinum MasterCard. Are they worth applying for?  Are they worth using?  Are they worth keeping?  Answers follow…

Basics

World MasterCard

Annual Fee: $79

Standard signup bonus: 20,000 points after $1,000 spend in 3 months

Earning rate: 3X Amtrak, 2X qualifying travel, 1X elsewhere

Big spend bonus: Earn 1,000 Tier Qualifying Points towards earning status for each $5K spent in a calendar year. Limit 4,000 TQPs per year.  Cardholders also get the ability to transfer up to 25,000 points to hotels (3 Choice points per Amtrak point, or 2 Hilton points per Amtrak point) after $20,000 calendar year spend.

Noteworthy Perks: 5% Amtrak Guest Rewards point rebate on redemptions. Complimentary companion coupon, One-Class Upgrade and a single-day Club Acela pass each year. No foreign transaction fees.

Platinum MasterCard

No Annual Fee

Standard signup bonus: 12,000 points after $1,000 spend in 3 months

Earning rate: 2X Amtrak, 1X elsewhere

Noteworthy Perks: 5% Amtrak Guest Rewards point rebate on redemptions.  No foreign transaction fees.

Amtrak Guest Rewards points

Both cards earn Amtrak Guest Rewards points.  As of January 24, 2016, points will be worth 2.6 cents each for Acela routes (for fares of $100 or more) and 2.9 cents each elsewhere (for fares of $23 or more).

Are the cards worth applying for?

Quick answer: Yes

12,000 to 20,000 point signup bonuses don’t sound impressive, but with Amtrak’s new program, points are worth up to 2.9 cents each.  So, the 12,000 point bonus can be worth up to $348 of Amtrak travel, and the 20,000 point bonus can be worth up to $580.  While those numbers aren’t off the charts, they’re pretty good!

In addition to signup bonuses, cardholders of both cards get a 5% rebate on awards.  Obviously, the more points you redeem while being a cardholder, the more valuable this particular perk becomes.

With the $79 World MasterCard, you also get a complimentary companion coupon valid for paid one-way or round-trip travel.  And, you get a One-Class Upgrade Coupon valid only from Coach to Business class, or from Acela Business class to Acela First class, on a single travel segment or leg.

Are the cards worth using for spend?

Quick answer: Only under very specific circumstances

World MasterCard Earning rate: 3X Amtrak, 2X qualifying travel, 1X elsewhere

Platinum MasterCard Earning rate: 2X Amtrak, 1X elsewhere

At the time of this writing, premium cards from Chase (Sapphire Preferred and Ink Plus, for example) have the ability to transfer points to Amtrak 1 to 1.  Similarly, members of the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program can transfer points to Amtrak 1 to 1.  So, cardholders of SPG cards, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and Chase Ink Plus would do better using those cards for non-bonus spend than to use the Amtrak cards.  Either way, cardholders will earn one point per dollar, but Chase Ultimate Rewards points and SPG points are more valuable because they have many additional valuable uses besides transferring to Amtrak.

If you don’t have or want the Chase or SPG cards, then putting non-bonus spend on Amtrak cards does make sense since points are worth up to 2.9 cents each towards Amtrak travel.

For spend on Amtrak itself, the Platinum card simply matches the 2 points per dollar offered by the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (for all travel), but the World MasterCard’s 3 points per dollar is very good.  Those with the Citi ThankYou Premier card (which offers 3X for all travel purchases) might prefer to use that card for Amtrak spend, but most people would do well with the Amtrak World MasterCard.

For non-Amtrak travel spend, the World MasterCard offers 2 points per dollar.  I would recommend using this card for non-Amtrak travel purchases only if you do not have a card offering better rewards for travel spend (e.g. Citi ThankYou Premier 3X, Chase Sapphire Preferred 2X, etc.).

Is the World MasterCard worth using for big spend?

The $79 World MasterCard offers a couple of perks for big spend:

• Earn 1,000 Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs) towards earning status for each $5K spent in a calendar year. Limit 4,000 TQPs per calendar year.
• Cardholders also get the ability to transfer up to 25,000 points to hotels (3 Choice points per Amtrak point, or 2 Hilton points per Amtrak point) after $20,000 calendar year spend.

Amtrak offers the following elite status tiers:

• Select requires earning 5,000 TQPs per year
• Select Plus requires earning 10,000 TQPs per year
• Select Executive requires earning 20,000 TQPs per year

Since the World MasterCard gives you 1,000 TQPs for each $5,000 of spend — up to 4,000 QTPs – it’s possible to get within 1,000 TQPs of Select elite status through spend alone.  $20,000 worth of spend within a calendar year will result in 4,000 TQPs.  You would have to spend another $500 in Amtrak travel within the same year in order to reach that first tier of elite status (Amtrak travel earns 2 EQPs per dollar).  Is it worth it?

Here are the elite status benefits as advertised by Amtrak:

Interestingly, the only really valuable perk I see is the ability to transfer points.  Specifically, Select status gives members the ability to transfer up to 50,000 Amtrak points per year to hotel programs.  Since points transfer 1 to 3 to Choice, that means the ability to get up to 150,000 Choice points.

With the same $20,000 of annual spend on the card, cardholders are given the ability to transfer up to 25,000 points.  So, the primary advantage of earning 1,000 additional EQPs through actual Amtrak travel (in order to achieve Select status) is the ability to transfer 50,000 points rather than 25,000 points.  Those who are able to take good advantage of Choice points may find that well worthwhile.

Expert tip: it is very likely that there is a sneaky way to earn elite status through credit card spend alone.  See this post for ideas.

Are the cards worth keeping?

No fee Platinum card: Yes.  Keep for its 5% award rebate.

$79 World MasterCard: Keep if you get more than $79 value from its annual perks (companion coupon and upgrade certificate).  Keep if used for its big spend benefits (ability to transfer points, progress towards elite status).

My best guess is that most people won’t get enough value from the World MasterCard to make it worth keeping after the first year.  However, those who chase Amtrak status and those who highly value point transfers to Choice will do well with this card.  My recommendation is to evaluate the benefits of the card when the second year annual fee comes due.  If you do not feel that you are getting $79 in value, then consider cancelling the card, downgrading to the no fee Amtrak card, or product changing to a different no-fee card such as the Better Balance Rewards card.

The post Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card review appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Soon, I have no doubt, many readers will be flush with Discover Cashback (see: The NEW Deal of the Year: Preparing for Discover Apple Pay and $2,000).  That’s great, but some readers prefer earning miles.  And, I’m not talking about Discover Miles.  Those are essentially pennies.  I’m talking about airline miles that can be used to towards flights, ideally at outsized value.

I’ve already explained how to get massive amounts of Discover Cashback.  Here’s how to turn those rewards into airline miles…

Overview

Here’s the general idea:

1. Increase the value of your Discover Cashback by converting it into 1-800-Flowers gift certificates
2. Select stuff to buy from 1-800-Flowers
3. Apply an airline mile promo code
4. Pay with your gift certificates
5. You’ll end up with airline miles and stuff from 1-800-Flowers

Whenever I write posts like this, a number of people comment about how bad of a deal 1-800-Flowers is.  Others comment on how bad their service is, or how bad the delivered product is.  All of that is irrelevant.   With this plan, the idea is to use 1-800-Flowers as a vehicle for buying miles.  Consider it a bonus if it results in any nice flowers or gifts.

Important Note

Do not think of this as a recommendation!  I am not saying that it is a good idea to turn Discover Cashback into miles.  That’s up to you to decide.  In this post I’ll show you a way to do so without much analysis about whether or not it’s a good idea.

Preparations

For the following steps to work, you should first subscribe to the 1-800-Flowers Celebrations Passport program.  For $29.99, this service offers free shipping and handling for a year for any purchases made at 1-800-Flowers or its affiliated stores (1-800-Baskets, Cheryls, The Popcorn Factory, etc.).

You can get a nice rebate for the purchase of this service by clicking through from a portal first (for example, Discover Deals is currently offering 15% cashback for 1-800-Baskets).  Also, if you pay with a Visa or MasterCard linked to your Sears’ Shop Your Way Rewards account, you should get 20% back in SYW points.

You’ll also want to join the 1-800-Flowers Celebration Rewards program.  The program is free to join and it gives you a $20 Savings Pass for every $200 spent with 1-800-Flowers.

Once you’ve joined Celebration Rewards and you have the Passport membership in-hand, you can proceed to the following step by step approach to converting Discover Cashback to miles…

Step 1: Convert Discover Cashback to 1-800-Flowers gift certificates

When redeeming Discover Cashback, you can choose to get cash, in the form of a statement credit or a deposit to your bank, or you can spend it like cash in several stores, or you can select from many different gift card options.  When you select gift cards, you get a discount off of the card’s face value.  The specific discount varies by merchant, but with 1-800-Flowers you’ll currently get a 33% discount.  For example, a $30 1-800-Flowers gift certificates costs only $20 in Discover Cashback.

1-800-Flowers only allows you to apply one gift certificate per order online, so select a value as close to the amount you plan to spend as possible.  Let’s assume, for now, that you choose the $30 gift certificate.  Once you select this reward, it should be sent to you via email immediately.

Step 2: Find stuff to buy

Go to 1800Flowers.com and search for items that match the value of your gift certificate.  Try various menu items such as “All Plants”, then sort by price (Low to High).  Some items are best found by looking within certain sub-categories, such as “Meat & Cheese”.  Once you find something to buy, add it to your cart.  Make sure to select a no-fee delivery date (even with Passport, next day orders often incur an extra fee).

Step 3: Apply an airline promo code

Here are several currently active codes (sorted roughly by value of the offer):

• TB1500: Earn 1500 JetBlue miles per order (details here). This equates to 50 miles per dollar for a $30 order.
• RR22: Earn 1000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points per order (details here). This equates to 33 miles per dollar for a $30 order.
• AKA3: Earn 20 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles per dollar (details here)
• ADDV: Earn 15 American Airlines AAdvantage miles per dollar (details here)
• AMT62: Earn 10 Amtrak points per dollar (details here)
• HA64: Earn 20 Hawaiian Airlines miles per dollar (strangely, the offer page shows 1000 miles per order, but when you click through it says 20 miles per dollar)

The top two codes, above, offer miles “per order” rather than “per dollar”.  Both require orders of $29.99, or more.  With $30 orders, 1000 miles works out to 33.33 miles per dollar, and 1500 miles works out to 50 miles per dollar.

Here are promotion codes that have worked in the past (and will hopefully work again during holiday promotions):

• AMT36 (expired): Earn 20 Amtrak points per dollar (details here)
• TB1750 (expired): 1,750 JetBlue miles per order (58.33 miles per dollar for $30 orders)
• RR36 (expired), RR43 (expired): 1750 Southwest points per order (58.33 points per dollar for $30 orders)
• RR60 (expired): Earn 30 Southwest Rapid Rewards points per dollar
• RR59 (expired): Earn 30 Southwest Rapid Rewards points per dollar
• DE43 (expired): Earn 30 Delta SkyMiles per dollar

Math time!

Now we get to everyone’s favorite part of the program, math time!  Assuming we don’t value the flowers or gifts other than to make up for time spent on task, and ignoring rewards earned from the Celebration Rewards program, let’s see how much those miles and points cost…

Lowering the cost per mile with Celebration Rewards

If you plan your orders just right so that you spend exactly a multiple of $200 (twenty $30 orders, for example), then through the Celebration Rewards program you’ll get 10% back in the form of a Savings Pass to be spent on a future order.  If you then apply a mileage promo code to that future order, you’ll get additional points or miles for no extra cost.  Let’s take an example:

• Place twenty $30 orders.
• Total spend through 1-800-Flowers = $600
• Savings Pass = $20 per $200 spent = $60
• Total cost to you = $20 per order x 20 = $400

If, for simplicity, we assume the use of a 30 point per dollar promo code for all orders, then without the Saving Pass, we would earn 600 x 30 = 18,000 miles.  That comes to $400 / 18,000 = 2.22 cents per mile.  With the savings pass, we would earn 660 x 30 = 19,800 miles.  That comes to $400 / 19,800 = 2 cents per mile.

In brief, Celebration Rewards can be used to reduce the cost per mile by up to 10%.

Lowering the cost per mile through tax savings

It may be possible to save on taxes in a couple of ways:

1. Individuals can use 1800Flowers to send food donations to a charitable organization, for example.  Those donations could be itemized in order to reduce your tax burden. You can find an example of how to do this in this old post.
2. Business owners could use the 1800Flowers deliveries as business expenses.  One could send gifts to customers or employees, for example.  When treated as business expenses, these charges should reduce profits, and therefore taxes, accordingly.

I’m NOT a tax professional.  If you decide to do either, please consult your tax adviser.

Wrap Up

If I have any real use for buying gifts from 1800Flowers, I’ll make use of the plan shown above.  Otherwise, I’ll wait and see what the 1800Flowers’ holiday promotions look like.  If we see, for example, a 1500 mile per order promo with Alaska Mileage Plan, I might go for it.  How about you?

The post How to convert Discover Cashback into airline miles appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

Through September 30th 2015, the Plastiq bill payment service is offering a discounted rate for paying new bills with your MasterCard credit card or gift card.  Plastiq’s usual fee is 2.5%, but during this promotional period you will be charged only 1.5%.

Key info

• This promo is available to everyone. No special signup link is required.
• The 1.5% rate is only for new payees added to your account.  If you’ve paid a particular payee before, you will not qualify for the 1.5% rate.
• The 1.5% rate is only for payments made with MasterCard credit cards or gift cards.  Visa or Amex payments will not qualify for the 1.5% rate.

Quick analysis

If you have any qualifying bills to pay and you’re working on meeting minimum spend requirements on a MasterCard credit card, this is an easy and fairly inexpensive solution.  See the “Cautions” section below.

If you have flexibility in the amount you pay (perhaps you want to pay down the principal on your mortgage, for example), then you can pick the target amount you want to spend on your credit card and divide by 1.015 to determine your bill payment amount.  For example, suppose you need to spend $2,000 in order to meet a minimum spend requirement.  In that case, divide $2,000 by 1.015 to get $1970.44.  Plug in that amount as your bill payment amount within Plastiq and the total, after the 1.5% fee, should come to $2,000 exactly.

Cautions

A number of readers have told me about issues they’ve had with payments taking a long time to verify and to ultimately show up as received by their payee.  If you use this service, make sure to make payments much earlier than required in order to avoid late payment fees or other issues.

Questions?

Full details about Plastiq can be found here: Complete guide to Plastiq credit card payments.  There, you will find answers to questions such as:

• Is Plastiq reliable?
• What types of payments are allowed?
• Can I pay with gift cards?
• Do Plastiq payments count as purchases or cash advances? (answer: purchases)

Never miss a Quick Deal, Subscribe here.

The post Limited time: 1.5% credit card bill payment fee (MasterCard only) appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

By Julian, author of Devil’s Advocate…

I applied for some new credit cards this week and was surprised that I couldn’t find an up-to-date list of all the links that allow you to check online for your credit card application status. There’s plenty of websites with bank reconsideration phone numbers, but the most recent list of application status webpages I found was last updated more than 2 years ago.

I actually think it’s extremely useful to have the official status of my application in hand (whether it’s technically pending or already denied) before calling reconsideration. Also, sometimes the issue may be something simple (such as Discover requesting documents to verify ID) which can show up on the application status check. And there are even times when you’re better off not calling reconsideration and just letting the application process play out by itself.

So I’ve put together a complete list of both phone numbers and online credit card application status links for every major bank. This is a resource I’ll maintain for the long term, so bookmark it now and you’ll have it for future use anytime you’re applying for new cards.

All the below phone numbers and websites are purely automated and will only give you the status of your application. If you want to try and push a pending or denied application forward, you’ll want to call the bank’s reconsideration line and talk to an agent personally.

Last updated: 9/18/2015. If you find an outdated link or phone number, please let us know!

American Express

Phone: (866) 314-0237
Online: https://www262.americanexpress.com/eaol/welcome.do

Bank of America

Phone: (877) 721-9405
Online: https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit-cards/application-status/app-status-form.go

Barclays

Phone: (888) 232-0780
Online: https://www.barclaycardus.com/apply/cas/applications/search

Capital One

Phone: (800) 903-9177 or (877) 277-5901
Online: Unfortunately Capital One does not currently offer an online application status link.

Chase

Phone: (888) 338-2586
Online: Unfortunately Chase does not currently offer an online application status link.

Citibank

Phone: (888) 201-4523
Online: https://www.accountonline.com/cards/acq/CardApplicationStatus.do?screenID=3187

Discover

Phone: (800) DISCOVER (this one is not automated — you’ll have to talk to an agent)
Online: https://www.discovercard.com/application/checkStatus

Fidelity/FIA

Phone: (866) 598-4971
Online: Unfortunately Fidelity/FIA does not currently offer an online application status link.

TD Bank

Phone: (888) 561-8861
Online: Unfortunately TD Bank does not currently offer an online application status link.

U.S. Bank

Phone: (800) 947-1444
Online: Unfortunately US Bank does not currently offer an online application status link.

Wells Fargo

Phone: (800) 967-9521
Online: https://www.wellsfargo.com/product/status?applicationtype=OAS

“Bet You Didn’t Know” is a series written by Julian, author of the Devil’s Advocate series at Travel Codex.  In each installment, Julian presents a single cool tip for earning and/or using points and miles.

Other Recent Posts From The “Bet You Didn’t Know” Series:

Amex Offers via the Amex Mobile App

Citibank’s New Online Bonus Spend Tracker

Avoid Getting Suckered by International ATM’s

Find all the “Bet You Didn’t Know” posts here.

The post Bet You Didn’t Know: Online Credit Card Application Status For All Banks appeared first on The Frequent Miler.

I’ve written a lot about Discover’s current overlapping promotions: an extra 10% cash back for Apple Pay purchases, plus double all cash back for a year.  You can find full details here and here.  What’s new is that Discover has started telling people that gift card purchases don’t count for the Apple Pay promotion.

When you use Apple Pay with Discover, it now shows a message on your phone that says (bolding is mine): “Get 10% Cashback Bonus on up to $10K of in-store purchases using your card in Apple Pay till 12/31/15. Excludes gift cards.”

And the small text that says “Tap For Details”?  When I click it, all it does is open the Discover app that’s loaded on my phone.  I don’t see any relevant details there.

Will they enforce the gift card exclusion?

Now that its clear that Discover doesn’t want to pay people 10% back for buying gift cards, the question on everyone’s minds is whether or not Discover will actually enforce this exclusion.  Does Discover have a way of knowing what you bought?  What if you buy both a gift card and other things?  Do the answers to these questions vary by store?

My bet is that this exclusion won’t be enforced.  That said, I have no way of knowing that for sure… yet.  There is unquestionably a real risk: you might not get a 10% bonus when buying gift cards.

Waiting is the hardest part…

My statement doesn’t close until early October, so I won’t personally be able to check what works and what doesn’t for a while.  I’m sure, though, that we’ll hear reports from readers soon as their Discover statements close and they find out whether or not they’ve earned the 10% bonus.

Until we learn more, don’t forget that this is a great deal even without gift cards.  You can still get over 20% back on regular purchases if you participate in both big promotions: Apple Pay 10% and Double Cashback for a year.

The post Discover’s Deal of the Year: Excludes gift cards appeared first on The Frequent Miler.