Seeking CC help/suggestions - Specific conditions

Some DP for Argyll’s Law:

I just last week let 2 cards close around 90% of the CL. My score today shows down 70 points . And I’m still at just 4% total utilization across all open lines.

Fear the Law.

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Argyll is a savvy individual. I’ve tried my entire life to learn from such people. Argyll has helped me a lot.

My own repair process is proceeding well. Am coming back into conformance with Agyll’s teachings after having fallen off the wagon, albeit unintentionally. Should be shipshape shortly, following which plan is to apply for more credit. New, sweet, money-making opportunities await.

CC management is more challenging during the alignment process. What is even worse is when this or that CC is unable to be aligned with all your other cards. An example of this is the Alliant card, though there are other examples. I’m also having trouble with the PayPal card in this regard. Inability to align this or that card just means there is more stuff you have to remember. And remembering becomes more difficult as you age.

I have a foolproof fix for this: write it down.
Then write another note to remind yourself to read what you wrote down.
Foolproof!

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Always leave a note

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Lol, we had our 15 year old write out his chore/reminder list on his whiteboard in his room. We then had to remind him to read his reminder list. Maybe we should have taken more extreme measures like this video.

Did not want to start a new thread for this since part of this deal is already mentioned up thread right here; but only part. Dunno if anyone else will care about this but I went for it. Maybe one or two of you will think this is worthwhile:

This revolves around the Citizens Bank Cash Back Plus World Mastercard. At the moment this card is only rewarding 1.5%. But commencing 5 August that reward will jump to 1.8%.

Acknowledged: still not at the sought-after 2% reward rate. But wait.

The bank has a deal going where if you cash out your rewards into one of their accounts they increase your reward by an additional 10%. That brings (or will bring in a couple of weeks) your reward up close to 2%, at least close enough for me. And there is more. I selected their free checking account which has a $9.99/month fee. However, the fee is waived if a deposit of any amount is received in the account each month. The bank calls this “One Deposit Checking”. I can meet the one deposit/month, of any amount, requirement without trouble. Also was pleased to schnarf up the $200 bonus Citizens Bank is offering if you open your new checking account online and deposit $500 within 60 days:

Open checking get $200 plus make possible (almost) 2% reward on CC

I have been well satisfied so far with my Citizens Bank Mastercard at 1.5%, though I look forward to the 1.8% reward shortly and . . . I hope . . . perhaps even more than that. :grinning:

ETA

Oops, forgot to mention Citizens Bank allows opening deposit into your new One Deposit Checking account to be charged to a credit card up to a maximum of $1000. So I charged the full amount to my 3% reward Alliant Visa card, picking up thereby an additional $30, for a grand total of $230 bonus.

Are you sure that the CC funding isn’t going to post as a cash advance?

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No. And you’ve raised a great point. Will have to keep a weather eye!

The solution to that is to lower your cash advance maximum with the issuer before doing the bank account credit card funding. That means that it will either go through as a purchase, or just won’t go through at all. You don’t have to worry about an unwanted cash advance fee.

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This is absolutely correct and all would be smart to heed your suggestion.

Unfortunately for me, at Alliant it is impossible to lower one’s cash advance (CA) limit without simultaneously lowering one’s credit limit. The two limits are not independent of one another, as is the case with more sophisticated CC service providers. I have actually sought to do this at Alliant. They are unable to fulfill such a request.

Wherever I can I lower my CA limit either to zero or to the smallest number allowed. But this is only possible when your CA limit, on a given CC, is not tied to your credit limit.

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I called Alliant about this and was assured that there would never be a cash advance without the PIN. I don’t recall if they had to make some change on my account to make it so or if that’s how all their cards work by default.

Some other issuers reclassified certain MCCs as cash advances, so if Alliant hasn’t done that, the above may actually be true.

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I know CITI cards DO usually post bank deposits as a cash advance so be wary of those. I don’t think I’ve ever personally run into another issuer that does, but again, the suggestion to lower your cash advance limit is very good.

Interim update on the Citizens Bank checking thing:

So far so good. It is a time consuming process to set it all up. I’m not referring to my personal time so much as that it takes the bank a while to do stuff. That said:

My opening deposit went through as a purchase. There was a question regarding this up thread. So will be receiving the 3% reward at Alliant without any hassle.

I have begun process to ACH link Citizens Bank checking to Alliant. Once complete will immediately transfer $500 out of Alliant and into Citizens Bank in effort to secure the promised $200 bonus.

I guess best of all, now that I have the Citizens Bank checking to receive my rewards and the 10% bonus, starting next week I will be looking at a sweet 1.98% reward on all my Citizens Bank CC charges. That is close enough to 2% to make me happy.:grinning:

Look, I realize you can pick up a 2% reward at Citi and at PayPal, too, and a 3% reward at Discover if you can keep the account alive for one year, all with no such drama as at Citizens Bank. But I already have those other cards. And the Citizens Bank card is a MasterCard, after all. 2% reward MasterCards, with no annual fee, are not out there growing on trees.

So bottom line, again, so far so good, the checking account setup is a “once and done” thing, and now I’m ready to start milking my Citizens Bank CC rewards at 1.98%. Life is good.:grinning:

Full Disclosure

Yeah, I was happy. Thought I had this all figured out and was on my way to yet another (almost) 2% reward card at Citizens Bank. Life was good.

Maybe not!!

Right now, as we approach the August fifth changeover, I’m uncertain what it is the bank is doing. Some of the stuff they’re posting is worrisome. It is possible the Citizens Bank reward might top out at 1.8% instead of the hoped for 1.98%. This will become known, one way or the other, in the fullness of (not a lot more) time.

I can certainly live with 1.8%. Heck, I was doing plenty of business with them at 1.5%. But 2% is the Golden Fleece, not 1.8%. :worried:

Having touted the CC deal at Citizens Bank so much up thread as a 2% reward deal, I am now at some pain writing this.

It appears nearly certain I was in error. That’s a more comfortable way to say I was flat wrong. I write this now with certainty>95%:

The CC deal at Citizen Bank has become a straight 1.8% reward deal. That obviously falls short of 2%. They have done away with what prior was labelled their “10% relationship bonus”. I did not see the demise of that bonus coming. And that’s it in a nutshell.

I probably would not have opened their checking account had I realized, earlier on, what was in the offing. But I didn’t. Did collect (or will) one $25 relationship bonus under the old system, plus the $30 from Alliant mentioned up thread, plus the $200 account opener bonus which remains available to all. I will use the checking account going forward to snag my Citizens Bank rewards at 1.8%, even though there is no bonus. I’m finding rewards collections much more straightforward when I decline statement credits. And Citizens Bank only offers two ways to collect your rewards, either as a statement credit or as a deposit into your Citizens Bank checking.

So I guess bottom line everything worked out OK . . . except the hoped-for 2% reward.:neutral_face:

Am writing to report the below data point which I think is a nice outcome, one I did not anticipate:

This is regarding the PayPal 2% card mentioned up thread. My Synchrony statement closed this past Friday evening. I checked early Saturday morning finding the anticipated 300 some odd bucks in rewards. Transferred the dough straightaway to PayPal. Then set up ACH transfer from PayPal account to my bank account. Bear in mind this is all happening on a Saturday morning … early. I hoped to receive my money tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. The money, all of it, was in my bank account this (Monday) morning. :grinning: Very nice.

I am aware there exist ACH conduits aside from the Fed, and I recall reading somewhere those other ACH services operate on the weekend. Credit to PayPal for delivering my money so quickly. They could not have provided me better service.

shinobi… If you have PayPal cc 2%, do you consider it better that CIti Double Cash card? Or do you have both? Is there a good reason for having more than 1 good cc?

I have, and use heavily, both cards. Both are Mastercards. I do have need for these cards, as well as several others, with all being in use heavily. However, need for such cards will depend on the individual.

Bear in mind in order to qualify for the PayPal card, from Synchrony Bank, you must first be a PayPal member. I had been a PayPal member for many years before applying for the card.

You asked which card is best. I think both cards are great. Both allow me to collect a LOT of rewards each month. If you pay off your balance each month in advance of your cycle date as I do, in accord with Argyll’s teachings, then I think the cards are equivalent. If you do not follow that protocol, charges to the PayPal card will put rewards into your pocket earlier than is the case with Citi. But, again, BOTH cards are great cards.

Also probably should mention that PayPal (Synchrony Bank) granted me over twice the credit line as Citi. And Synchrony is much less fussy about large charges to their card, compared with Citi. At least that has been my experience.

To put it another way, in my experience the Citi fraud department is working OVERTIME to protect their bank. It’s better now. But at the outset it was a real pain, far more so than with any other card I opened.

There is one other important difference between the two cards. It’s related to rewards collections. As I just reported couple of posts back, rewards collections with Pay Pal/Synchrony are pretty sweet . . and fast. The money is deposited quickly on a no-hassle basis into the checking account of your choice. What’s not to like about that!

With Citi there is no option to route the reward to an account of your choice. I think there is an option to deposit your Citi rewards into your Citi checking account. But I do not have, or want, such an account. Citi also offers a statement credit option, but that results in loss of rewards. The only remaining rewards collection option at Citi is a check. There is no charge for the check and they do send out the checks pretty rapidly (I received one just today). However, funds sent in form of a snail mailed paper check arrive much more slowly than Pay Pal’s ACH funds transfers. So PayPal is preferable in my view.

I use PayPal when I order something online. I find that this is the easy way to pay, rather than getting out my credit card and filling out the info. PayPal has my cc info handy & ready to go.

shinobi, I have used PayPal for years. But you talk about using Synchrony Bank as a way to gain a PayPal cc. I wonder if the idea that you have used PayPal as I have would qualify me for a PP credit card.

If you pull payments to the card from an external account, after 2-4 payments that account will become eligible for rewards to be redeemed into. You also need to keep pulling occasional payments from that account, for the account to remain as a redemption option.