That’s an impressive list, but if you want us to believe you, you need to identify the card numbers, expiration dates and CVV2 code.
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That’s ok, I’ll let every believe I made a list of fictitious credit cards just to impress everyone.
I’m surprised US Bank let me have the same card two years in a row. I might have to see how many times I can repeat that. After all nothing says class like Applebees and Olive Garden.
I wish my spouse would play along, that list could be twice as long. I could be going to Australia instead of Europe.
Can you put a dollar value on the points (in the way that you would use them)? Are you coming out ahead with them, or should you discontinue some of them?
I did that once and it was good for a while. Seems like the ones now have balance transfer fees, though, which more than eat up any interest savings.
Anyway, with everything going on in my personal life, I might need decent credit for a home loan in the next few years. Next home is likely to be the last, so at that point I might be willing to trash my credit to chase credit card teasers but for now I’m not and I lack the time to manage it all anyway.
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My credit rating has always been 800+, the impact of those 14+ credit cards (those are just the ones since I’ve started tracking in 2018 to keep them straight) on my credit score is fairly negligible.
The US Bank Connect cost $99 for the annual fee. I had to spend $2,000 on the card, and there is a $40 opportunity cost for the cash I would have gotten on another card. But $139 is a small price to pay for the $530 in gift cards, I’m up almost $400. It took me five minutes to apply, maybe twenty minutes to monitor the account and order the gift cards when the rewards had arrived, and ten minutes to close.
The Citi AAdvantage $99 annual fee is waived the first year. I earned 75K points on American Airlines after spending $3,500 in four months. Again, call it a $70 opportunity cost. I just booked a flight to and from Scotland with a friend. He’s paying $887. I’m paying $111+55,000 miles so in this case 55K miles saved me $776 ($706 when you remove the opportunity cost). I just finished the spend on this card getting the Scotland vacation set up, so my miles balance will be back up to 167K. I’ve got miles on Delta and United too.
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that’s all cool. i met another actuary once who described doing this all the time, using excel to track and cancel on the right schedule. it all fed a lot of travel he said. i decided then that I lack the attention and energy for that but respect those who do.
I prefer to live somewhere that I like, less travel required, and, fun fact, relatives prefer to come to us!
Win-win.
Win
That is questionable
No they’re not.
“Hey, my coke dealer gives new clients free coke for a whole week. He’s a nice guy!”
No, he’s not.
That’s an impressive list.
I don’t think it counts as financial acumen. I think it counts as a way to take advantage of companies’ enrollment offers, and as such shows a somewhat dubious personality trait. Is it stealing? No, not exactly. But it’s not exactly “not stealing” either.
It’s like treating the free sample tables at Costco like unlimited buffets. It may be “allowed” in the sense that they won’t stop you, but it’s not exactly polite.
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Exploiting financial loopholes is financial acumen though.
Its just a lot of work sometimes to track stuff like that so few people bother.
Sadly, this is the truth.
When you arrange a tax deduction are you stealing from the gummint? Or are you making a smart financial decision?
The credit card companies know what they are doing. Some of them take measures to make sure you only get a credit card every so often, or a total number of credit cards every so often.
X% of the people getting these cards will carry a balance and generate income. (100-X)% of these people will enjoy dining, airfare, or something else. The net result must be a profit because these programs haven’t ended in quite a long time. The bank is making money off what we would view as other peoples’ bad (or unfortunate) financial decisions. I suppose you could argue that my involvement increases the (100-X)% side of the equation, but I don’t see it as stealing at all. If people wouldn’t carry a balance in the first place, I wouldn’t have a program to benefit from, so blame them. These perks wouldn’t exist aprt from fees banks charge retailers.
I know that this argument can be adjusted to make me look more like the bad guy here, but 42.
It’s really not a lot of work (at the level I do it, which is less than others), just more work than some people are willing to do. The two offers above
got me over $1,000 in tax-free benefits for at less than two hours of work.
ETA: I don’t piss around with a card that gives you 5% for a category in a given quarter - that is extra work for sure. I only focus on if I spend X in the first Y months (and maybe pay annual fee W), I get Z.
In a free market system, taking advantage of something that is freely offered isn’t stealing.
Nor is there a moral obligation for an individual give the company a profit of any kind.
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Not my intent at all. Kudos to you for exploiting the loopholes. I’m saying the system is unnecessarily complicated and it would be more efficient without all the games from both sides. Same could be said for the tax system
You know what you’re doing. Be OK with it.
Just seems like an awful lot of work to me, and I don’t need to travel that much to be happy in my life. But, that’s me.
I see it as a very gray area.
Going into public bathrooms and taking the “freely offered” toilet paper to use and or sell for profit is not stealing?
Is it stealing if I buy something on sale? How can you consider using the services of a company and taking advantage of the associated incentives, at the terms set by said company, as falling in a gray area?
IMO this is pretty close to tax credits and deductions. Assuming everything is 100% above board and there is no exaggerating or lying, do you consider it morally wrong to limit your tax requirements by understanding the tax code and taking full advantage of the available deductions and credits?
I will add, Klaymen’s behavior is built in to the cc sign-up-bonus (SUB) system and anticipated by cc companies in different ways. American Express only allows receiving the SUB once in an individual’s lifetime on most of their products. Chase allows customers to receive the SUB on some of their products once every 4 years and, as Klaymen mentioned, won’t give customers new cards if they have opened more than X personal cards in the past Y months.
CC companies intentionally create a ridiculously complex system in hopes the consumer will act suboptimally (e.g X points for spending in this category but 5X points for spending in that category, a point is worth Y if spent in this manner or 1.2Y when spent in this other manner). Otherwise, they would just offer x% cash back on all purchases. If someone wants to spend the time to identify the best way to take advantage of the incentives provided, more power to them.
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