Anyone pick up the new ebates 3X MR on any CB purchase card, posted by doc credit? If this works for GCM you’re looking at a 4x MR card for VGCs.
Question about BofA 1-2-3 card’s choose-your-category feature. They say you can change the category once per calendar month, and the choice seems to be effective immediately going forward, until the next change. So it seems to me if you have a single large purchase in one of their categories coming up (e.g. buying furniture), you could wait until shortly before the end of the month, switch the category, do the purchase, and then switch back to your normal most profitable one once the new month begins. Does this sound right?
Yes. Although i don’t know If i can verify the purchase counts until statement.
Edit: it does show individual purchase rewards. I changed it on 2/28. Made a purchase from q-see.com immediately after. Charge posted on 3/2 with 3% shown. I could change it now if i wanted to. Don’t really see any categories generally for me other than online that its good for.
It says the change is effective same day based on central time.
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Apologize I have no clue and am unable to answer that. My own switch was a one time, once and done thing, with no looking back and never a need to change again. I hope another poster here, one who uses the card very differently than myself, is able to answer you.
I’m glad that they paid off on the reward. Yesterday, I received a BoA offer for a checking account with a $300 bonus. From the bonus section (emphasis added by me):
- Once completed, we’ll attempt to deposit your $300 bonus within 60 days.
That doesn’t really inspire confidence.
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Understood
I’m surely no shill for any of the big banks. But can honestly report a good relationship with Bank of America. They pay me every month, always timely, and of course I’m most pleased to take their money.
ETA
Not that B of A is without its quirks and eccentricities, as I was once again just reminded. Each month they send me, via email, a bill for exactly
$0.00
All the customary verbiage is included, must pay, pay by, all that . . . with an amount of zero dollars. A more sophisticated operation would suppress this bill when the amount owed is zero.
Also only from B of A am I forced each month to request a snail-mailed paper check. With everyone else there is a workaround I can accept, some better than others, all reasonable; but not with B of A.
Still, the money itself is what matters most, and B of A pays me reliably . . . . in their own special twentieth century way. 
Is it a bill for $0, or is it a statement that includes all your charges and the fact that you paid them off before the close of the bill? I suspect the latter. Of course they are still going to send you a statement even if you owe them $0. If you didn’t receive a statement saying you did XYZ or that you didn’t do anything, I’d call that a quirk.
That’s their way of encouraging you to open an account with them. You can get direct deposit of your rewards into your BoA account. They aren’t “twentieth century,” they are smart.
The subject line of the email reads as follows:
“You have a new bill from Bank of America Credit Card”
It is purely a bill, not a statement, and it does not include mention of any of my charges. Sole focus is on amount I owe.
Does that mean all my many other credit card providers are dumb? Because they all offer me a modern, acceptable, way to be paid . . . all except for Bank of America.
Bank of America is not smart. They are merely still living in the last century.
I misunderstood. I didn’t realize you were referring to an email saying that you owe $0. I don’t really consider emails “bills.” But it is a useful notification that your statement is ready. Most of my credit cards send emails with the “your statement is ready” wording. Back when I had my cards set up in BoA to send me eBills, I would occasionally get emails with “You have a new eBill from XYZ” as the subject line where it said my amount due and account balance were $0.00. I found it useful.
Yes. If Chase and Citi had branches all over the country like BoA, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the same policy. Chase might eventually now that they are expanding and allowing accounts to be opened online nationwide.
Target did this. They recently changed their format to omit the balance due. Since I don’t shop there with any predictable regularity, I have to log in to view the statement to see that I owe nothing and have just wasted my time. I’d rather have the former situation where a quick delete of the email is all that’s required.
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BOA pays 
Some banks put that type of wording with a clause indicating open must be open to receive deposit, etc. Maybe someone at BOA forgot some words.
Well, I’ll miss the 3 months window for the WF’s Propel card’s initial bonus for sure now. So I’m thinking about paying my property tax early. It will cost me a 2.35% fee to use CC to pay property tax but I figure the $300 return is worth it as the fee will cost me about $58.
I checked with doctor’s office and they accept Discover so I’ll probably get the Discover to get the 1st year 2x bonus.
Thanks for the help…
I have done property tax or income tax multiple times, although recent years it’s been less frequent but much larger than $300 opening bonuses. It may cost less than you put in the example. If the card earns 1% cash value, subtact that from 2.35%. Net fee to charge is thus only 1.35%
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The idea of making a large purchase on the BOA card in a category you just switched to seems sensible.
Another possible strategy is to have a card on dining from the previous month to get the 3% (5.25% with the Platinum status). Near the end of the quarter, if you have not used up your quarterly rewards limit ($2500 in spending per quarter), switch to another category (say online purchases) and then buy a gift card to earn the full rewards (say a Amazon one, if you regularly spend a lot there). Then at the start of the next quarter, switch back to dining (which includes fast food).
Also, if married wife may be willing to get a card, and use it for a different category, or for extra spending in online purchases (where we spend a lot).
If you can get the Komen Mastercard, you appear to get the same benefits, and a little bit extra goes for breast cancer. This has recently come out of the “sock drawer” due to their new improved rewards scheme, since 5.25% on one more category is ice.
A major advantage of the $300 offer is not the cash, but having a BOA bank account qualifies you for their rewards program if you have a certain value of total relationship (including Merrill accounts). With a $100,000 relationship (possibly 99,999.99 in Merril IRA and .01 on deposit at BOA), your 3% becomes 5.25%, and you get 100 free trades. You can usually pick up an additional reward by bringing assets into Merrill.
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Costco Anywhere Visa no longer has FTF.
It never had FTF. I guess this wasn’t mentioned in the wiki, but now it is.
No FIDO parent thread so here we go. “Free” Costco membership ($40 statement credit + $20 Costco cash card) for FIDO cardholders only. Valid for new Costco memberships only. To qualify as a new member, an existing Costco membership must be expired for 18 months or more. Costco National Membership Program
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There are three posts about this and none of them correctly point out that this is targeted. Elan Financial does deals like this occasionally (I got a movie, popcorn, drink, and $20 Visa gift card from them recently), and they are directed to only a small subset of the card holders.
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