Just to get my mind of politics…
I joined Sun East & Justice CU (3 mo CD’s using CC)
Have you got some other places?
Most places I looked at don’t have those short term offers.
Patty, I hope you heeded the prior warning about Citi often treating such charges as cash advances, and confirmed proper “purchase” treatment before diving in headfirst with your Double Cash card.
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Well, there is Inova. But I think you already tried there.
I do not have other opportunities to offer at this time which are nationally available. But keep your eyes open and check out any credit unions where you might have a membership.
Consumers CU, for example, offers online opening of CDs. But last time I checked they were no good at all because of dollar amount limitations. Still, with so many other credit unions going in this direction, CCU might have upgraded their terms. I have not checked.
This is sound counsel with Citi and with any other card you might use to run this hustle. However I admit:
Across all my cards and with any number of counterparties I’ve only once run into problems. To wit:
It was with Navy Federal Credit Union. Do not try to run this hustle with an NFCU credit card. Period.
Otherwise it has all been good.
The warning was, and point is, that Citi specifically has a long-established history of taking such “purchases” and changing them to cash advances after approval. Which is why people who generally know things dont have a current answer, because they crossed Citi off the list long ago.
I just checked my Citi card statement & they list each one as a regular credit.
Justice FCU $2500.00, Sun East FCU $3000.00
I also routinely use my Citi DC card to purchase CDs with no hassles.
But this does not detract one bit from the point made by glitch99. Among all my cards my Citi DC card is the one I trust the least. It would not surprise me at all if they tried to pull something in the future.
Still, to be fair, so far so good. I have been charging CDs from at least four different counterparties to the card for a couple of years without incident and with my Citi DC rewards always coming through like clockwork. I just picked up another chunk this morning, like finding money in the street. 
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Since you are participating, pattyb53, allow me to offer an additional thought.
Be mindful of when you open your CD. You need to know your next CC statement closing date. Citi is very good about providing this date right on your account page.
The objective is to buy your CD within a day or two following statement closure. That way you have a bit less than two months before being required to pay Citi for the CD without need to pay any interest. This means for the first two (almost) of three months you own a CD for which there was no need to pay. So there is only slightly more than one month, after you put money out by paying Citi, before you get that money back as your CD matures.
Now that is interesting. So you get 2% every 3 months but your money is out of pocket only for a month. This getting tempting at this point…
Yes, slightly more than one month actually. But there is an additional wrinkle you might wish to consider.
Even for that one month, ask yourself where else that money might be sitting were it not tied up in the three month CD. I cannot answer that question for others. For me:
My best liquid money alternative right now is paying 1.35% APY taxable. So I lose a bit more than 1% APY (the hustle CD itself pays taxable interest at a very small taxable APY) for that one month plus.
Or else I could put that money into one of my add-on CDs and earn 3.25% APY taxable. But that would tie the money up until 2024, a very serious consideration to my mind.
Money tied up in a CD for three months is not really liquid. But it’s not tied up for several years either. So it is “sort of” liquid.
Bottom line this hustle might offer an attractive alternative for your liquid and “sort of” liquid funds. That is how I operate the hustle. I also have illiquid funds in much longer add-on CDs paying a decent interest rate. If interest rates for longer CDs continue to be very low when my existing longer CDs mature, I might increase the percentage of my funds devoted to this hustle. But we are not there yet.
I think you were the smartest one with those add-on 3.25% CD’s. I think you are referring to PSECU accts.
So I also have several of those CD’s, but not add-on’s. I can’t remember the situation as it was happening, but I had the money at the time & bought straight out 2-3 yr 3.25% CD’s.
Looking back, Not the smartest thing I have done. But as I recall, 3-4% CD’s were available often. 
Not PSECU any longer. I’m finished adding on there. Now GTE Financial, Freedom CU and NFCU for my IRA . . . all add-on CDs.
Yes, I am fortunate to have the add-on CDs. Between those and this little hustle I still have a decent income.
That’s the specific datapoint needed. 
Citi has also been known to excluded certain merchant categories from earning rewards, especially the one (I cant recall the actual category number) that CD purchases usually fall under. So it’s good to do the rewards math on their payouts occasionally, too.
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Indeed. I keep my short term funds mostly in a checking account that earns 0.01% or a “high yield” savings account earning 0.05%. Parking it in a CD ladder bought with Credit cards might be quite a bit better.
Do any of those CUs let you fund with an Amex?
I have never found a CU willing to fund with Amex. If you locate one, please let us know.
Although I haven’t tried it, you should be able to do that with PayPal Key which is a Mastercard (debit).
Bit of an unanticipated turn this morning. Throughout this entire thread, going all the way back to April of 2018, I have repeatedly posted about the uselessness of AMEX platform cards in this endeavour.
No longer
I’m aware certain participants here, Argyll for example comes to mind along with _TJ, but there must be others as well, value highly their relationship with the AMEX platform. I myself own two cards on that platform, one issued by American Express itself and the other from BBVA. Both cards have been useless for CD purchases and I have only kept them because the high credit limits help me with my score. When I wrote up thread that I’m operating a dozen cards, those two AMEX platform cards were not included in the dozen, all instead either Visa or Mastercard or my single Discover Miles card.
Anyway, it has all changed and I’m here to document the change:
Sun East FCU, a credit union anyone may join, appears to be accepting AMEX platform cards for online purchase of certificates of deposit. I say “appears” because I am not able to take the CD purchase process to completion. My AMEX platform cards offer only a 1% reward. But the Sun East application allowed me to input an AMEX platform card without protest. I’ve never seen that happen before.
Couple of things about Sun East:
Weiss rates them “C+” which is not too bad. Their taxable interest rate on your three month CD is just 0.10% APY, which stinks. But it’s only pennies anyway so not really important (I usually get either 0.25% APY or 0.20% APY taxable).
Bottom line, you can forget my two and one half years plus of carping that you cannot do this deal with an AMEX platform card. Now you can.
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I’m never been a huge fan of Amex. I had charged a tuition on their platinum card to hit a bonus. The school refunded it even though I told them not to. Amex reversed points after I cashed out the sign up bonus, so then there was 60k negative balance. That would have taken multiple years to zero out that negative balance. I closed my platinum and green card due to a negative MR balance that was impossible to recover. They said they understood my position, perhaps they will never approve a card for me again.
I still have a Blue Cash card, but if they closed that one, I wouldn’t care too much. I only really use it for Amex Offers.
I mainly use Bank Of America, as long as they have that 2.625% card on everything with just putting investments with Merrill Edge, I’ll primarily be using the BofA cards for the foreseeable future.
Yesterday over on scripta’s liquid accounts thread I posted a 1% liquid money deal at Merchants Bank of Indiana. While noodling around their website, so I could make that post, I noticed that same bank welcomes online applications for cherished one month certificates of deposit. Something like that instantly has the smell of “free money”, so naturally I followed up:
I’m just off the telephone with the bank. Am sad to report they do not allow CDs to be funded with one’s credit card. But it cost nothing and consumed scarcely a minute to check out the possibility, and I would do so again, elsewhere, in a heartbeat. After all, such a find would result in 12% APY, even when using a credit card with a meager 1% reward. This in theory though the reality of processing time might reduce the yield by a point or so. And of course credit cards having a higher percentage reward would double that outcome at least. Finding a situation where you can open one month certificates with your credit cards is akin to locating the golden fleece, and is equally difficult and challenging.
But it will not come true at Merchants Bank of Indiana. So the quest goes on. 
I did just this morning finish opening probably the last in my current batch of CDs. But sadly they are all three month CDs. 
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