I love credit cards so much!

[speedyfishy]

I'm not spurned by chase (knock on wood) but just slowing down with them, and can't do amex either due to 2/90. Ugh. Just farming my current cards til June.

I got spg biz on 3/1 and spg personal 4/16...so can I app for the next amex on 6/2?

I think 6/2 you will be good to go. A few days earlier even since there were 31 day months in there, but I wouldn’t risk it. If you need more cards though you can go for Amex CHARGE cards the 2/90 rule doesn’t apply for those.

 

[Haley R]

@Haley R
i think the question would be if you could float the money or not. $5k spendings is a lot, but easy to accomplish with what @SouthFayetteFan and @thevalley mentioned. but it comes down to if you have the capacity to hold $1-2k in a bank or in gift cards, or visa gift cards,

I definitely think we could make the $5000 work if we have it in Visa gift cards or store gift cards. I didn't even think of doing those types of things and those are great ideas!

 

[Haley R]

Now would be the time. I have always advised on this board to plan, when possible, 2 years out from a trip. Give yourself, one year to earn all the points you need, so that they are in place one year before you book your trip. This is especially true for those who want to book award flights in business or first. You will likely be paying with points, therefore, it is still totally do-able.



Let's say, you got the CIP and no other card for the $95 AF. After you make the $5000 spend and get the bonus those points would be worth $1,062.50 (85,000 x .0125) to purchase towards your $3200 in flights. If you got the CIC with no AF you would get 53,000 points after the spend. You would have $530 worth of UR points. You gave up obtaining an additional $532.50 in order to save $95. If you add the CSR to this, you can transfer the CIP points to your CSR account and your 85,000 points would not be worth $1,275 (85,000 x .015). Assuming you also made the spend and bonus for that CSR you'd have an additional 54,000 points from that card that would be worth $810. Book MiraCosta with CSR and your $300 credit will kick in and wipe that amount off. In this scenario, you pay $245 in AFs to obtain $2,085 in buying power.

You mentioned that your expenses were about $3,000 give or take per month and at least $1500 on a credit card. In 3 months you are spending between $4500 - $9,000 anyhow so I am not even counting the additional spend required from the CIP vs the CIC since it doesn't factor into the equation. I imagine that part of your $3,000 total would include at least $167 in monthly expenses that you didn't realize could be shifted to a credit card. So, in your case, you would not be spending or buying any more than you already do. You just need to decide if you are comfortable trading in $95 to get $1062.50 for the CIP, and do you want to trade $150 (after hitting the travel credit) to $810 from the CSR.

Believe it or not, there was a time (long ago) that I swore I would never pay an AF on a credit card and did not see a reason to do so (I hope @SouthFayetteFan wasn't drinking coffee while reading that and has napkins handy to wipe the monitor now) I totally understand the reluctance on that issue from you and your DH. Prior to 2012 I had never had a card that carried an AF. 2012 was when I discovered travel hacking and DH and I had to come to terms with the notion too. Back then, our big trip annually was a week in WDW. I live in Florida. The splurge every other year was to DLR for the D23 convention. Now, we do insanely stupid things like fly to San Francisco just to go see Hamilton or to London for the weekend to see the Harry Potter play and I have more AFs than I know what to do with. It came down to, do we want to make our dream trips happen or not. Would we want to work the extra time it would take to earn the $1000 or so that the new card with the AF would earn us instead of paying the AF. I'd rather spend 30 minutes online figuring out how to travel hack $5000 off a trip, pay a few AFs to do so, than figure out how many extra Saturdays, and evenings I have to work at my real job and how many Golden Retrievers I have to groom on on my side hustle to earn that $5,000.

My apologies for not making that clearer. You would call Chase 1-866-951-6592 and ask for the travel and cruise department. They are open M-F 9 - 9 and Sat 9-5. Even if you could not book directly with the Chase UR agent, you could still pay for the hotel with your CIP and wipe off the charge with a statement credit. It's only .01 per point, but it is still money you're not shelling out of pocket



If I recall, you mentioned your expenses were $3000 or so per month and you put at least $1500 in credit cards. If we go with just the $1500 you already know are going on a credit card. You apply for CIP and shift your $1500 per month you are already putting on a credit card to the CIP. That is $4500. You still have another $4500 or so in expenses that for some reason are not going on a credit card. It is very possible that at least $167 each month of that $1500 ($500 over 3 months) can be shifted to the CIP and you just were not aware of that. If the merchant accepts Visa, you can charge it to the CIP. If they don't, there is still a work around where you can charge it to the CIP 95% of the time.

Is it too late for us to try and get these bonuses and points for next May?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Those are really good suggestions!! Thank you! Would the one CIP be enough for us or would we have to get different Chase cards as well? I'm just worried about spending the $5000 plus more to get the bonuses.

It would be a start. You probably will have to get multiple Chase cards if you're looking to cover a significant portion of your trip. The nice thing is you can spread them out (you don't have to get them all at once). If you or your husband get a CIP now, then refer the other person to a CIP in a few months (and spend 10,000) then you'll have about $2,400 towards your trip. Then if one of you gets a CSR card (Chase Sapphire Reserve) you'd be up over $3,600 towards the trip.

My family is looking to cover our $4,400 Disney Trip in Jan. and I am thinking it will take us 4-5 cards to do so.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

For those that sell kids stuff on Facebook, EBay, etc., do you sell seasonally or as you clean stuff out? I have winter clothes and Halloween costumes DS has outgrown. Trying to decide whether I post them now or wait until fall.

I think it may depend on the sizes of the clothing..for small kids that grow quickly people may not want to buy a season ahead...and kids change their minds on Halloween costumes frequently...so I’d wait until it’s closer to,those seasons...for adult clothing and other stuff...I list all year long since eBay gives you 50 free listings a month and then frequently sends offers for another free 50 or 100 between certain dates

 

[miztressuz]

For those that applied or upgraded to the Marriott Premier Plus, Doctor of Credit put up a referral post you can share your link to the public (if you follow the rules listed)
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chas...available-via-referral-share-your-links-here/

I've got no skin in this yet, so I'm not much help on getting it to work past this, but wanted to point it out. I think folks here did it successfully when the Disney offer came out and they could chime in.

 

[Haley R]

I would have your DH apply for the CIP since it’s a 80k bonus. Plus you can use the CIP through plastiq and pay bills that you normally pay with a check. Yes you are paying a 2.5% fee but you are getting 3x ur. It out weighs the fee. You can always cash in the points if you need the cash. There are creative ways to pay your bills through plastiq.
After your DH gets his CIP he can refer you for yours and get the referral bonus.

We normally have the money for our bills automatically pulled out of our checking account so we may need to think about changing that to make these spending amounts.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Is it too late for us to try and get these bonuses and points for next May?

It's not too late, but you don't want to play around either Depending on how many points you need, you may not be able to cover your trip 100% but...covering half the cost is better than nothing, right?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

For those that applied or upgraded to the Marriott Premier Plus, Doctor of Credit put up a referral post you can share your link to the public (if you follow the rules listed)
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chas...available-via-referral-share-your-links-here/

I've got no skin in this yet, so I'm not much help on getting it to work past this, but wanted to point it out. I think folks here did it successfully when the Disney offer came out and they could chime in.

Thanks for sharing this! The rule of thumb on these DoC referral posts is you want in early. Super helpful

 

[Haley R]

The CIP is an excellent choice for a first card! Here’s the deal, you get 80k UR points for completing a $5k MSR/3 months. Yes, $5k is a lot to spend in 3 months, and the goal is not to spend money you wouldn’t have spent anyway so there are ways to do it without busting your budget (we’ll get to that). The annual fee on this card is $95, which will bill at the end of your first statement.

80k UR is worth $800 in cash if you take a statement credit or a bank deposit (don’t do this, 1 UR = $0.01 is the worst value you can get). However, if you keep your points on the CIP and redeem them for travel through the UR travel portal (again, think Expedia) or with Chase’s Cruise and Tour Department (think travel agency), they are worth 25% (1.25x) more or $1,000 towards flights, hotels, cruises, car rentals, and activities. (If you decide to get the Chase Sapphire Reserve (“CSR”) later, you can move all your UR points to the CSR because it offers more redemption value with a 50% (1.5x) bonus on the value or your points, so 80k UR points will be worth $1,200 towards travel booked through the Chase.) UR points also transfer to United (“UA”) MileagePlus points 1:1 in 1,000 increments.

So how does this work into your plans? You’re seeing round-trip (“RT”) for 2 people from DSM<>NRT for around $3,200. I don’t know if this is a good deal or not, but I think it’s within reason from the Midwest. I just did a quick search for mid-April 2019 on UA, and I’m seeing RT flights for $2,700/ticket. If you were to book those $3,200 tickets using UR points through the UR travel portal, you would need 256k UR/100 x 1.25 bonus = $3,200. However, I see from AwardHacker.com that DSM<>NRT is 70k UA miles RT, and I see from United.com that there’s likely a lot of award availability at 35k UA+taxes each way if you’re a little flexible with your travel days. (I’d note award seats jumping up to 80k UA one-way on certain weeks, and I’m wondering if that’s catching the cherry blossom season crowds.) You could fly UA for 140k UA for the both of you; and since UR transfers to UA 1:1, you’d need just 140k UR for your flights.

DSM>NRT

NRT>DSM

(As another option, I see from AwardHacker that ANA (All Nippon Airways) offers award flights for DES<>NRT at just 55k miles/RT, and when I click down I see most of the flight options are operated by their Star Alliance partner airline UA. Unfortunately, UR doesn’t transfer to ANA; Amex’s Membership Rewards (“MR”) points program does transfer to ANA, but since you’re under 5/24 you’ll want to get your Chase cards first and dabble only in Amex’s business cards that won’t add to your 5/24 count.)

So how do we get to 140k UR? The easiest way is probably to sign up for the CIP, which will get you an 80k UR signup bonus after $5k of spend in 3 months, which will earn you at least another 5k UR. When you’re done, you can refer DH to the CIP, earn a 20k UR referral bonus when he’s approved, DH gets another 80k UR after he meets the $5k MSR in 3 months for at least another 5k UR on that spend. When you pool your points together, that’s at least 190k UR, which should be enough to cover your flights. So for DH, he can look at it as paying $190 in annual fees for $3,200 worth in flights with about 50k UR points left over for hotels.

(You said you’re considering the CIC. It’s a great card and as @calypso726 mentioned will get you 5x UR at office supply stores that sell gift cards, including Disney Gift Cards! It’s also a no annual fee card with a lower MSR of $3k/3 months. The bonus on the CIC is currently at a historic high of 50k UR with rumors this offer may end later this week. Even though a lot of us are applying for the CIC, it might not be the best card in your position. A lot of us already have the CIP and got that as our first Chase business card for the big 80k UR bonus and ability to refer our spouses for a 20k UR bonus and another 80k UR signup bonus. Getting those points in place as far in advance as you can to book award seats can be very important. Two CICs at 50k UR each won’t get you to 140k UR, and even 1 CIP+1 CIC won’t be enough, and you’ll have to get another card to get there, which will put your redemptions further out due to Chase’s timing limitations. And, as I mentioned upthread, the CIC’s 50k UR offer may be going away, but the card is supposedly not. It’s expected Chase will introduce a new Chase Ink Unlimited card with a 50k UR offer, so you can apply later for the CIU for the 50k UR offer, and then product change to a CIC for the 5x categories.)

When you’re ready to go further down the rabbit hole and earn more free money, we have a lot more suggestions for you! (For example, if you decide to go for the CSR, you’ll have a 1.5x greater redemption rate on travel through Chase and also access to Priority Pass lounges in Denver (where you may have a layover, and you could be enjoying a steak lunch or dinner) and Narita.)

Now, how to meet $5k in spend within 3 months? You mentioned earlier that your monthly expenses are about $3,500 with $1,500 on credit cards. If you were to put all of the $1,500/month onto the CIP for 3 months, you’re already at $4,500. @SouthFayetteFan, @3 DD love princesses, and @calypso726 have already given you some ideas to bridge that $500 gap. Where’s the other $2,000 of your monthly expenses going? Mortgage, rent, car payments, student loan payments, insurance? You may not realize that regular expenses you typically can’t pay with a credit card, can actually be paid with a credit card!

One of the best features of the CIP is that Plastiq, a service that lets you make payments with a credit card for bills that don’t otherwise accept credit cards, currently earns 3x UR on payments made with the CIP. (However, Plastiq does restrict mortgage payments on Visa cards like the CIP.) Say you have a car payment of $200 that you’re currently writing a check for, you can set up a payment on Plastiq for a $200 to be sent to your car financing company, Plastiq will charge your credit card the $200 plus a 2.5% transaction fee ($5), then send a check or electronic payment to the payee on your behalf. You’ll pay the $200 you would’ve paid anyway plus a $5 fee, but you’ll earn 3x UR on the payment and fee (3x 205) or 615 UR points back. 1 UR = $0.01. So those 615 UR points are worth $6.15 in cash, or $7.69 when redeemed for travel through Chase. The CIP’s 3x UR earning ability on Plastiq negates the fee and actually earns you a little more money towards travel.

For more creative ways of meeting MSR, there are some banks that will let you fund new accounts with a credit card, or you can manufacture spend (“MS”) by buying Visa gift cards (“VGCs”) and then liquidating them for money orders (“MO”) at Walmart or local grocery stores. If you’re interested, @speedyfishy, @Albort, and others can help you out with these methods.

The CIP is my favorite card and fastest UR earner. I earn a ton of UR points each month through Plastiq by paying my rent, student loans, preschool tuition, utilities, and any other bill I can’t otherwise use a credit card to pay. It also earns 3x UR on cable/internet/phone bills, so I put my AT&T bill on it to earn 3x and get phone insurance for my iPhone. It earns 3x UR on eBay seller fees and eBay shipping, along with shipping through USPS/UPS/FedEx. It earns 3x UR on Netflix and Hulu. It earns 3x UR on travel, which broadly includes flights, hotels, travel agencies like Undercover Tourist and Last Minute Travel that sell discounted Disney tickets, (probably your JR Passes too, if you buy them from a travel agency), car rentals, Uber/Lyft, tolls, parking meters and garages, etc. And it earns 3x UR with PayPal checkout on Gyft and Swych apps that sell eGift cards to a lot of retailers (like Walmart, Best Buy, Sephora, Zappos) where you might earn only 1x base points if you paid with a credit card, but earn 3x points if you first buy a gift card from the app then use that gift card at that merchant.

As for when to apply? Now! Chase has a so-called 0/30 rule for business cards, meaning you can’t have any other application for Chase credit cards in the system for the past 30 days. Since you’re starting off with a clean slate, that’s not a problem.

When applying for a credit card, let us know and we can help you through the process. We don't want you making any mistakes that will throw off your plans. And please do consider applying through a link from fellow members on DISchurners. And if you’re interested in using Plastiq, also please consider signing up through a DISchurners’ link because you’ll get $500 fee free dollars, which means Plastiq will waive the fee on up to $500 in payments after you’ve made your first $500 in payments. This kind of support really helps to grow our community and shows fellow members that their contributions to this thread are appreciated.

So would we be okay only getting the two CIP cards and no other cards? I hope we have enough time between now and when we want to book flights/hotels to earn the points.

 

[StephPlum]

You can fund 2k for a checking account and 2k for a savings account and then just pay your credit card bill. You need to leave $300 in savings to be fee free and the checking needs $500 to be fee free. You can close the account with no fee after 180 days.

@speedyfishy a question on this. Does the CC funding count as a direct deposit? Or do you need to do another type of deposit to get the bonus? I might do this just for MSR but if I can get a new account bonus on top that would be great. I know it says it takes Visa, any trouble using a business Visa (CIC) to fund?

 

[palhockeymomof2]

I definitely think we could make the $5000 work if we have it in Visa gift cards or store gift cards. I didn't even think of doing those types of things and those are great ideas!

Chase also seems to give more than exactly 3 months for the $5,000 spend. I was just approved today for the CIP and messaged Chase asking by what date did I have to spend $5,000 to get the 80,000points and they messaged back 9/6...

 

[Haley R]

DH and I currently get 3% back on our checking account per month if we make 15 transactions with over $10 for each transaction. He is a little worried we will lose that 3% cash back by charging everything to credit cards.

 

[speedyfishy]

@speedyfishy a question on this. Does the CC funding count as a direct deposit? Or do you need to do another type of deposit to get the bonus? I might do this just for MSR but if I can get a new account bonus on top that would be great. I know it says it takes Visa, any trouble using a business Visa (CIC) to fund?

I used the CIP to fund so no problem with business visas. It doesn’t count as a direct deposit. I did a Chase transfer from my checking account and that worked.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

@speedyfishy a question on this. Does the CC funding count as a direct deposit? Or do you need to do another type of deposit to get the bonus? I might do this just for MSR but if I can get a new account bonus on top that would be great. I know it says it takes Visa, any trouble using a business Visa (CIC) to fund?

The CC funding will NOT count as the direct deposit You'll need to meet that requirement another way. You are correct though that it's awesome to both get the CC funding AND get an account bonus if you can do both There should be no trouble using a CIC to fund.

 

[WDWRook]

To be honest...you’re going to sign up using your name and you could put literally any category and probably get approved.

You’re probably overthinking it haha. Just say you’re starting a Whale Watching Business in Kansas and expect to have $1,000 in revenue. You’ll probably be approved (I Kid!)

Interesting DP on the CIP application. I applied and instantly got the two week notice on the recon line. After a week and a half of recon saying two weeks, it switched to 7-10 days and we received a rejection letter in the mail. I called in and was told I was rejected because (1) my current credit extended is too high, and (2) it's a new business and I put down $5,000 as projected income, that their minimum line was $5,000 and they can't approved $5,000 line for a projected $5,000 of income. I offered to reduced my credit lines for (1). For (2) I explained it was a new business and I was being conservative. After a number of pretty detailed questions, they approved me for $5,000 without me having to change my other credit lines. I thought that was odd given the comments here by saying $1,000 of income and getting approved.

I was at about 50% credit to household income; I'm at 2/24; and have a credit score at abound 850, FYI. I assume I'll still get the point bonus and the referral credit even though it was approved via recon after it was denied.

I think I'm going to significantly dropped my credit via IMs and take a break from new cards, or maybe just Chase. I'd like to eventually get a Delta card and a SPG/Marriott card, but maybe I should wait a while. I'll need to wait at least the 3 months until I hit the $5,000 spend.

 

[StephPlum]

I am on my chase acct looking to SM to drop my CLs on a few Credit cards in anticipation of a double dip this August. For some reason they gave me $24K on my IHG card which I will never need that much. I checked by credit score on the free Chase credit score thing and I am up to 830 . I started at 815 on Jan 3. Have opened 4 cards since then (CIP, SPG Biz, IHG, CIC); only have 1 open new personal account in the last 2 years. I am sitting at 29% of income on available credit (all not just Chase). It is just crazy to see a 15 point increase in such a short period of time. Now to show DH since he keeps asking if the CIP I made him get will ruin his perfect credit.

 

[StephPlum]

I used the CIP to fund so no problem with business visas. It doesn’t count as a direct deposit. I did a Chase transfer from my checking account and that worked.

Thanks. This will make it even easier to hit the MSR.

The CC funding will NOT count as the direct deposit You'll need to meet that requirement another way. You are correct though that it's awesome to both get the CC funding AND get an account bonus if you can do both There should be no trouble using a CIC to fund.

Too good to be true to get both!! I'll use a deposit from Chase or my other bank for DD. Thanks.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Interesting DP on the CIP application. I applied and instantly got the two week notice on the recon line. After a week and a half of recon saying two weeks, it switched to 7-10 days and we received a rejection letter in the mail. I called in and was told I was rejected because (1) my current credit extended is too high, and (2) it's a new business and I put down $5,000 as projected income, that their minimum line was $5,000 and they can't approved $5,000 line for a projected $5,000 of income. I offered to reduced my credit lines for (1). For (2) I explained it was a new business and I was being conservative. After a number of pretty detailed questions, they approved me for $5,000 without me having to change my other credit lines. I thought that was odd given the comments here by saying $1,000 of income and getting approved.

I was at about 50% credit to household income; I'm at 2/24; and have a credit score at abound 850, FYI. I assume I'll still get the point bonus and the referral credit even though it was approved via recon after it was denied.

I think I'm going to significantly dropped my credit via IMs and take a break from new cards, or maybe just Chase. I'd like to eventually get a Delta card and a SPG/Marriott card, but maybe I should wait a while. I'll need to wait at least the 3 months until I hit the $5,000 spend.

Awesome job working through recon! That can be tough on a business card

I would say your experience is probably due to the credit limit thing (was that 50% credit limit with Chase ONLY to your income?). Once you get a set of human eyes on your app, all the conventional knowledge can go out the window as they can get hung up on all sorts of things.

 

[Lain]

Is it too late for us to try and get these bonuses and points for next May?

It's not too late, but you don't want to delay more than you need to get the points together. Award availability is always limited, so there's a chance the lowest mileage seats will no longer be available when you're ready to book and you'll have to settle for higher mileage award seats or redeeming points through the Chase travel portal.

We normally have the money for our bills automatically pulled out of our checking account so we may need to think about changing that to make these spending amounts.

I'm not a fan of direct debit because in most cases you're not earning anything on it. You mentioned that you're earning 3% back if you make 15 transactions of $10 or more. That's something. But with my wallet of cards that offer bonuses on a broad range of categories, I'm almost always earning 3x or more on my spend. And if you're working on an new card MSR, the return is even higher. Take for example the CIP, you'll get a minimum of $850 worth of points back on $5,095 spend -- that's at least a 16.6% return, more if you're hitting 3x bonus categories during your MSR period.

So would we be okay only getting the two CIP cards and no other cards? I hope we have enough time between now and when we want to book flights/hotels to earn the points.

As I said, it looks like you can get 2 RT flights for DMS<>NRT for as little as 140k miles on UA, which can be transferred from 140k UR points. If you do 2 CIPs, that's a 80k UR signup bonus for you, 20k UR referral bonus for you when you refer DH, another 80k UR signup bonus for DH's card, and at least 10k UR from the combined $5k+$5k MSR = 190k UR points. 140k UR for flights would leave you with 50k UR. You could stop there. This is your plan, your finances, so where you start and stop is your choice. But if you want to pay for hotels with points or upgrade your hotel options, book activities, offset the cost of JR Passes or Tokyo Disneyland tickets, start saving for your next adventure, you can do all of this with more points. Because you're starting with a clean slate, my notepad math tells me you can easily earn 342k more UR points by signing up for at least 3 of Chase's other UR-earning cards, meeting the minimum spend on them for the signup bonuses, then referring DH for the same cards, meeting the spend and earning the bonuses too. 342k UR + 50k UR leftover from your CIP = 392k UR, which if redeemed through the CSR (one of the cards you'd be signing up for) with its 50% bonus would be worth up to $5,880 in travel.