Best American Express Membership Reward Redemption: Cash Via Gap Gift Cards?

Posted on January 24, 2012 // 4 Comments

(Update: That was quick, looks like they are sold out. Perhaps they will replenish later.)

If you have some American Express Membership Rewards points lying around, perhaps from the American Express Platinum or the AmEx Rewards Premier Gold, then is for you. Reader David reports that right now you can get a $25 Gap gift card for 1,250 points when you redeem by January 29, 2012, which is 50% less than the normal exchange rate for gift cards ($25 = 2500 points). Supplies are limited.

Even if you don’t like Gap clothes, PlasticJungle.com and others from my gift card sellback website comparison will give you up to $83 for a $100 Gap gift card. That works out to a value of 1.66 cents per point (10,000 points = $166), which is much better than any other direct cash-out option, although some people may be able to get better value by redeeming airline miles for award flights.

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

Visa & Hilton Honors Promotion: 1,000 Free HHonors Points

Posted on January 23, 2012 // 9 Comments

If you have a Hilton HHonors number, a cell phone that accepts text messages, and a Visa card, you can register at visa.com/hiltonhonors to receive promotion text messages and get 1,000 HHonor bonus points. You can earn another 4,000 points if you spend $100 on your linked Visa card at any Hilton-affiliated hotel by June 30, 2012. You can opt out from messages later on with a reply text of “STOP”.

By the way, if you have a smartphone you can also score additional free points from Hilton and other points programs by “checking in” using the Foursquare app (or Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) when you register with TopGuest. You can get 50 Hilton points every day you check in at a Hilton hotel, for example. You only need to be within 10 miles of the hotel to check in the first time, and in future times I don’t think you need to be nearby at all.
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Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Summary 2011: Over $2,500 in Free Money

Posted on January 20, 2012 // 34 Comments

Looking back, 2011 was a great year for credit card sign-up incentives. The major issuers rolled out some new cards and features and offered up big bonuses to get you to try them out. By picking up the tastiest offers, you could have reaped thousands of dollars in bonuses even with average incomes and without spending more than normal. If you have good to excellent credit, why not earn some money with it? Here’s what Mrs. MMB and I decided to jump on last year:

Chase Sapphire Preferred: $625 in travel
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card gives you 50,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. With this new card, Chase is basically trying to make a premium card that competes with American Express, with their Ultimate Rewards rivaling Membership Rewards. (It’s metal and heavy, too!) For example, you can now transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Continental/United, Southwest, British Airways, Hyatt, and Marriott. This the same system the Chase Freedom card uses now as well.

But my favorite features are the cash options and the 20% bonus towards travel. 10,000 points = $100 cash = $120 towards travel at no markup (same price as Expedia, Travelocity, etc). You can mix points and cash however you like, which means 40k points = $500 towards any airfare or hotel nights. No annual fee the first year, $95 after that.

Ink Bold Business Charge Card: $500 cash or $625 in travel
The small business version of the Chase Sapphire, this card also offers a huge sign-up bonus. The Ink Bold® Business Charge Card from Chase gives you 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points – after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open. For more details, please see my Chase Ink Bold review post, including details on what constitutes a small business.

Citi ThankYou Premier: $500 in gift card or $665 in airfare
The Citi ThankYou Premier Card is another travel-oriented premium credit card gives you 50,000 ThankYou points after spending $2,500 within 3 months of account opening. The special feature here is that it offers you a 33% premium on when used towards travel. That means those 50,000 ThankYou points can be redeemed for $665 in airfare. They also have their own airfare portal with the same prices as Expedia, and you can also mix and match cash and points if you don’t have enough points to pay for the entire amount. For more details, please see my Citi ThankYou Premier review post. (Now expired)

Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express: 30,000 miles
The Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express is not a great deal for everyone, but it works out very well for us. (It’s actually our second card, I had one previously.) My wife and I both fly cross-country together to a city primarily served by Delta at least once a year to visit the parents. The sign-up incentive is pretty good – 30,000 Skymiles after just $1,000 in purchases within your first 3 months.

More importantly, the card comes with a buy-one-get-one-for-$99 companion voucher (now expired) that saved us $250+ this year since it’s usually during a holiday. We’ve used this voucher before, and the prices are comparable to online travel engines, but you do get stuck with the taxes of $50 or so. The annual fee is free the first year, and $95 after that. You also get a free checked bag on every flight for you and up to 8 travel companions (so one card gets us two free bags as a couple, a $50 value per person each roundtrip). The total one-year value of this card is at least $600 if value a mile at a penny.

Grand total: $625 + $625 + $665 + $600 = $2,515
That’s just for four cards from three different issuers, which is far less than the most cards I’ve applied for in a year on my own. This means a couple could make over $5,000, which is 10% of the 2009 US median household income of $50,221 per US Census. As for us, we plan on making good use of this money to cover future airfare and hotel expenses. This total also does not include any earnings from cash-back rewards credit cards.

If we include the Ink Bold Business Charge Card, the required spending total was $11,000. Exclude the Ink Bold, and it goes down to $6,000, which if you use time-shifting techniques like pre-paying bills such as insurance/utilities or buying gift cards for groceries/gas, works out to a reasonable $500 per month. That’s well within our normal spending anyway.

Honorable mentions go out to three other cards:

  • The Chase British Airways 100,000 miles offer came back in 2012, but both my wife and I already jumped on it previously and have already used it for a luxurious business-class trip around Europe.
  • The Southwest Airlines card offered up 50,000 points (expired) which was good for over $800 in Wanna Get Away airfare after just one purchase of any amount. The current offer is 25,000 points for a still-respectable $416 in airfare. We don’t fly Southwest all that often, so we passed on this card this year.
  • The Hyatt Card offers two free nights at any Hyatt in the world after any first purchase, which includes some rather swank hotels. There is a $75 annual fee. My sister got this card and we were pretty close to applying, but we wanted to hold off until we had firm travel plans since I believe you have a certain time to redeem.

My psychic powers tell me that some of you are wondering about this ;), so here’s the answer: How Opening and Closing Credit Card Accounts Affects Your Credit Score.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Banner 50000

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Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

4 Fandango.com Movie Tickets = $24

Posted on December 30, 2011 // 9 Comments

Daily deals site KGBDeals has a national deal of 4 Fandango.com movie tickets for $24. Each ticket has a maximum value of $12 (total $48). Deal is scheduled to run through the New Year’s weekend, over 7,000 sold so far. If you use eBates ($10 new user bonus) or Mr. Rebates ($5 new user bonus), can get some additional cash back.

Fandango codes will not be available until promotion end date on January 3rd, 2012. Valid until February 12, 2012. Both tickets must be purchased together in the same transaction for the same movie and showtime. This offer may be applied to IMAX or 3D tickets, up to maximum per-ticket code value.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Free $10 Credit Towards Amazon Kindle e-Textbooks

Posted on December 30, 2011 // 8 Comments

Update: Here are some good investment books that you can get for free or cheap with this discount code. Check out the top-selling Kindle e-textbooks for ideas, but I like The Ivy Portfolio and the classic Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. Thanks to reader Max for the tip.

Amazon.com is offering another $10 of free credit towards Kindle e-Textbooks with the code ETXTBOOK. Additional directions and a place to enter your code at this link. I don’t believe you actually need a Kindle to use these electronic textbooks, as there is a Kindle app for PC, Mac, iPhone, and Android phones as well. You must use it by 11:59 p.m. PST on January 9, 2012. I got this for an Amazon Student account, but it should work for everyone.

Are electronic textbooks much cheaper than paper textbooks after taking into account selling the used book back? I have no idea.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Sharebuilder New Account $75 Bonus

Posted on December 23, 2011 // 21 Comments

Discount stock brokerage Sharebuilder is offering a $75 cash bonus as long as you open a new account with $100 by December 31st with promotion code EXTRA75. It doesn’t appear that you even need to make a trade. Fine print:

** You must open a new ShareBuilder account and deposit $100 or more to be eligible for this promotion. Initial deposit must be completed by 12/31/11. Capital One 360 Investing will deposit a $75 bonus approximately 4-6 weeks after your first $100 deposit. The $75 bonus offer is available for Individual, Joint and Custodial accounts only. Offer not valid for IRAs or ESAs. The $75 bonus is not available for withdrawal for 120 days after it is awarded to your account. This offer is not valid with any other offers and is non-transferrable. Limit one ShareBuilder account bonus per unique customer or custodial beneficiary. We reserve the right to terminate this offer at any time and to refuse or recover any promotion award if we determine that it was obtained under wrongful or fraudulent circumstances, that inaccurate or incomplete information was provided in opening the account, or that any terms of our Account Agreement have been violated. Offer expires 12/31/11.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

$5,000 Cash & Two iPads Holiday Giveaway from MyMoneyBlog (Winner Announcement)

Posted on December 22, 2011 // 113 Comments

Winner Announcement! The contest is now over. Congratulations to Devin A. and Julia D., the lucky winners of $2,500 and an iPad 2. You should have received an e-mail notification to your registered e-mail address. Thanks to all who entered, I hope to do it again next year.

‘Tis the season of giving so I’ve decided to award two lucky MyMoneyBlog readers with $2,500 in cold hard cash!  And as an added bonus, each winner will receive a brand new iPad 2 (64gb).  Yes, really! I don’t think you’ll find a richer giveaway on the web so please tell your friends, family and coworkers to get an entry in!   Winners will be selected at random on the morning of Wednesday, December 21st and to enter the giveaway, you need to follow two simple steps:

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Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Giving Back //

Groupon $10 for $20 at Old Navy

Posted on December 21, 2011 // Leave a Comment


Up to 90% off top rated local fun!Groupon is again offering $20 to spend at Old Navy for $10. 100,000+ sold already, with days left so it may sell out. I guess the idea is for some last-minute Christmas gifts. You can buy one for yourself and also one as a gift.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

5% Off BP Gas With American Express

Posted on December 20, 2011 // 24 Comments

American Express has another promotion offering 5% off all gas purchases at BP until 1/31/2012 when you register your card. It says you must be invited, but these offers are often found via a simple banner link somewhere on their website and usually work as long as they accept your card number. You get the 5% back via statement credit, on top of your existing card rewards. I registered my trusty Starwood AmEx travel rewards card with no issues.

Try yours… it’s worth a shot for an additional 15+ cents off per gallon. If you combined this with the Blue Cash Preferred AmEx with 3% back on gas, you’d be looking at 8% total cashback.

Update: The wording is ambiguous, could mean 5% back on all your purchases for the entire month!

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Perkstreet Checking: Best Bank If You Prefer Debit Cards Over Credit Cards

Posted on December 19, 2011 // 9 Comments

PerkStreet Financial(SM) MasterCard® Debit CardRegular readers will know that I like using credit cards for the cashback or travel rewards, even though I never carry a balance from month to month or pay any interest. However, I also accept that many people prefer debit cards as they suck money straight out of your checking account. If that sounds like like you, you’re not alone – when it comes to a charge card purchase, nationally it’s just as likely to be a debit card as a credit card. I get it – debit cards more psychologically similar to spending cash and there is no change of racking up a balance (although there are overdraft fees).

The best way to describe Perkstreet Financial is that it’s the best checking account if you don’t like using credit cards. They offer the best cashback rewards on debit cards by far:

  • 1% cash back on all non-PIN debit card purchases. The cash back you can earn on these purchases is unlimited.
  • 2% cash back at popular retail stores. On online purchases at: Amazon.com®, iTunes®, Target.com, Apple.com, Walmart.com and Bestbuy.com, on in-store purchases, when you have a Current Account Balance of $5,000 or more at: Walmart, Target®, Best Buy® & Apple® stores, and when you and a friend use your cards at the same restaurant, bar or coffee shop within 60 minutes of each other.
  • 5% cash back at a rotating set of retailers. For October 2012, they are The Cheesecake Factory®, Pottery Barn®, Pottery Barn Kids®, PotteryBarn.com, Ace Hardware®, AceHardware.com.
  • PowerPerks 2.0 with deals updated every week. With no yearly limits.

As long as you have some sort of activity each month (billpay, deposit, withdrawal, cleared check, debit card purchase) then there is no monthly fee. Some other improvements they’ve made are that you can deposit checks sent overnight for free at UPS Stores or Mailbox Etc. (or via free prepaid envelopes). They don’t offer ATM rebates like some other places like my account at Ally Checking, but they do offer 42,000 free ATMs across the country; use their ATM locator to see if there are convenient ones to you.

Right now, you can get an extra $25 bonus cash back when you apply for an account online by December 25th, fund with $25 or more, and use your card at least 3 times in the first month. (Ironically, last time I started an application they let me fund with with a credit card up to $500 and promised it would go through as a purchase and not a cash advance.) – This promo is now expired.

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers //

Groupon BuyLocal $10 Promotion

Posted on December 19, 2011 // 1 Comment

Here’s a quick Groupon promo for both new and existing users. You can get a $10 credit after registering on this page on 12/19 and buying a “local” Groupon worth $10+ by midnight 12/24. Valid for the first 150,000. Local means a physical business in your area – no online deals or getaways. More details in the FAQ.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Recent Smaller Offers Updates & Follow-Up

Posted on December 14, 2011 // 3 Comments

From time to time, I post smaller deals that offer some sort of bonus or discount. This has been a feature of the blog since the very beginning – my 5th post ever on was about getting 10,000 free Delta miles back in December 2004 (very expired). Even though credit card deals tend to be the most lucrative, and some people may scoff at getting $10 here and $10 there, I actually find it fun and if I grab them all then it adds up. I try to only include deals with national availability, minimal effort and/or driving, and that don’t require any spending that you wouldn’t do otherwise.

Here’s a quick follow-up just to all the deals that have been going on recently, unfortunately several are expired:

That’s over $100 value in about a month. And remember, if you have a spouse or partner you can potentially double everything. 🙂 Finally, don’t forget to enter my own $5,000 giveaway!

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //
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