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Episode 1: All about Amex
574 Plays1 year ago
In our first public release episode, we take a deep dive into the latest happenings with American Express, how we're approaching our credit card spend, and how to maximize our return on our spend. We also discuss recent updates in the credit card spending world, and upcoming travel plans for Summer 2024.
Personal Gold AU: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/apply/supplementary-card/gold-card/16786-10-0
Upgrade Referral: https://upgrade.com/r/EeypS7SIMR (Open Rewards Checking Plus and direct deposit at least $1,000 in 45 days)
Intro / Outro Music Credits:
"Vibing Over Venus"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Points Project
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Points Project with your hosts Christoph and Raymond. Raymond, how are you doing?
00:00:19
Speaker
How's it going, Christophe? I'm doing good, man. What's new with you? Well, I'm doing great as well. And of course, everything today is in the name of Amex. You have a lot of things to say about Amex and so do I. So let's dive right in. So Amex, lately I've been really focused on these dining referrals. These dining referrals have 10 points per dollar spent on dining. And so if you can get somebody to use your referral link, you know, you can make some serious money or points by spending on dining with Amex.
00:00:47
Speaker
Before we get into the 10x dining referrals, I actually wanted to, since part of this requires that you refer a friend, I've actually noticed some changes in the last two weeks with Amex. And so I wanted to go over that real quick. So in the past, probably before two weeks ago, I've actually been in sort of like this referral jail.
Amex Referral System & Strategies
00:01:06
Speaker
It's primarily when I go to refer a friend.
00:01:08
Speaker
I've been getting this message on the Amex page that says, you're not eligible to access a referral offer at this time. And literally all of my Amex cards, they had that same message. And so I'm not sure if something has changed in the last two weeks, probably, because now I can freely generate these referral links.
00:01:26
Speaker
In the past, there have been workarounds to get a referral to start working again, and so I've had to do that in the past, but lately, it's kind of free reign. I can go and click on any card that I have and generate a referral link, which is awesome. It's a lot less effort that I need to put in to get those referrals through. I have 11 cards that I have the referability.
00:01:49
Speaker
on and you know with this dining referral I have 11 cards now that I can hopefully get somebody to use my link and then you know get that 10x referral going so I see it on a few cards and that's really opening up some of the options for me. By the way have you had any issues with generating referrals or is that just like a me thing?
00:02:10
Speaker
Wow. I mean, 11 referrals seems to be substantial, right? I mean, even if you look at the offer, right? Let's break down the details here. So really the idea is that you would get 10X in points. So this is about like 10% back on dining spend. And then this is up to, I think, what, $25,000? That's a whole lot of dining. Oh yeah. It's like maybe a whole wedding banquet or something like that. That's pretty substantial.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah, so those are the terms of the referral offer. So I was able to refer P2, and so that quickly generated over an email confirmation from Amex saying, hey, you're not eligible for this new 10X dining offer, and so you're going to get 25,000 in dining capacity where you can earn 10 points per dollar up to 250K points. And so that's great.
00:02:55
Speaker
P2 actually went for a pretty good offer, in my opinion. She's slowly becoming a Marriott fangirl, and so she went for the Marriott Bonvoy business. That one has an $8,000 spend requirement, and then you get five free night awards up to 50,000 points per night. That was great. I'll get a little bit into what we're planning to do with that. For me, as a referrer, I was able to get 25,000 membership rewards on that referral. P2 is currently working on that spend. We'll see how close she can get organically to that 8,000 spend requirement.
00:03:25
Speaker
I'm thinking that I might need to help her out. Her spend isn't all that high organically unless she goes on a shopping spree or something. So there's multiple things going on. First, you as the referrer get the referral
Amex Referral Benefits & Applications
00:03:37
Speaker
bonus, right? So the referral itself is, what, 25K you mentioned? And then on top of that, you would get another 10X on dining up to, what, $25,000?
00:03:46
Speaker
And that's certainly gonna be lasting you for a while. But then at the same time, also, P2 got a new card and that new card has a sign-up bonus on its own, right? So he essentially gets two bonuses. Both the person that gets referred, as well as the person doing the referring. That's right? Correct, yeah. Okay, that's pretty substantial, yeah.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, so a little bit more on the Marriott Bonvoy. I think that the 50,000-point certificates, that should be something we're able to use for a mid-tier Marriott stay. I'm trying to look into where we can actually stack on an additional 15,000 points per night to hopefully find a good property, maybe Hawaii or something, where we can find something at 65,000 points per night. So that'll be something that within the next year, we're going to have to figure out.
00:04:31
Speaker
But yeah, I'm looking forward to P2 getting that Marriott Bonvoy business minimum spend requirement done with. Then we'll start planning out where we can do maybe a five-night stay. I'm not sure if that actually applies to these certificates, but I'm going to go in with the intention of finding something that'll kind of use up all of these certificates all at once.
00:04:49
Speaker
I vaguely remember that this was an issue with certificates that they didn't count into the Five Nights. But yeah, maybe this has changed. I'm not really a Marriott fanboy at this point. Yeah, I'm like trying to make myself become a Marriott fanboy on behalf of P2.
00:05:04
Speaker
I hear
Maximizing Amex Dining Offers
00:05:05
Speaker
lots of great things and lots of nice tricks with the Marriott program from fellow churners in the hobby, and this only just ignites the fire to go a little bit harder into Marriott. P2 has the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant from Amex, and so she has Platinum status without any work involved, and so at least we'll be able to get our free breakfast. Potentially. We're looking forward to figuring things out there.
00:05:27
Speaker
more updates on this so there is the 10x dining offer right and you would think you know you can only take advantage of it once but maybe you can do it more than once right maybe you have multiple charge cards or multiple membership rewards earnings cards that also show that same offer and so per the terms and conditions it is once per account and so if you have multiple accounts right then okay let's think about this how many times over can we sort of take advantage of the offer so just a few days ago i was talking to a
00:05:51
Speaker
my sister-in-law, and I was like, hey, are you interested in opening a new card with Amex? And she's used my referrals in the past. And so I was like, hey, here's my link. I have a referral bonus. I'm willing to just give you that referral bonus if you use my link. So you get the referral bonus, and then you also get the sign-on bonus. And so I think that those two things combined was actually a pretty compelling offer for my sister-in-law. And so she went ahead and said, yeah, I'm happy to help out. And so she went in for an Amex business platinum
00:06:20
Speaker
The offer was 15,000 minimum spend and she'll get 150,000 membership rewards, so it's not one of the better offers that you can get for a business platinum, but it is something for the greater good. I think that it's nice to have a family member who's willing to help you out and use a link of yours if you ask politely. That referral bonus is going to her, plus a little bit of extra. We'll work out the details and negotiate the exact terms and conditions of using my referral. We'll figure something out that is good for both of us.
00:06:50
Speaker
And so I was able to get a second 10X dining referral offer applied to my other business platinum. I'm seeing that, you know, the 10X is starting to post. We'll see how things go from there. How are you doing so far?
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, one of these referrals already keeps me quite busy. I mean, if I find someone else willing to get married, then I will totally go for a second referral. Or maybe even a third, who knows? Yeah, we need more people getting married. And then my sister-in-law also has a spouse, so my brother-in-law, and so I've asked him to see if he's interested in using my referral.
00:07:26
Speaker
And same deal, just handing over that referral bonus that I would get over to my brother-in-law. And then he was saying that I really don't want to add another annual fee card into my collection of Amexes that you've referred to me. And so I was like, hey, there's a Blue Business Plus offer, Blue Business Cash. There's even a weird Lowe's business card. I don't know why that card even exists.
00:07:48
Speaker
But, you know, at least it's another way to get a referral approval. Hopefully they get approved. And, you know, that means that, you know, you can trigger another one of these 10X dining offers. So, you know, there's not really much downside to, you know, having more of these referrals, you know, as long as you can get these going and, you know, get somebody to take your, take your LinkedIn, you know, I'd say why not, you know, let's see how far we can take this offer.
00:08:12
Speaker
Actually, this is an interesting point. You say, well, yes, you can have multiple referrals, but then maybe the spending itself has some interesting attributes as well. Yes, you get 10x on dining, but that actually stacks with the base earning of the card that you're referring from as well. If you refer from, say, a personal gold or I think also a business gold card, that one instead of giving you 1x in dining as a base earning, they should give you four points on dining.
00:08:42
Speaker
So then you would be receiving not just the 10x from the referral bonus, but also another 4x on top of that, bringing that to, what, 14x? Now, that's pretty substantial, right? This is almost, what, 15x back? It's like 15.4% cash back if you cash out to a Schwab brokerage. Yeah, it's great.
00:09:01
Speaker
Can you stack something more on top of that? I mean, maybe that's some Amex offers. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, uh, I've been, I've been actually looking at, um, you know, checking for retention offers on some of these cards and, um, Oh, yeah, with these retention offers, you could potentially, you know, stack a portion of your retention offer spend. So long as you're, you know, you're targeted for a retention offer, you can stack that pretty nicely. And so I
Stacking Amex Offers for Maximum Rewards
00:09:25
Speaker
haven't actually been able to do that so far, but I do have dreams. You know, I did chat in a few days ago with Amex and said, Hey,
00:09:31
Speaker
you know, trying to close out this Amex gold. And let's see before I make any decision to close it out, you know, maybe there's a retention offer. And so I have two personal golds trying to figure out a way to get out of those cards without too much annual fee input into the system. And so, you know, I was thinking, you know, maybe I'll downgrade it to an Amex screen first. And then once the prorated annual fee hits, then get out of the cards to limit my annual fee obligation.
00:09:57
Speaker
I was thinking, if there is a retention offer, I'll go ahead and see what's going on. Actually, on both of these personal golds, I was offered 30,000 points for spending $3,000. These are Amex golds that I kept around because they do work for me in terms of bonus categories, the Forex dining and the Forex grocery.
00:10:18
Speaker
Okay, now I need to figure out if I can stack this retention offer with this 10x signing offer. And so if I'm able to do that, number one, that requires that I get another person to use my referral link. Number two, I have to figure out a way to get that referral link generated. I'm actually having a problem with that specific personal goal, getting a referral, like I mentioned earlier, the thing where it says you are not eligible to access this referral offer.
00:10:42
Speaker
So I have to figure out how to get that referral link generated. And then if I do get somebody to use that referral link, then I need to focus that. Because I think you're talking about the 10x plus the 4x on dining spend. And then you're also talking about another 10x for the first 3,000 in spend, right? You're spending 3,000 to get 30,000. So that's 10x per dollar spent. So on that first $3,000 of your $25,000 dining capacity, you could be earning, what is it, 24x?
00:11:11
Speaker
You know, that's like 26% back. 25% back. It's crazy. Yeah. So, you know, Amex is just, it's just a wild machine. And the fact that you can stack a lot of these things is wild. Actually, besides this, now that I'm thinking, I think you also mentioned that there might be some authorized user links flying around right now. Is that true?
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, and so here's another thing. I've randomly organically found this link. No tricks here. I also found an MX Authorized User link for personal gold. I'll put it in the show notes, but it's basically you can add one authorized user to your personal gold. And if you complete 2K spend, you'll get 5,000 additional MR. So it's only good for one authorized user. So ask your P2 to go ahead and spend 2,000 on dining for you. And you'll sweeten the deal by getting an additional 5,000 points.
00:12:01
Speaker
So if you're able to take advantage of this Amex authorized user offer and you're able to do that $2,000 spend on dining, you'll get an additional 5,000 membership rewards points. It's kind of crazy how these things stack, right? You're talking about getting the retention offer spend completed. You're talking about completing a 10x dining referral.
00:12:20
Speaker
And then if you add this authorized user, you're looking at for that first $2,000 in authorized user spend, you're looking at, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 26.5X, right? So 26.5 times 2000 in spend, you're looking at 53,000 membership rewards just for 2000 in spend.
00:12:37
Speaker
So it's not an offer that's scalable, but it's kind of wild to think about, you know, what you can do with the fact that you can stack all of these things together. Is this in any way, you know, something that you're looking at scaling up or, you know, increasing the number of cards? What are you doing with this? Well, if possible, if possible, you know, we'll see where we go. But yeah, I mean.
00:12:56
Speaker
30x pack on dining. It is pretty impressive even if it's just for the first $2,000. For my organic use, that probably lasts me for at least a month or two, so that's very significant. It is, yeah. I've actually been looking at removing some of my MX charge cards from my portfolio. I mentioned earlier trying to get out of an MX gold and
00:13:18
Speaker
being suckered back into it for another year. So that means that I have to at least keep this account as an Amex Personal Gold. But we'll see, you know, I think at the end of this year, since I am committed for another 12 months, I'll go into an Amex Platinum probably by the end of the year. Hopefully that's not a problem with Amex to upgrade. I don't think it will be. And then hopefully cash out some of those incidental benefits that go by calendar year. After the calendar year switches over, take another bite of that apple.
00:13:44
Speaker
and then go back down to a personal gold, maybe use up some of that grocery capacity if I'm able to make use of it. And then I have a calendar reminder for next year, you know, make sure that I get out of the card as soon as that retention period is over. Have you been looking into any retention offers, Christophe? I kind of want to hear what you're doing.
00:14:02
Speaker
Oh, yes. Actually, one of the more interesting things is I had a business card, something that I was also contemplating for a dining referral, but in the end, the referral didn't work out. So I still had the card, though. And this card is interesting because I had the business card for a while, and I got a targeted offer for an upgrade of this card to a business platinum card, which is very nice.
00:14:26
Speaker
Now, the interesting thing is, since I had a business gold card for a while already, you can get a retention offer as well. But that card in particular, I was able to get both a retention offer as well as then upgrade the card to a business platinum. And so the interesting thing there is that when you take a retention offer, MX doesn't want you to downgrade the card. However, they will gladly let you accept an upgrade offer as well. So now that means you stack the retention offer, which was pretty good, which is like 40,000 points.
00:14:56
Speaker
with an upgrade offer, which was also very generous. It's almost like a sign-up bonus to a business platinum card. And then that combined, of course, I think comes up to $10,000 in spend. But the business platinum card, while it has a very hefty annual fee of almost $800, it also comes with a bunch of credits. Credits are mostly, I'd say, useless, but once you've done it long enough, then you know how to take advantage of
00:15:20
Speaker
$200 in Dell credits and maybe $200 in airline credits so that you can get your value out of that and you compensate the annual fee and then The rest like all the bonus the retention offer and the actual upgrade points Well, that's just
Amex Platinum Card Retention Strategies
00:15:35
Speaker
pure gravy. And of course, I'm taking advantage of that very much
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, that Dell credit is really annoying to use. I hate trying to use it every single six months on multiple business platinums. It's just a minor annoyance that we have to put up with if we want to play this game.
00:15:51
Speaker
I also have some other cards that I did seek a retention offer. I was actually thinking about going through all of my charge cards and saying, hey, what about another year? Let's see if we can keep this relationship going. And so I did check on, I have a few Amex Platinum's that I was looking into and I really wanted to get out of these cards, right? So the intention was to downgrade to a green.
00:16:12
Speaker
And then, you know, good old Amex said, hey, we have this retention offer, $4,000 in spend, and you'll get 50,000 membership rewards points. And you have to dedicate another 12 months, right, to keep this card at the Platinum level. So that is kind of annoying that I can't really play any upgrade offer out there in the future. So I do have to keep this as a Platinum, you know, that means figuring out how to use the FHR credit per calendar year, how to use my incidental for airline every year. So that's
00:16:39
Speaker
you know, just more mental capacity that I have to give up, but 50,000 membership rewards points. I did get excited and I accepted it right off the bat. Now that I think about it, I probably should have checked my Schwab Platinum and my Morgan Stanley Platinum first. Because if those were targeted for this same offer, then I think if I'm forced to keep it out of Platinum, well, there is no downgrade path for Schwab Platinum or Morgan Stanley Platinum. And so
00:17:05
Speaker
I should have, going back and thinking about what I could have done better, I should have focused on the non-downgrade path platinum cards that I have open first. That was something that I've learned and I'll probably keep that in mind for the future. Then after I accepted that first vanilla platinum retention, I checked on my next vanilla platinum that I have open and I got that same offer of 4,000 spend, get 50,000 membership rewards.
00:17:27
Speaker
And so I already had learned from my previous experience just two minutes earlier and I said, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and downgrade this one to a green and that is going to set me up for a closeout of the card since I'm out of the annual fee refund window. So that's my plan for my second vanilla Platinum is I'm going to go ahead and close it out once I see that proration of the annual fee.
00:17:48
Speaker
So while I was at it, I was talking to the chat rep and they said, do you want to check on any other cards? And I said, yeah, let me check on my Schwab Platinum. And so I was again targeted for the same 4,000 spend, get 50,000 points. Very nice. And that for the Schwab Platinum, which to me is 100% keeper card for the rest of my life with Amex.
00:18:08
Speaker
That's a great offer. That's a card that I duly accept the annual fee because of its features. It's great that I'm able to at least get a little bit more out of my Schwab Platinum on a year-to-year basis. I think I've had the Schwab Platinum for maybe six or seven years. This is back when you were able to cash out at 1.25 and now you're at 1.1. This is my third retention offer on this card. I seem to check once per year and the last few years I've been striking out.
00:18:36
Speaker
The retention offers have seemed to come back with a vengeance. That plus my ability to refer again off of these cards, it just seems really nice of Amex to let me get another bite of the apple maybe twice this time. Did you check on your Schwab Platinum or did you have anything going on there? I actually only signed up for a Schwab Platinum card, believe it or not, late last year. I've been
00:19:00
Speaker
I've been with Amex for probably over 10 years, but I never had a Schwab Platinum card. Actually, I opened the card too, because I just wanted to take some of my membership rewards points out, just invest with points as they call it, just pull your membership rewards to your Schwab account at the rate of 1.1 cents each. This is like a 10% uplift, I guess.
00:19:22
Speaker
And I actually opened that Schwab card even without sign-on bonus, because apparently that's really hard to get once you had a bunch of Amex cards. However, it was still at the end of the year, so you get to take advantage of all the annual credits in December and then right away again in January.
00:19:40
Speaker
It goes for the airline incidentals. This goes for the hotel credits. And of course, the very, very valuable Saks Fifth Avenue credits at 50 cents each. Unfortunately, the shipping minimum is now so high that it probably doesn't work. So maybe there's still a way to take advantage of it. But yes, I will try to squeeze out every last penny out of this card since I did not have a sign-on bonus, even if it means going to a Saks store and then maybe splitting the charge across multiple cards or something crazy like that.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, I have a story about that, actually. P2 and I were planning to go up to Sonoma a couple weeks ago to go wine tasting on the way up to Sonoma. We passed through San Francisco. And so we were planning to hit up the sacks down in Union Square and, you know, just use up all of the credits all at once. And it was funny because we were driving up. It was like a Saturday. We drove up, get off at the 4th Street exit right before you hit the Bay Bridge, right off Highway 80. And then we literally turned left to go towards Union Square
00:20:36
Speaker
And we ran into like i don't know it was st patrick's day weekend actually i remember it very clearly now we just got into like gridlock traffic and got stuck in the traffic couldn't even get over to union square actually we had the opportunity to turn in to union square but after one hour of sitting in traffic.
00:20:54
Speaker
you know, seeing what's going on right around Mission and Sixth Street, it's not a pretty sight. And so we just said, screw this, let's get out and let's just continue on. So we, you know, we skipped out on sacks. So I still have those sacks credits lying around. And I actually wonder if I'm even going to use them or if I should just learn my lesson and stop playing the
00:21:17
Speaker
the $50 game with each of these cards and just get out. I don't know. We'll see. I mean, I still have a couple more months if, you know, some of these platinums are going to stick around. So I have a few more months to see if I can get over to a real sax store. I've heard in Las Vegas, you know, they have a sax right on the strip and, you know, I'm going down to LA in a few weeks. So maybe I'll bring all my platinums with me and try to find a sax down in LA. I'm not sure if they actually exist, but I'll have them ready.
00:21:43
Speaker
Maybe we should make that an annual tradition. On St. Patrick's Day, we all meet at the Sachs Fifth Avenue, maybe in San Francisco, and we all use our $50 platinum credits. You're going to get stuck in traffic. It's so bad. All right. Do you want to get into the Simon devaluation? Or at least I wanted to get into it at least.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yes, Simon says you'll pay more. So now we get to sit here and wait for the next promotion to come along so that the new promotion price is going to be the previous normal price. I'm looking forward to this. Are you still using Simon? I have not been very active with Simon lately.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, it seems to be a very niche product now with optimizers like
Challenges with Simon Gift Cards
00:22:23
Speaker
us. And so I had been using Simon in the past, especially with their new updates to the card issuer that they've been using for their stock. But yeah, it's starting to play less and less of a role. So card fees are up to $5.49 per card.
00:22:39
Speaker
up from the original $3.95 fee. Now you're looking at just over 1% card acquisition fee up from 0.8%. If you can get your hands on these cards still, if you can figure out a way to make it work for you, it's great. I actually prefer using Simon Volume. That's the online gift card ordering website.
00:23:01
Speaker
You know, they do have $1,000 denomination cards as long as you can request access to them. And so I do still find limited use in these cards. You need to figure out where they actually work. That's the that's the issue. Simon or maybe it's Sutton. I'm not sure who's doing it. But one of these two entities are killing off the ability to liquidate them. And so I'm having a harder and harder problem getting rid of them once I do acquire them. But they do seem to work better than non Simon Sutton cards.
00:23:31
Speaker
So those cards seem to have this like three swipe limit per visit and so if you're you know if you're bringing around more than three swipes worth of cards then you know you're gonna have to make multiple stops or you know wait a little bit longer at each store before you can get another bite of that apple.
00:23:47
Speaker
And so yeah, I think the key takeaway though is that I've noticed that these bins that Simon is selling, you know, they do share a similar bin as the non Simon Sutton cards. It's just that they have like totally different behavior and where they work. And so that three swipe limit does not exist for those cards. So if you're running into that, that might be useful for you.
00:24:04
Speaker
And then they, you know, they have other features like, you know, you can get higher denomination cards. So that might be useful to you if you're getting weird looks from a cashier saying, you know, I want to use $500 per transaction that usually brings up a red flag for some representatives at these stores. But yeah, I'm hoping that we get back to some of those promotional emails. I kind of miss getting those, you know, VGC free welcome 40 off like these promo codes that used to come every few weeks.
00:24:33
Speaker
for the most part have been ignoring them. And then now all of a sudden I'm like craving salivating for those emails. So that seems to be the, you know, the new Simon updates and it is the overall devaluation. But I know, Christophe, you barely care about these cards. You're more interested in others. Yeah, I used to be. I used to be.
00:24:51
Speaker
Kind of active with Simon, but yes, at least for me, it got harder and harder to use them. And also with family obligations, I just didn't have so much time to essentially hit the road and try out the different ways to use the Simon cards. But I know they were very, very good to hit high spend bonuses on various cards.
00:25:10
Speaker
for example, to get United's status going or other things. So I know that they definitely have their users. It's just that I personally haven't really used them actively for almost a year now. So now that the evaluation coming along, it's a bummer, but it doesn't affect me directly just because I have been using other venues.
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, I want to be more like you Christophe. I want to focus less on on the ground spend and focus a little bit more on stuff I can do at home online. So let's get into some bank bonuses that I've been doing lately. I do have newly minted upgrade rewards checking plus account.
00:25:45
Speaker
The bonus there was a $200 checking bonus for completing a $1000 direct deposit. I did get referred by one of my friends, and so the referrer does get $50. So if you already have an upgrade checking, it's a really easy bonus to even get P2 to do. I'm thinking about getting P2 to do this bonus, but there's a lot of inertia that I have to get over.
00:26:04
Speaker
with getting P2 to do things and I'm not sure if I want to go there. But yeah, $200 bonus. I did try to get this direct deposit to trigger with an app called Wise, but that did not seem to trigger the bonus. So I did go ahead and have a real backup of my W2 direct deposit. So that did seem to work because the bonus posted fairly quickly. So it's easy bonus. If you can get a referral, that would actually sweeten the deal just a little bit more.
00:26:29
Speaker
I will post a referral link just in case anybody's interested in the show notes here. Another bank bonus that I've been looking into was a banner bank bonus. It does have some regional eligibility requirements, but it is a $300 business checking and savings bonus. I applied a few days ago as a sole proprietor just using my social security number. I didn't see any mention of credit card funding in the DOC link, so it doesn't look like there's any credit card funding angle here.
00:26:56
Speaker
So I just went ahead and did a normal bank-to-bank transfer to fund the account. The bonus works out to $200 for a $2,000 deposit for the checking account, $100 for $1,000 savings deposit. So you have to keep that money in there for, I believe, 90 days. And so it seems like it's a pretty easy bonus just to leave some money in there real quick.
00:27:17
Speaker
I did actually have my check systems report frozen. And so when I did throw in my application to Banner Bank, they do have a nice interface where they're able to communicate
Bank Bonus Strategies
00:27:26
Speaker
you kind of like an instant message. It actually looks like AOL instant messenger from 20 years ago, but they're able to just send you a quick note saying, hey, can you unfreeze your checks report? We're unable to process your application. So I went into my checks systems online account and removed the freeze. Pretty simple process to do. So I highly recommend just look into
00:27:43
Speaker
your check systems report and see if you even just create your online profile because then you can actually quickly freeze and unfreeze and you can use that to however you need. But yeah, a quick unfreezing of my check systems report and then like an hour later I get an email saying, okay, your account has been approved and so far so good there. The money should actually post into the account tomorrow and so I think that starts the 90-day window so I'll have to set a reminder for me in the future.
00:28:10
Speaker
So one thing you mentioned checks. So checks is essentially like the credit bureaus like Experian and Equifax and TransUnion, but for bank accounts or sometimes credit unions, right?
00:28:20
Speaker
Correct. They use this to see if you have any adverse action that's happened on a prior bank account. I'm not quite sure how many banks in total use checks. There have been things I've read online where it's like a certain bank account might be check sensitive. If you've opened too many checking accounts with other banks in 12 months, it sounds very much like a credit report thing. It seems like the wild, wild west in terms of is this really important or not?
00:28:47
Speaker
But I think the more tools that you can add to your tool belt, I don't see a downside in doing that. So it's always another tool in your chest to look into. Get another way to make things more complicated. Of course, that's exactly what we love about this game.
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah, it does add another layer of complexity, especially if you forget that your checks systems report is frozen, which I almost did. Or if a bank's even going to check it, because you could apply for a bank account and your checks account is frozen, but you get approved and you never hear back from, hey, your checks is frozen. Yeah, that wraps it up for bank bonuses. Any bank bonuses for you?
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's, so I've seen a couple. One is we did a business checking account bonus from Bank of America. We essentially just moved some of the business checking activity for my website from our previous bank to Bank of America. This was also nice because it combines both signup bonus, which was pretty sizable, I think $1,000 for a minimum deposit of things like $20,000 or so.
00:29:51
Speaker
But you only have to keep it there for a short period of time. But what's more interesting is that you immediately get their gold or platinum status, which is just a fancy way of Bank of America saying they appreciate the relationship and they will increase the credit card rewards that you receive on the business side in that sense. So that was very good and nice bonus.
00:30:13
Speaker
A second thing that we're looking into right now is that Wells Fargo, which we also have a relationship with, seems to have a semi-targeted bonus for also transferring in a substantial amount of assets. But if you have a larger 401k or maybe an IRA sitting around that you can transfer,
00:30:32
Speaker
then that might be an option. So I think the offer that's out there is I think $2,500 for opening a checking account, but more importantly than bringing assets. And so the nice thing is that retirement assets count as well. If you're in the fortunate position of having enough retirement assets even between multiple people, then you can transfer them in and collect a bonus of $2,500, which is not bad at all because the whole thing should be done within something like 45 days.
00:31:01
Speaker
Are you doing this P1 and P2 or just one of the players in your household? Yeah, so I think the way that we'll go about this is that, so technically it's a per person. So it doesn't really work for joint accounts. However, we can transfer like an IRA plus a brokerage account, you know, essentially stuff that lies around and that'll add up to the requirement. And then that should work out only once. I don't think we'll be able to pull it off for both people.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah, that is something that you have to figure out if you can scale a certain bonus, right? If you can use the $250,000 in assets and then get the bonus for the first time and then hopefully that bonus is running around, you know, long term where you're able to complete the bonus for, you know, player one and then kind of
00:31:47
Speaker
move that out of Wells Fargo potentially if there's no requirements to keep it in and then redo the bonus, same exact set of assets but for P2. So that kind of sweetens the deal if you're able to pull that off. Yeah, and that's actually a very interesting thing. So what I used to do pretty actively, this was mostly during the pandemic, is that of course different banks and brokerages, essentially just the larger asset managers, as you would think, like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Fidelity, those guys.
00:32:15
Speaker
They tend to have bonuses for bringing in assets. And so what you can do, depending on the issuer, is if you have a brokerage account, you can move this brokerage account, take advantage of one of these bonuses. And then usually once the bonus posts, you will find that some other asset manager starts a new promotion and you might be able to just move your assets to the next place in the next place.
00:32:40
Speaker
That is a very nice option, especially when you have, for example, a Roth retirement account, because then whatever bonus you receive will actually post in the Roth account. You are not subject to income taxes or other things. This is certainly an option that might apply here as well.
00:32:58
Speaker
If the assets move to Wells Fargo, we get a bonus. Probably not in our retirement account, unfortunately. But it's still a nice bonus. We'll take it. And then once the requirements are met, we can see how things are at Wells Fargo or if there's maybe another nice bonus around. And then we may consider that one as well.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah, maybe there's like a Robin Hood or something, you know, one of these crazy brokerage offers that come around. I mean, it's so intriguing to me, but I'm just in the middle of purchasing a house right now. And so it's really hard for me at least, you know, I have to put all that off to the side and not focus on that. You know, really for us, our focus is laser right on getting, you know, our mortgage set up. Hopefully, you know, in the future, we'll be able to participate a little bit more in this area.
00:33:43
Speaker
Yeah, by the way, because you mentioned this, I know that various banks, including Wells Fargo, because I was talking about them, but also others like Citibank or like all the majors essentially tend to have promotional pricing on mortgage rates. So if for whatever reason you end up getting really the same mortgage pricing from all the lenders that you check,
00:34:05
Speaker
Some of them may allow you to bring in assets and bringing in assets means hey if you have a down payment for a house That sometimes counts as well I know we had that chance a few years back where we also we essentially brought our down payment plus some IRS Into Wells Fargo actually and then our mortgage rate was discounted by you know a little bit of
00:34:26
Speaker
It was well worth it. So that was nice. So maybe this offer is still around. Certainly something that's worth asking for. But of course, only after everybody has agreed on the lowest rate. So then maybe it can be lowered some further.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah, and then there's always that possibility of, it's great to get the initial interest rate reduction on your mortgage if you go through a preferred channel. We're looking at mortgage rates right now and they're in the sevens and that's pretty high. I get it because interest rates are also so high if you were to store money in a bank. That all makes sense to me, but I think at the end of the day, it's really important to just get into the house. Then interest rates change over time and then you can always refinance
00:35:10
Speaker
So it is good, but also keep in mind that refinancing in the future is always an option so long as things get better. If things get worse, then you've already locked yourself in, so to speak.
00:35:21
Speaker
It was interesting to think back because when we bought a house, I was wholly unprepared for it. And I know there's many stories about people not signing up for credit cards because you want to get a mortgage and so on.
Credit Cards & Mortgage Planning
00:35:36
Speaker
And while this is true for cases where your credit score is just above a certain threshold that may get you a better rate,
00:35:43
Speaker
then yes signing up for a credit card might be a bad idea because it means that you'll pay more for your mortgage and that of course is going to be way more expensive than anything you earn from a quick credit card bonus but on the other hand if your credit score is high enough and this is exactly what happened to me back then actually I signed up for
00:36:03
Speaker
I think four different credit cards. And two weeks later, we decided, oh, yeah, you know, maybe it's time to apply for a mortgage. And the whole process was, of course, hilarious because the first thing that you get asked by the underwriters, so you just sign up for four credit cards. Why did you do this?
00:36:20
Speaker
And the response was, well, you know, it's a nice bonus and they took it and it's fine. So it's not a problem as long as you can show that, hey, you don't build up additional credit card debt there, so they'll ask you for statements. Yes, your credit score might be a little bit lower because, yes, you have new accounts and hotbulbs on your account.
00:36:38
Speaker
But on the other hand, it's not the end of the world if the credit score was high enough to begin with. And so we still got the mortgage. Yeah, we had to answer to some raised eyebrow questions. But overall, it's still doable. Anyways, it's really a story for another time. Yeah, I mean, I'm going through that same thing right now where
00:36:56
Speaker
The pre-approval process to get a proof for the mortgage is like, hey, can you explain everything? And I'm like, I don't really want to explain everything. It's actually really complicated, my financial life. And so, you know, it's just something that I'm going through right now. 100% understand what you're talking about and also not looking forward to the additional scrutiny that the underwriters are going to present me in the coming months.
00:37:18
Speaker
I think that also says something about shopping around for a mortgage. I know this is not the real topic of the show, but just tangentially now. If you don't like what one underwriting bank is asking you, as long as you're shopping around, the point at the end of the day is to secure one mortgage that you're happy with, right? So you can always shop around just like you shop around with banks. And so I think that's just one key takeaway that I'm kind of learning is like, hey, this is my first time buying a house. I'm going to have to shop around and see who's going to actually give me the loan that I need.
00:37:46
Speaker
So yeah, you know, fun process. We'll see how things go in the future. Yeah, I mean, one thing that's interesting, I mean, you already do this intuitively, right? You actually go and you shop around options. I guess people who like credit cards, they're already, let's say, a little bit more comfortable talking to different banks and just giving it a shot. And if one bank doesn't like you, so what? You just go to the next bank. Sometimes every three months, the bank's opinion changes as well.
00:38:11
Speaker
And the same in reality is true as well when it comes to mortgages, where just depending on what the current tactical or business stance of the bank is, they might be willing to lend more or less or have more or less requirements. And so if you apply for a mortgage with one bank and it's not working out, or just the rate that you're getting is not very exciting, so what? Shop around. And the large banks, yes, they're there and they lend.
00:38:36
Speaker
But sometimes even local credit unions tend to be very aggressive too in the lending ways. And aggressive in lending usually means they tend to have or offer better rates. But yeah, again, it depends on the market. So, you know, it's not like there's a clear cut way of saying like, you know, big banks or credit unions are better. It really depends on the situation, the market, and the market can change sometimes from one week to the other. So shopping around and being comfortable to just talking to multiple lenders is certainly going to pay off.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like a jungle right now.
Using Points for Family Travel & Events
00:39:07
Speaker
Do we want to get into some travel news? Looks like you have some family peak time travel with Alaska. Care to share?
00:39:14
Speaker
Oh, yes. So we were trying to, well, let's say we were trying to practice traveling with the whole family, right? So kids and in-laws and everyone. So that means there's going to be a few people on the plane. And we were actually looking to travel because we have essentially a fixed set of dates on Memorial Day, meaning flying out on Friday and then coming back on a Monday. That, of course, is peak travel. Everyone is traveling. The airlines know that everyone is traveling. And so pricing is insane.
00:39:42
Speaker
You can book with points, but even when you book with points, the amount of value that you get out of this is very limited. Yes, it was an interesting experience because Alaska offers, of course, these companion certificates, which allow you to practically pay for one person and then just a little surcharge of around $100 for a companion. And that usually is not worth it when everything is cheap, but it can be worth it when the flights are very expensive. Can I?
00:40:09
Speaker
Could I say something about those companions? Sorry to interrupt, but could I say something about those companion certs? I don't know. In my head, companion certificate means companion is free. I think I've been brainwashed by Southwest Companion Pass, where it really is just the taxes and fees that you're adding on to that second person. But with Alaska, they're saying companion cert.
00:40:30
Speaker
Here's the companion added on and it's like an additional $100 plus the taxes and fees. And to me, I'm like, what if the what if the fare was like $79? Like, are you really adding any value there by using the companion search? So I just find it funny that Alaska calls it like the famous companion fare.
00:40:49
Speaker
And it just annoys me because it's like a lot of times- The world famous Alaska companion favorite, please. It's not even regionally famous. It's world famous. People in Xinjiang, China are going to be like, oh yeah, I know about that Alaska companion search. I always wanted to fly to Alaska. Right. It's just funny that they market it that way. I mean, it's probably marketing genius because it gets into my head. It lives rent free over here. But sorry, continue on. I just wanted to mention that.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yes, I can actually stretch out that rant to other airlines as well. Even American Airlines and Delta and others have companion fares and they all essentially require at least 100 or 150 bucks and then of course a full priced fare as well for the first user in order to use the companion fare. So yes, there's all kinds of caveats related to companion fares.
00:41:40
Speaker
but it just happens to work out in the case of Alaska for us saying hey if we really have to fly on these peak travel dates and of course we want direct flights and no connections so that you know the minimum amount of things can go wrong then we're really stuck with essentially just a high price.
00:41:58
Speaker
The market we're flying into is just really served from our location with either United or Alaska. So it's good that there is at least some competition, but even that competition doesn't mean a lot because both United and Alaska will charge you an arm and a leg for the flight. And so this is where the companion fares can come in and save you a chunk of money.
00:42:17
Speaker
It's even quote-unquote cheaper than booking with Miles, but the only reason for this is that even the prices in points at Miles are insane. So that just happens to work out for us with companion fares to, well, save a little bit, but it's still gonna be quite expensive. So the flights of course cost way more than the hotel and other things that are booked with points. But yeah, we'll make it happen and hopefully it's gonna be a nice family trip.
00:42:45
Speaker
So maybe not very points-focused detail when it comes to travel, but the companion certificates can be useful, especially when you're traveling during peak times.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I'm also traveling that same weekend. We have a wedding in Orange County and so we're flying down from San Jose and so currently we're booked on Southwest flying into John Wayne and so I am noticing, you know, luckily I did book really early when the Southwest window for that time period opened and we just said we know we're going to a wedding
00:43:18
Speaker
in May, schedule just opened. So let's go ahead and book those things now. But I've seen, you know, I'm booking my mom on a similar flight, but just from Oakland on Southwest. And I've seen those fares go up two and a half X. And so there was a part of me that was like, should we just drive? You know, like the drive isn't too bad to get down to Orange County. But luckily, you know, I was able to find, I guess, the cheapest Oakland to John Wayne a couple of days ago. And I got my mom on that flight.
00:43:44
Speaker
It's funny because the rest of my family that's flying out of Oakland is also on that flight, so it's really nice. They can travel together while me and my wife were going to fly to San Jose. But yeah, the prices for this weekend are just off the charts. But luckily, we got in at an early enough time. We are staying for a wedding.
00:44:02
Speaker
at the residence inn in San Juan, Capistrano. My cousin who's getting married, she has a room block. The prices for her room block are about 60% cheaper than the advertised rate. That said, we have been building our stash of Marriott points, and so we made the decision, instead of booking at the room block rate, we're going to go ahead and
00:44:21
Speaker
Just use our points for this, you know, we're kind of building them faster than we can spend them. And so I think it was just, you know, an obvious time to just get some of these points off the books and not add to our actual cash outlay for going to this wedding in May. So you staying there in Orange County on merit points. And now, of course, I have to ask the question, are you paying for the wedding banquet with your 10x referral?
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah, I need to actually talk to my cousin about that. I'm going to be like, hey, so can we pay for part of your wedding? Let me check what they code as first and then we'll talk a little bit more. When I was joking about this, I did not see this coming. Yeah, right. Like now we're trying to figure out who is getting married within our family and how can we pay for their wedding? Quickly get married now while the referrals still last. By the way, do we want to sign up on MX card?
00:45:13
Speaker
Hey, I have a referral. I'll pay you to use my referral. So yeah, we're excited to get away for a few days. It's been over a month since we've taken any vacay. Actually, it's been two months since our honeymoon. And so we're kind of like dying to get out for at least a weekend. You know, we like to do a weekend trip probably once a month. And so two months has seemed really long for us. So, you know, we're looking forward to spring turning into summer and, you know, brighter days, longer days, have some fun in the sun during Memorial Day weekend.
00:45:41
Speaker
All right. I mean, that wraps up our travels. Do you have anything else that you want to get into? No, not for now. You know, I do have some trips coming up in the later part of the year. You know, I'm sure a lot more gardening and things have to happen with those that I'm not ready to talk about it yet. So I'm good for now. Sounds good. Let's wrap it up then. All right. Thanks, everybody, for listening to The Points Project with your hosts, Christoph and Raymond. Have a good one, everybody. See you next time.