Frugal living tips @ CheapEncounters.com » amex

Cheap Bastard Thinking in Action!

BillyOceansEleven — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:56:32 +0000

I just wanted to share the highlights of my weekend to illustrate (a) just how cheap of a bastard I am, and (b) how the cheap bastard mode of thinking can help enrich your life.

Friday night, we loaded up the kids and took a trip to Sears. We had read on SlickDeals that Sears was having a huge clearance sale on clothing, and since we needed clothes for the twins we decided to check it out. When we got there we found several racks of clearance baby clothes that were half off the marked clearance price, which in many cases was already 50-75% off the original price. We ended up with two large bags full of baby clothes for just over $100, some items as low of $0.39 each. How did we pay? With a $100 Lands End gift card (Sears accepts Lands End gift cards because they own Lands End and sell their clothing in Sears locations) that we got by redeeming 9,000 of the 15,000 bonus Thank You points for applying for the Citi Professional card. Not too shabby!

Saturday afternoon we took a trip to Home Depot to get a couple of things for a project here at the house and decided to get the grill I’ve been wanting for the last two years. I decided on the Weber Spirit E-310 LP gas grill, which was $399.00. We bought that along with a propane tank and the supplies for our other project, and used the 10% off Lowes Moving coupon to take off a total of about $45 off our purchase. We paid with a $500 gift card that we got as a promotional bonus for opening an AMEX Business Gold card on which the annual fee was waived for the first year.

So you can see this weekend we got about $300 worth of clothing for our kids and a new $400 grill for daddy, all for nothing but our time in applying for a couple of credit cards and fulfilling the simple terms of two promotional offers. And this doesn’t include the $50 or so we still have on that Home Depot gift card and the $60 Target card from the other part of the Citi promotion. And don’t forget about the 30+ boxes of cereal I have stacked in my pantry now from the Safeway cereal sale.

So who says the frugal cheap bastard lifestyle isn’t worthwhile?

Free $25 AMEX Gadget Card with purchase of 5 AMEX Gift Cards (no fee)

BillyOceansEleven — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:57:27 +0000

Here’s a pretty sweet deal posted on SlickDeals. Right now if you purchase five AMEX gift cards directly from AMEX you can get a free $25 AMEX Gadget Lover’s Card by mail-in rebate. The Gadget Lover’s Card is an AMEX gift card that is good at participating retailers, including Best Buy, Circuit City, and Staples (full list of participating retailers can be found here). The mail-in rebate form can be found here.

But to make the deal even sweeter, now through 12/31/2007 you can use the promo code HOLIDAY07 to waive the activation fees on the cards. The only additional charge is for shipping and handling (for me it was $5.95). So after the mail-in rebate, you effectively make $19.05 on the transaction, not including and credit cards rewards you get on the purchase.

You can order the gift cards from AMEX at http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/page/0,1641,22224,00.asp?us_nu=dd

The SlickDeals discussion on the deal can be found here.

Is Discover Card relevant anymore?

BillyOceansEleven — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:54:29 +0000

Back in the day, Discover Card was the king of the rewards credit cards, if for nothing else because it was nearly the only reward credit card. I remember how it was promoted with the tagline “The card that pays you back.”

Well, fast forward to today and Discover is far from the only player in the reward card game. Nearly every issuer has several reward cards available, and sadly for Discover most make the Discover Card programs look stingy at best. In a market where a full 1% back is becoming the standard, the tiered approach of the classic Discover card is just not competitive. You must spend $3000 in a year just to get to 1% back (the first $1500 gets you 0.25% and the next $1500 earns 0.50%). Additionally, they added additional provisions to make it more difficult to reach the full 1% tier. As stated on their website:

Warehouse purchases (those made at select warehouse clubs, discount stores and their affiliates) earn .25%. We do not include warehouse purchases or Get More program purchases (up to the dollar amount specified in each applicable program) in calculating your total annual purchases to determine your tier level.

The only redeeming feature of the Discover Classic is their Get More program, where a merchant category is selected each quarter for 5% cash back. But considering the other programs out there like the Citi AMEX Platinum, is it really worth dealing with Discover for whatever odd category they decide to include in the bonus program? Especially considering that you have to go and register on their website for each promotion?

As for their other card programs, the only one that may be interesting is the Discover Open Road card that gives 5% back on gas and auto repairs. The Discover Miles card is nothing to write home about (with all of the airline and hotel programs out there, who really needs more miles). And the Discover Motiva card that pays you back a month’s interest for making six payments in a row on time – well, if you’re paying interest on your credit card you have bigger problems than finding the right credit card reward program.

It seems like the Discover Classic card only survives because it was the first one around and people are resistant to change. So for those of you that still have and use the old Discover Classic I ask the question: why do you still use the card? Am I missing something here? Leave me a comment to let us know your reasons.

Great Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Deal Through AMEX Membership Rewards

BillyOceansEleven — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 03:07:38 +0000

Here is a crazy brilliant scheme I came across this morning in the Fatwallet Finance forum. In a thread discussing the best use of AMEX Membership Rewards points, user jairocon posted the following way to use AMEX points for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards credits. Keep in mind that you need 16 Rapid Rewards credits to get a free flight on Southwest.

There is currently a nice transfer for AMEX->southwest:

If you go directly 1.5k AMEX MR = 1 Southwest RR credit
Free Southwest flight = 16 RR credits so you need 24k AMEX MR for 1 free Southwest flight

However, if you have a few weeks time and don’t mind a phone call or two that you’d need to make – there’s a better way:

5k AMEX MR -> 5k Continental OnePass
5k Continental OnePass -> 5k Amtrak GuestRewards (5k is the transfer interval CO allows)
5k Amtrak GuestRewards -> 25k Choice (hotels) Points
25k Choice Points -> 10 Southwest RR credits

If we used 25k AMEX MR – you’d get 50 Southwest RR credits! That’s 3 free flight tickets!

Caveats:
- You can only transfer out 25k Amtrak Guest Rewards/calendar year
- Transfers might take a while
- Transfer ratios might devalue over time

You can make it even better by transferring 25,000 AMEX points prior to year-end, and then again after January 1. Why? Because another cool feature of the Southwest Rapid Rewards program is that if you earn 100 Rapid Rewards credits over any 12-month period, you are given a companion pass that is good for a year. The companion pass allows you to name a specific individual who is allowed to fly with you on any Southwest flight for a year, even if your ticket is an award ticket. So essentially you get 6 free flights plus the companion pass that can become the same as 6 more free flights.

With two little ones on the way, we probably won’t be traveling much in the coming year, but hopefully someone else out there can use this.

Citi AMEX Platinum Deal: 3% min back on all purchases for 24 months + 15K bonus

BillyOceansEleven — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:54:26 +0000

Here is a deal that I found in preparation for my recent App-O-Rama. Citi is currently running a promotion for new applications for the Citi AMEX Platinum Card. The card offers 5 Thank You Points per dollar on everyday purchases (gas, grocery, and drugstores), and 3 Thank You Points per dollar on everything else. You also receive 15,000 bonus Thank You points after spending $300 in the first three months.

You can apply for the card by clicking here.

Thank You points can be redeemed for gift cards, travel, and other items. On most gift cards, 10,000 points can be redeemed for a $100 card, which means that at minimum you will get a minimum of 3% back.

There are two catches on the offer that are pretty easy to work around:

The annual fee is waived for the first year only. Afterwards the annual fee is $99.
The promotional reward levels are only for the first 24 months. Afterwards you get a measly 1 Thank You point per dollar.

Of course the work around is to cancel the card before the one year anniversary. Just be sure to stop using the card about a month before you close the account so you don’t forfeit any points.