Interesting, thanks! I I have a tiny home based business. I haven't researched how to make it legal yet so no tax ID number, etc. I don't sell much yet, so just haven't taken the time.
You don't need a tax ID number. You are the sole proprietor of your home based business so you use your social security number instead of a tax ID number. That was how I got my Ink card for my tiny home based business
How much would you save doing this? I save almost 40% on Disney cruise by booking onboard, transferring to Costco, buying target gift cards at Kroger when they run 4x fuel points using my Amex blue preferred, and going through ebates to buy Disney gift cards from target with my red card as a default. Finally drop the gift cards in a DVA.
I guess that depends on the tactics and strategies used as well as the points being accumulated and redeemed. Straight cash back is always a fixed value. How much you save or can redeem will vary upon how you stack your points and redemption options. Your example is perfect for maximizing fixed value and cash back. We don't have Kroger's in South Florida
so those fuel points are never an option for us.
The only time we've really focused on a straight cash back strategy was just in the last couple of months. We wanted to do a helicopter excursion over Pulpit Rock on our Disney cruise this summer.
DCL's excursion was $379 for a 30 minute flight. Then, we found an outside operator that takes credit cards and does a one hour flight with more sightseeing and it was $447 per person. This cruise and
ABD add-on is already the most expensive vacation we have ever taken so by this time I wanted to save some money since we have plenty of miles. DH and I decided to each apply for a Capital One Venture - $460 cash back per card, a Barclay Arrival Plus - $500 cash back per card and Amex World Propel $430 cash back per card. Go big or go home
Now, we have the points to "pay" for our helicopter tour, plus nearly $2K more in points to "pay" for on-board expenses and all of the cards are no foreign transaction fee cards with chip and pin or chip and signature. Obviously this strategy won't work long term but it was a nice option to go for under the circumstances.
Points used for miles and hotels are variable and depending how they are redeemed can be worth far more than straight cash back. For our example, getting 5 Chase UR points per dollar for our Disney Frozen Cruise with
Adventures by Disney pre Copenhagen trip this summer earned us over 66K UR points. These can be transferred 1:1 to British Airways or United Air. Those airline miles will get one of us to Budapest next year in first class when we go on the new Adventures by Disney river cruise trip next year. The ticket would cost over $7,000 one way. Not that we'd ever pay that for airfare LOL However, we prefer to use the points so we can "afford" to fly first class when we go overseas or have a longer domestic flight.
