I think about this every time I make a huge purchase. I always go to my CITI dc card. Pay off card with no fees. End up with 2% cash (check) every so often.
But also always looking for better deal. 
2% << 5%
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Possibleā¦ 2% for longer time investing. In days of gaining large % on money in hand. Of course those days are gone, + the cash check from CITI dc card.
Huh? You cant possibly be trying to suggest that paying a 5% fee to earn 2% cashback could be advantageous?
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No, Iām sure that it isnāt advantageous.
But at the beginning of this site we were talking about $10k as the talking point. Possibly placing the $10k in some bank payoff deal. Who knows? Just talk, Iām not buying some huge HVAC right now.
My interpretation is that that the existing debit/bank account autopay discount will still work, but they are adding this as a new option (the only credit card that qualifies for the autopay discount).
The $100 signup bonus spread over two years (while being locked into Verizon) is pretty terrible, but if you apply in the next couple of days youāre eligible for a share of a $1M bonus fund, so that may be worthwhile.
Also, to save others the trouble of hunting for it in the Verizon FAQs, prepay accounts arenāt eligible.
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You could be are probably right about the autopay mumbo jumbo. Guess I assumed the least customer friendly interpretation.
No VZ myself (ahaā¦ Except a little VZ stockā¦ I almost forgot)ā¦ But that 2%ā¦ If youāre a Verizon customer, that could be $1000s a year in savings just based on their service fees!
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Verizon is pretty terrible. I recently switched from a Verizon MNVO to Verizon Prepaid. The quality of the network service improved significantly but the customer service is awful, to the point of being actively unhelpful.
I looked into postpaid service first and I really canāt understand why anyone would go that route, it was easily double the cost for the same service. I guess so they can finance their phones?
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Even for Verizon customers, it sounds meh to me. Of course, Iām not familiar with the fees faced by customers and how itāll impact them.
But, just on face value, all the % cashback are not bad but not top in class either. Itās easy to get more than 5% on groceries and gas, and 3% dining from cards with no annual fee. Signup bonus is a horrible waste of a hard inquiry. Altogether, itās definitely not bad but even if I were a Verizon customer, Iād likely use other cards for most of the top % categories.
Or 5UR (7.5%) cash back on cell phone/internet from chase ink with no annual feeā¦
However, you probably wouldnāt be able to make up the āautopayā surcharge for using any other credit card. So, there is an actual 2% benefit for verizon customers. If theyāre paying $100s a month to verizon, thatās still a decent amount of return per year (could be $50+ benefit per year on an ongoing basis).
So basically they built-in fees to make their credit card somewhat competitive? Nice customer service lol.
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Not sure if you have any of the high end Chase cards but CSP has a 60k UR sign-up bonus for $4k spend. CSR is 50k with $4k spend. AMEX Plat has a 100k MR offer but I think you have to jump through some hoops to be eligible for that one.
Weāve jumped onto the Chase bandwagon, getting the trifecta over the last few months (Sapphire Reserve, Freedom Unlimited, Freedom) with the goal of moving those points over to Hyatt. There seem to be some really good transfer opportunities there at properties weāve always wanted to stay at, that even beat out the Priceline cardās return rate.
As for the Verizon cardā¦ lol. I am not a big fan of MVNOs, having tried a few like Mint that are clearly inferior to the parent network in terms of reliability, prioritization, etc. I think the better option for folks that want to jump ship would be to check out one of the other major networks.
Yes, Iām primarily chase. If you have cell phone or cable then you should pick up the Ink if you qualify. Get the annual fee one (with signup bonus). Then after a year, downgrade to no-fee and higher earnings (5X UR for phone, internet, cable, office supply). The card basically prints money if you have regularly recurring bills in those categories.
CSR, 2 Freedoms (no unlimitedā¦ makes more sense to me for the 5x categories and the rest goes onto CSR. Personal preference, just seems easier and it takes only 1/8th the amount of purchases to the categories to make up for it), Southwest Priority, Ink, Southwest business. No space to add another sapphire (and not allowed with existing).
Iāve been burning points myself with the temporarily available 0.015cpp redemption option for food and home improvement. Burned about $1500 worth so far. Still have about 300k UR points. More uncertainty than Iād like to count on later transfer partner redemptions. My previous plans were to try for some of the singapore airlines suites redemptions.
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Chase has clamped down pretty significantly on biz cards. Iād have gone that route if it were an option - Reddit datapoints indicate they seem to be auto-denying almost everyone with the intention of reconsideration lines manually looking at a bizās financials. So Ink really isnāt an option for us at this point.
We have a lot of non-category spend (our planned charitable giving, for instance) so the CFU makes sense for us. The last few months have been fun though - $1500/mo grocery churn on the Reserve and $1500 spend on groceries with the Freedom. I wish they would extend it on the CSR for a few more months :).
Just a datapoint, not trying to argue.
I was approved for a Chase Ink Cash Card (50,000 UR Bonus) two months ago with no need for a call to a reconsideration line. I did, however, apply in branch at the same time I opened a Chase business checking account ($500 bonus). I have a real sole proprietorship (IRS EIN and a County Business License are my only actual business incorporation documents) and Chase opened both accounts as my Full Name instead of my business name (which includes my full name). Banker said it was because I didnāt have a Fictitious Name Certificate from the State Corporation Commission. Theyāre only $10, but Iāve been running my side gig for years now and I guess it isnāt really worth changing it.
Side note: What I need to do is change the name of my business with Wells Fargo to something along the lines of (Payroll Services R Us) so that when my business uses the Direct Pay service to do a fake Direct Deposit for bank bonus purposes, the deposits show up as āPayrollā instead of what it currently says ā[MEED18] TAXā.
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https://www.verizon.com/be-the-first/
. Apply, and if approved you will become one of the first card holders. Everyone approved during the early access period will split $1 Million Verizon Dollars equally - up to $1000 Verizon Dollars. This promotion will end by 9pm ET on 6/25. Not sure if thatās an application or bonus sign up deadline ??
Must be a Verizon Wireless Account Owner or Account Manager on an account with 10 phone lines or less to apply. Subject to credit approval.
Click here to view full offer details and eligibility requirements.
Synchrony Bank pulls TU. https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
Ah, you have an actual business. I have a ābusinessā with no real, legitimate side gig. Thatās where my hesitation comes from.
You donāt have the right attitude lol. Sell one thing on ebay and you now have a legitimate side gig! There is nothing wrong with getting all your business documents and a business account and credit card ābeforeā your business ātakes off.ā Youāre just planning ahead. Bankers donāt really ask probing questions and donāt even really care about the answers to the questions they do ask. They are just trying to find out if you are someone they can sell something to. As soon as they find out youāre tiny, all the talk about your business is just small talk while they process your account application.
To a banker, āI have an extensive Sega Genesis collection from my childhood and plan on making money selling it on eBay,ā is as good a business description as, āI do taxes each spring for about 20 people in my spare time.ā
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Another 2% everything no-AF mastercard coming soon:
I dabbled a bit with Sofiās banking offering when they were offering competitive interest on their checking account.
A few things bothered me about them - note that all of these have happened in just the last few months:
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They cut their rate on the very same day as the fedās recent announcements, in equal amounts to the cut. So, if the fed cut rates by half a point, their savings rate went down by .5% APY that afternoon. In a matter of less than a month, their rate tumbled by more than a percent. This felt like them trying to take advantage of a fintech crowd that has no idea how savings rates actually get set.
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They recently moved their debit network over to Mastercard from Visa. No problem there. But, reports on Reddit start popping up of fraudulent/declined Visa transactions on their cards. These came from people that had never used the card. In all, there were at least 10 different data points on Reddit of this, and Sofi never acknowledged a problem, or that there was a potential breach. Clearly something went wrong in this transition, but again, Sofi pretends that there isnāt a problem.
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They changed their routing number recently, to take effect on 9/30. The old routing number is not backward compatible, meaning that you must change to the new number by 9/30. This is particularly problematic because the routing number is brand new, meaning that many financial institutions donāt think the new number is valid since their Federal Reserve database isnāt the very latest and greatest. Sofi still insists that the changeover will happen on 9/30.
Personally, I would stay away from them and this card offering. Their track record with banking isnāt exactly promising.
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