What would be a good MS to invest 10k from a BT with a 0 BT free for 18 months?.. I might eventually pay off the 10K without having to take the money out…the only options I can see for now are the savings accounts with 1.2%…
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I don’t think this qualifies for MS …should probably start a topic on its own.
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Is it a completely free? I have seen 0% for a certain number of months, but always with an up front fee.
@sinistler, Chase Slate offers no fee 0% BT for 18 mo within 60 days of account opening. I just received a targeted 12 mo no fee 0% BT offer for Alliant Platinum Rewards. No fee BT offers are rare now adays but do still exist.
@Dealshunter, there are ways to get higher than 1.2% APY at a few banks if you have high deposit balances (~$250k). For lower balance deposits, it looks like Discover or Alliant currently offer the best rate. For an 18mo BT, there are a couple 1 year CDs out there that offer up to 1.68%. Look on Bankrate.com for some of these. Everbank offers 1.68% for 1 yr; Goldman Sachs offers 1.65% for 1 yr. You can park it there for 12 mo then move it to a liquid 1.2% savings account to ensure you can pay off the balance in 18 mo.
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Thanks @ Corndogg …
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Does anyone use their MS-gained Visa Gift Cards to make regular purchases with? Example:
I can buy a $500 Visa GC for $6 fee at local supermarket and earn 6% on AMEX BCP card. That’s $30 rewards for the purchase, which means the GC cost me $476 which is a 4.8% discount.
I could take two of those GC to Walmart and for $1 fee buy a $1000 Money Order.
Or, I could spend the two GCs on routine regular spending, that otherwise has no reward category, and would only earn 2%.
$1000 spend on a 2% card is $20. So I could make an extra $19 by taking the cards to walmart and buying a MO and depositing in my bank. And I have to decide if that’s worth it or not.
Assume this spend is for services like dentist and car repair where you don’t value extended warranty terms from a credit card. Does anyone go this route?
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[quote=“TripleB, post:210, topic:649”]
$1000 spend on a 2% card is $20. So I could make an extra $19 by taking the cards to walmart and buying a MO and depositing in my bank. And I have to decide if that’s worth it or not.
[/quote]that is the gross profit and you add 2% from the fees as well, if you take away the fee to buy that $1k GC, let’s say $5.95 for each $500, that’ll be $11.90 plus MO fee, average $1 depending on where you buy it. You’ll end up with net of $7.xx, you decide if that’s good enough for you. It may be worth it to those who can buy several thousands and drain it in one trip quite easily.
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Yes. Mostly only when I get stuck with some card like Amex that’s hard to liquidate. Never deliberately though. My natural spend just isn’t enough that saving a few % is worth it vs the benefits of cc benefits and record keeping.
I’d say the killer app for this would be H&B or anything you don’t want on your statements,
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I keep one prepaid card on me so I can test the waters at any new spot. Once that card gets low I drain it with either my water or property taxes bills.
Utilities are nice low effort MS vehicle. In NYC Con Ed charges residential customers a flat $3.35/payment and takes payments of up to $1500 at a time via credit. If you’ve got a bonus you wanna hit prepaying your utilities doesn’t really hurt that much.
I did this for a short while to reduce the hassle of MO liquidation. I ended up having difficulty making returns at some retailers that need to refund back to the original card. This is especially bad if they auto-refund back to the original card without actually needing it present. This requires you to keep your empty VGC and closely track receipts and expenses on those cards. It ended up just not being worth doing for any purchase I might potentially return. Plus, you lose the opportunity cost of that 2% you would have spent on your other card.
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I do only to save on liquidation costs. For instance, I just redid our master bathroom, and used five or six $500 cards at Home Depot. Some would argue that I should have just bought discounted HD gift cards, but that was too much work for minimal additional profit for me. I’m a lazy SOB.
This saved me $8.60~ per card.
I would argue that you should have purchased discounted HD cards. You can order e-cards online for ~8% plus an extra 2% CB on Citi DC would have saved you $300 vs the $61.50 you saved for the 6 VGC. Laziness shouldn’t be a factor because you can order the e-gift cards online for very little hassle vs going to the store to buy physical GC.
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But laziness is a factor, so not sure how you’re saying it shouldn’t be. You’re really just saying what I already said: I am lazy.
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I have to buy an actual money order at Walmart tomorrow to pay someone. Seems like a good opportunity to try to cash out a gift card. My assumption from what I’ve read is the PIN is always the last four digits of the card number?
That worked with a FiveBack card, but that’s the only one I tried to run as debit, and it was at a POS terminal, not Walmart MO purchase.
The one I’m going to try to pay for the WalMart MO is a pretty plain looking Visa GC just says “GiftCard” and “A Gift For You” issued by US Bank, bought from a local grocery store. If anyone knows if the PIN is the last four, please confirm. If not, I’ll do science tomorrow and report back.
No, not the last 4 for that card. The PIN will be on a piece of rigid paper inside the GC packaging for that USBank card. If you’ve tossed the package you’ll want to register the card and set a PIN online.
Those cards are also really bad about being drained somehow by 3rd parties. Consider them to be grenades with the pin already pulled.
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It pains me to do this (I’m physically shaking a little as I’m reading your latest post and replying to it), but all of this basic stuff you’re asking about is well documented and doesn’t even require hours of in-depth research from you.
If you want to buy money orders at Walmart see the Wiki here for all the info you’ll need:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending/1819565-buying-money-orders-walmart-2017-a.html
If you want to know the other places where people are buying other stuff related to MS look for the posts in this forum with tons of replies and read their Wikis:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending-719/
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There is a concern about the amount of bogus data points on FT though, although the wiki should be pretty good.
Bogus data will only be around less well known MS. MO and gc are your standard fare at this point. If flyer talk isn’t good you can look at churning or any travel/credit card blog.
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I was thinking the same thing yesterday when reading this thread. But, how hypocritical would it look if I said “hey man, this is all easily accessible information, you don’t have to go try it yourself, nor do we need to explain this” after I just said i hate the anti-spoonfeeding comments.
Honestly, I can see why folks hate spoon feeding. Part of it is ego, of course, and that part I don’t agree with. But the other part is just sheer annoyance. Typing up this basic stuff after it’s been known for years is definitely not fun.
Nothing personal, @anon13208070.
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[quote=“Stubtify, post:219, topic:649”]
Those cards are also really bad about being drained somehow by 3rd parties. Consider them to be grenades with the pin already pulled.
[/quote]True.
However, there are those who think/feel this is part of FUD to make others stay away from them. Remember the $15 off $100 USB MC offer (IIRC limit 2 but of course many of us did b2b transactions allowed by the store) sometime ago at ODOM where a lot got burned with funds stolen immediately after activation? It didn’t make people stay away from the deal and it’s understandable (huge rebate and if you’re in an area with lots of ODOM) why they’d ignore warnings. There were areas hacking of these cards were rampant, people still took the risk by draining their cards soon as they bought them.
I often check FT and reddit for current reports of shutdown and new developments on anything MS related, but when it comes to new ways to MS, I have reliable sources for that. Soon as I saw potentials on the WM express fee free payment, I jumped into it immediately while others were waiting for DPs, circles and arrows. Same with the Sweet17 discount on fees at GCM, people griped no one told them about it!? Anyone who relies on others to provide them with the cliff notes on everything MS will just be disappointed all the time.
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