The thing to keep in mind for anyone considering this deal, nearly everyone is better off opening a citi account package with a signup cash bonus than opening that same account package for .5% on their double cash card.
1 Like
Reminder
End of the second quarter is only a few weeks away.
If you are fortunate enough to have a Bank of America Cash Rewards World Mastercard, you need to check and be certain you have maxed out your special category spending.
Why?
You will be looking at a 3% reward in that category up to the spending limit of $2500/quarter. And of course you are permitted to choose the category, which is nice. My choice: online purchases.
Sure I realize itās only $300/year, but every little bit helps . . especially under current circumstances.
Iām in process right now of moving spending over to Bank of America instead of choosing Alliantās 2.5% reward card, which is where I usually spend the most money. But for this short interval of time Bank of America is offering the higher reward. It is free money . . . might as well max it out.
Why the Mastercard version rather than the Visa version?
I actuallyh ave 3 of these.
I have a MLB MC that I use on dining.
I have a Cash Rewards visa that I use on gas
I have another cash rewards visa that I product changed from the Merrill+ which i use for online shopping.
I also have the Travel Rewards and just got the Premium Rewards.
Visa version, if terms are the same, will work great. I have the Mastercard version so I posted only about that card, not knowing about the Visa version.
Are you using some sort of cash equivalent for your āonline purchasesā ?
Sorry. I do not know what that means.
Online purchases are items I purchase and pay for, with the card, online.
Sometimes, if I am uncertain whether or not this or that purchase will be counted as an online purchase, and garner for me the 3% reward, I do a test purchase first. Once any purchase is no longer pending and has settled into my Bank of America account I can click on it and they will tell me if it has gone through as online . . or otherwise. Helpful
Are your CD purchases considered online purchases?
From this site: Best Credit Card Rewards Strategy ā 2019 Edition - Frugal Professor
Random Observation #1: The Online Category is the best
Itās been my experience that booking a hotel through Expedia counts towards either Online or Travel, which begs the question why anyone would select Travel as their category if most Travel also counts as Onlineā¦.Iām still looking into this. Need something from Home Depot? Buy it online and pick it up in store. In-store Walmart counts as āonlineā for me so long as I use the Walmart app to pay. Use your āonlineā category to purchase gift cards at Raise.com for 5.25% cash back in addition to whatever the Raise discount is (good for retail, travel, restaurants, etc). Ebay, Amazon, etc are all obviously Online as well.
If you want to learn more, Doctor of Credit has two great threads on the topic: Thread 1 & Thread 2.
Yes they are, by Bank of America I mean. And I suppose they can be considered cash equivalents, albeit with a rather long time delay, if that is what you meant.
Thank you for your post. I certainly agree the online category is the best. For variety this quarter I am also charging to my Bank of America CC some electric power and telephone company payments, both of which go through as online purchases. Itās a broad category with wide applicability.
Thatās good to know and surprising. I wonder if Centurylink and Arcadia Power would code that way. Right now, Iāve mostly just used the āonlineā card on Amazonā¦
If online payment websites permit, what I do in such situations as this is to run a test. You can only test if the payment website permits partial payments. For example:
If your electric power bill is $100, charge a partial payment of $10. Once that payment has settled into your Bank of America account and is no longer just āpendingā, you will be able easily to ascertain whether or not the charge went through as āonlineā. At that point you either charge the remaining $90 to your Bank of America card or, if not, you go off in a different direction.
1 Like
Iām going to give this a try with my CITI dc card. It sounds to be too good to be true. This time of the year my PG&E bill (I have 2, one for house & 1 for farm) can easily hit $500. So going to tryā¦ 
Thanks shinobi, for the info on using a credit card to pay utility bills.
My PG&E bill arrived today. The largest bill I have ever received, $782.50. It worked!! Cost me $1.23 extra to use card.
Iām so happy to learn something new & so valuableā¦ 
if you have the USBANK cash+ cardā¦5% on utility bills PLUS a 150 bonus for 500.00 spend for new acctā¦ Hope this helps somebody
1 Like
I know you arenāt mining crypto, and probably not growing weed. Thatās ~20% more than I spend on gas and electricity for a whole year. You must be living in a mansion.
No, I said I receive 2 PG&E bills. That big one is not for the house.
In California a lot of farming is done with drip-irrigation which uses electricity. When that electricity is running for 6 days 24/7, It costs muchoā¦ 
A farm then. Makes sense.
Soā¦ 24/6?
scripta, You got me again!
New pitch for a shorter work week: āNo, I mean keep 40hrs M-F, just delete Saturday. Now we can fit 9 more weeks in every year!ā
New Verizon card. Basically theyāre adding new fees to every customerās bill (restricting the autopay fee ādiscountā to charging to the Verizon card) if they donāt get the new credit card.
If youāre a Verizon customer and staying one, you probably want to apply for the card right away.
~$10k HVAC purchase pending, would cost me 5% to charge vs cash. Any opening spend bonuses currently on radar with $1k+ value? (For 5 or $10k spend?)