The $75 sign up bonus from Chase has one of the lowest amount of spending requirements we’ve seen in awhile.

How to Get Your $75 Statement Credit

1. Apply for the Chase Slate card.
2. Use the card to spend $300 within 3 months.
3. After 6-8 weeks, you’ll see a $75 statement credit on your account!

Chase Terms and Conditions

• No annual fee.
• One-time bonus offer & valid only for first-time cardmembers with new accounts.
• Previous and existing cardmembers/accounts are not eligible.

More on Chase

0% Intro APR. For those with good credit, Chase is offering a 0% intro APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers. For those with average credit, there is 6-month 0% intro APR offer. However, remember the balance transfer offer has a 3% fee.

Chase Blueprint. The Slate card offers Chase Blueprint, a unique set of features that can help you avoid interest, pay off balances faster and see spending trends at a glance.

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To help you accomplish your purchase planning this year, here is the Discover More cash back calendar for 2012.

2012 Discover More Rewards Calendar

After reviewing the Discover rewards calendar, there’s one thing I just can’t figure out. Why are they giving 5% cash back on movies every quarter? Anyone have any ideas?

More on Discover More Calendar

Cash Back Limits. The 5% cash back is for spending up to $1,500 each quarter in the bonus categories during the first two quarters. Discover hasn’t announced the cash back limits for 3rd and 4th quarter yet.

Activation. Don’t foreget you’ll need to enroll each quarter to get the cash back. Even though the Discover More 2012 calendar is available in advance, you have to wait to enroll each quarter.

How to activate. To enroll, you’ll need to login to your account online. From there, you’ll find the link to activate your quarterly bonus category.

Other Calendards

To see the other calendars for 2012 to compare, see the 2012 Chase Freedom Rewards Calendar.

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You’ll get 30,000 Delta miles with the American Express card.

How to Get Your 30,000 Mile Sign-Up Bonus

1. Apply for the American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles card.
2. Spend $500 within 3 months of opening the account.
3. Get 30,000 bonus miles – good for a free flight!

American Express Terms and Conditions

• $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95.
• Receive double miles on Delta purchases 1 mile for all other eligible dollars spent.
• Start redeeming with as few as 10,000 miles for $100 off a Delta ticket, with no blackout dates or seat restrictions.

More on Delta’s American Express Card

Delta Perks. Check your first bag for free on every Delta flight & receive Zone 2 priority boarding on Delta flights. Plus, receive 20% In-Flight Savings on food and entertainment. Also, you receive a $99 Companion Certificate annually.

More Card Options for Delta Flyers. The American Express Platinum Delta SkyMiles Card offers 20,000 bonus miles with your first purchase (5,000 of which are Medallion Qualification Miles) & the Delta Reserve card offers 10,000 Medallion Qualification Miles (MQM) after your first purchase. However, both of these cards come with a higher annual fee.

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For example, what if you know you want to make a big purchase (a big home improvement purchase, airline tickets, a large electronics purchase…), but you have some flexibility in when you want to purchase it. If you knew the purchase category would be on the list for a future quarter, you might want to hold off on your purchase until you can get 5% cash back.

To help you accomplish your purchase planning for the year, here is the Chase Freedom cash back calendar for 2012.

2012 Chase Freedom Rewards Calendar

More on Chase Freedom Calendar

Cash Back Limits. The 5% cash back is for spending up to $1,500 each quarter in the bonus categories.

Activation. Even though the Chase Freedom 2012 calendar is available in advance, you have to wait to enroll each quarter. Enrollment for each bonus category starts on the 15th of the month prior to the new quarter. For example, for 2nd quarter, you can sign up for the 5% cash back beginning on March 15.

How to activate. To enroll, you’ll need to login to your account online. From there, you’ll find the link to activate your quarterly bonus category.

Other calendars. Stay tuned, and we’ll put together calendars for other 5% cash back programs to help you plan out your purchases this year. In addition, I’ll still remind you each quarter to switch out your cards and we’ll review all of the cards at once.

Action Plan

Using the cash back rewards calendars should help those of you with a spendy spouse. For example, if my husband comes up with a new electronic gadget he really wants… I can remind him he’ll have to wait until 4th quarter to make the purchase so we can get 5% cash back. Of course, delaying the purchase that long might actually help avoid the purchase altogether, which will save even more money!

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The $200 from Citi is one of the offers we gave you a sneak peak into last week… did you catch it?

How to Get Your $200 Sign Up Bonus

1. Sign up for the Citi Dividend Mastercard.
2. Spend $500 within 3 months of opening your account.
3. Earn $200 cash back!

Citi Terms and Conditions

• No annual fee.
• $200 cash back & cash back earned on purchases through the Citi Bonus Cash Center are not subject to an annual maximum.
• You have to enroll for the quarterly 5% cash back but it only takes one click & in my experience, Citi has always sent me reminder e-mails about it.

More on Citi Dividend

Rotating Categories. Citi offers 1% cash back on all purchases plus 5% cash back on rotating categories on a quarterly basis. Jan-March 2012 is fitness, health care & utilities – that seemed a good reason for me to pay some of my utilities a few months in advance this month!

Cash Back Maximum. You can earn up to $300 per calendar year from purchases but you can get unlimited cash back at leading retailers through the Citi Bonus Cash Center and that does not apply to the $300 max.

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Joe, who is 37 years old and married, says:

I’ve used zero-fee, zero percent balance transfer offers to pay off my last home and current home mortgage. In a nutshell, I took out roughly 40K in balance transfers (I knew I could cash flow these and pay them off before they came due) between 2 credit cards and applied that money towards my mortgage.

I was hooked, and couldn’t wait to hear more from Joe about it. He loves telling this story, so he was happy to share the details with us (thanks Joe!).

How to Payoff Your Mortgage with a Credit Card

Joe used the strategy twice. Here’s more on how Joe did it the most recent time with his current house:

• Joe took out 2 no fee balance transfers, similar to the Discover More and Chase Slate offers right now.
• He paid off $38,598 of his 6% mortgage with the 2 credit cards (he used a Countrywide card and a Commerce card at the time), leaving $62,000 on his mortgage.
• He then made payments to the credit cards, and because there was no longer interest on the balances, every payment went 100% to the principal.
• He paid off the balances when the 0% rate expired.

Using a mortgage calculator, Joe determined that he saved over $20,000 in interest (at 6% over 15 years).

By using this strategy he was very focused on paying off the debt. Joe adds:

I think it helps you reach your goal quicker (paying off the mortgage) by giving you a set amount that needs to be paid off in a set amount of time…. If you don’t pay the credit cards off by the ‘deadline’, you’ll owe a large amount of interest.

Mortgage Payoff Tips

Extracting the money. When Joe used this strategy, he actually paid off his Countrywide mortgage with a Countrywide credit card (nice one Joe!). Since most credit cards prohibit paying off a loan at the same company, you can use the ways to extract money from balance transfers for ideas.

What about taxes? For those who want to argue with Joe about giving up his mortgage interest deduction, don’t worry he did the math for his situation. Joe found that when he carried his mortgage, he was only able to itemize about $14,000 per year, or $2,600 above the standard deduction in 2010, which meant he would save only $650 in taxes in 2010, much less than the amount of interest he was paying.

Remaining balance. Since Joe was able to eliminate a large portion of the mortgage balance with this strategy, he was also able to payoff the remainder much faster; more money was going to principal instead of interest with each remaining payment.

Available cards. If you are considering something similar, you can use the Discover More card at 0% and the Chase Slate card at 0% to replicate Joe’s strategy.

More on Joe

Obviously, Joe has a lot of disciple when it comes to money. Here’s more on his background, spending habits, and credit card use now that he is debt free:

I don’t play credit cards much more or try to use 0% deals to my advantage. My identity was stolen in 2010, so I’ve tried to cut back on doing credit card deals. I did that Sapphire deal under my wife’s name…. We use two credit cards currently for rewards, and that’s it. Pay them off each month. We don’t buy anything, unless we can afford it, including our 2010 Altima we paid cash for (salvage title, but it was a steal and no body damage). My goal is to pay cash (or put on credit card and pay off every month) for everything from here on out – no more loans, whether it be a home, car or any other big ticket item.

Final Thoughts

Joe shares his final thoughts:

You should not employ this strategy unless you can guarantee you can pay off the balance transfers before the interest starts up (either by free cash flow every month or by investments you could liquidate if you got into a bind, like losing your job). If you cannot guarantee that, it likely is not worth the risk.

Thanks Joe, for sharing your story! It’s such a great one and I hope it inspires readers to think outside the box when it comes to personal finance!

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Mark is planning to use the balance transfer for arbitrage (he’s considering purchasing CDs or investing in a stable bond fund) but wanted to know how to extract money from the card in order to do this?

I thought it would be helpful for other readers who are planning to do something similar after reading about the Discover More 12 Month 0% No Fee Balance Transfer.

4 Ways to Extract Money From Balance Transfers

Use a line of credit. An easy way to make a balance transfer is to transfer the money to a line of credit. I use a heloc, but a personal line of credit would work too. Then, once the money hits, just write a check from your line of credit to your bank account, or wherever your final destination for the money is.

Deposit the money to your checking account. Many of the credit cards are more than willing to deposit the balance transfer money directly into your checking account. Often times when I call, they suggest this before I can even ask if it’s an option. It doesn’t get any easier than this!

Create a negative balance on another card. This is the method that I was discussing with Mark. Here is an example of how it works: Let’s say you have a Citicard with a $0 balance. Now you get the new Discover card (it also comes with $0 balance). You call Discover and ask for a balance transfer (let’s say $10,000). You ask Discover to transfer the $10k to your Citicard. Now you have a Discover card with a $10k balance and a Citicard with a negative $10k balance. You call (or go online) to Citibank and request a refund of your negative balance. They send a check. I’ve done this sucessfully with Citibank, but others have also suggested using American Express for this strategy.

Make an actual balance transfer. This one is pretty obvious, but I thought I’d include it on the list anyways. If you have another credit card account, loan, or other debt, you can directly transfer the balance to the new card to get the 0%. I often make a direct transfer when the timing lines up perfectly for an old 0% card expiring and a new one starting.

Balance Transfer Tips

Adverse Action. Obviously, some of these strategies aren’t going to win you any bonus points with the credit card companies (like requesting checks for negative balances). I’ve never had any companies take any adverse action for requesting checks for negative balances… however, I would caution you not to get too greedy and overuse this strategy. I usually rotate between the various strategies to keep the credit card companies happy.

It’s Extreme. Floating 0% balance transfers on credit cards isn’t exactly routine personal finance. I always like to throw that out there, just to remind readers I’m a little extreme when it comes to credit card arbitrage. But as always, it is not for everyone!

Available Cards. In addition to the Discover More card at 0%, you can also use the Chase Slate card at 0% to take advantage of the no fee 0% balance transfers right now.

More on Credit Card Arbitrage Balance Transfers

• What is Credit Card Arbitrage?
• Credit Card Arbitrage Q&A
• My Evolving Credit Card Arbitrage Strategies

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As many of you know, leveraging no fee 0% balance transfers are one of my favorite types of free money!

How to Get 0% Balance Transfer with No Fee

• Open a new Discover More card.
• Make a balance transfer by July 10, 2012.
• Get a 0% balance transfer with no fees for 12 months.

Discover Terms and Conditions

• No Annual Fee
• Balance transfers after 7/10/2012 will have $10 or 5% balance transfer fee, whichever is greater.
• The minimum payment due calculation increases by $40 when you have a balance transfer balance.

More on Discover More

Timing the offer. The 0% for 12 months doesn’t actually start until you make your transfer. So if you have a 0% that expires later in the spring (many of mine expire around April, since that is when we bought our vacation rental last year), you can apply for the card now, but then wait to start the 0% balance transfer to maximize the timing of both the old and new 0%.

0% balance transfers. As a reminder, I don’t use 0% balance transfers to carry balances for regular purchases. Instead I use them for leverage and credit card arbitrage. Currently we’re floating quite a bit (about $228,000 right now) primarliy to lower rates on our real estate investments. I always get excited when I see 0% balance transfers with no fees as it is ultimately the cheapest way to finance those investments. Nope, definitely not for everyone!

If you have debt. If you do have credit card debt that you are trying to pay off as part of your new years resolutions, you can transfer it to the Discover More to save you money on the interest. Just be sure you have a plan to pay it off before the end of the 12 months.

Cash back. This card also qualifies for the rotating 5% cash back. However, if you’re planning to use the card to take advantage of the no fee balance transfer, I suggest you don’t put purchases on it at the same time. I keep all of our purchase cards separate from our balance transfer cards to make sure I don’t jeopardize the 0%.

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You know how it works: switch out the the 2011 4th Quarter 5% Rewards and maximize your cash rewards for 1st quarter 2012 to make sure you have the right cards, you are signed up for the 5% promotions, and you know where to use them.

1st Quarter 2012 5% Cash Rewards Credit Cards

Chase Freedom. The Chase Freedom card is bringing back gas this quarter! Another one I’m really excited to see on the list is Amazon.com! Too bad they didn’t add it for the holiday season last quarter, but it’s still a great Chase Freedom 2012 reward. The 1st quarter 2012 Chase Freedom 5% categories are:

• Gas Stations
• Amazon.com

See the entire 2012 Chase Freedom Rewards Calendar.

Discover More. The Discover 5% cash back is also bringing back gas for 1st quarter 2012. In addition they are adding entertainment to the list. The 1st quarter 2012 Discover More 5% categories are:

• Gas Stations
• Museums
• Movies

See the entire 2012 Discover More Rewards Calendar.

Citi Dividend. It looks like Citi is making the most of a popular New Years resolution: fitness. If you can prepay your fitness club membership for the year, it’s going to make sense using the Citi card this quarter! The 1st quarter 2012 Citi Dividend 5% categories are:

• Fitness Clubs
• Health Care
• Utilities

No Sign Up Needed

And as always, here are the easier cash back categories, since you don’t need to sign up:

Grocery Stores. My favorite card is still the American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card which gives 6% cash back on groceries.

Gas Purchases. The Pen Fed Platinum VISA gives 5% cash back for pay at the pump gas purchases. If you aren’t into switching around your quarterly cards above, you can keep this one in your wallet all the time.

Restaurants. I’m on the hunt for a new card for restaurant purchases. The Citi Forward caught my eye. They offer 5 ThankYou Points for every $1.

Target Purchases. Target purchases will keep going on the Target 5% discount credit card.

Wireless and Office Supplies. Wireless and office supplies get charged on the American Express SimplyCash Business card to get 5% on both of those categories.

Costco. We’re doing a new twist at Costco. After showing our TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express as our membership card, we put our purchases on the Fidelity Credit Card for 2% cash back.

Everything Else. All other purchases are now going to gift cards purchased on our American Expess. If you aren’t into the gift cards, you can put the rest of the charges on the Sallie Mae Card for 2% cash back.

How to Get Your 5% Cash Back

As a reminder, here’s my checklist for rotating cash back programs:

1. Sign up for all of the new quarterly cash back programs, even if you don’t know if you’ll use that card. To sign up, just log in to your account online and select the 1st quarter 2012 5% cash back information. In order to earn the 5%, you have to enroll in each program quarterly.
2. Write which categories to use each card for using a marker on the front of the card. It works really well to keep the cards straight!
3. Add your cards you’ll be using this quarter to your Envaulted account.

Sign Up Bonus Offers

If you don’t have the 5% cash rewards cards I’m using, here are the ones currently offering sign up bonus offers:

• Chase Freedom $200 Sign Up Bonus
• Citi $100 Sign Up Bonus
• American Express Blue Cash $150 Sign Up Bonus

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It’s our last Free Money Friday celebration of the year!

Citi is offering a $300 gift card bonus for the Citi Thank You Premier Card.

How to Get Your $300 Sign Up Bonus

1. Sign up for the Citi Thank You Premier Card.
2. Spend $2,000 in the first 3 months.
3. Receive 30,000 bonus points.
4. Redeem for:
   • Gift Cards: redeem 30,000 points for $300 in gift cards at thankyou.com or call 1-800-THANKYOU (1-800-842-6596).

Citi Terms and Conditions

• The Citi Thank You Premier Card annual fee is $125.
• Earn 1.2 ThankYou Points per $1 spent when you use your card at gas stations, supermarkets, drugstores, commuter transportation and parking merchants.
• Earn 1 ThankYou Point for every $1 you spend on all other purchases.
• No points cap or expiration.
• Annual complimentary domestic companion ticket.

More on Citi Thank You

More Points. You can earn additional bonus points for new enrollments: Earn 200 points each when you sign up for account online and paperless statements.

No Foreign Transaction Fees. The Citi Thank You Premier Card features no foreign transaction fees, a favorite credit card feature readers always ask me about.

Redeeming for cash. You can redeem your points for cash too, the conversion ratio is $50 for every 8,000 points. With Citi, your bonus will go further if you redeem for gift cards or travel.

For more details on earning and redeeming points, see our Citi Thank You Premier Card Review.

Update: Citi changed the sign up bonus to $300; we have updated the requirements above.

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Mastercard is offering $20 prepaid gift cards for online shopping this holiday season via their “Here’s To Moms” promotion.

How to Get Your $20 Mastercard Gift Card

1. Enroll your Mastercard at Mastercard Holiday.
2. Use your Mastercard card for $200 in online purchases by December 31, 2011.
3. Get a link to the redemption form via email 1 week after your purchase.
4. Complete redemption form with your address; gift cards will be mailed to the first 80,000.
5. Get a prepaid Mastercard gift card in 1-2 weeks.

Mastercard Terms and Conditions

• Limit 1 Registration per person, per email address, &/or per Card account number during the Offer Period.
• You may only register 1 Card for the duration of the Offer Period.
• Purchases only qualify for Gift receipt after you register, and will not be retroactively tracked to the start of Offer Period.

More on Mastercard Holiday Offer

This offer isn’t as straight forward as the others we’re seeing, so here’s more detail on how it works.

About the 80,000. The 80,000 isn’t for the first people enrolled in the offer. Instead it’s for the first 80,000 who enroll, make the purchases, and fill out the redemption form. If you don’t get one of the $20 gift cards, they’re giving the next 10,000 people a 1 year magazine subscription.

Your $200 purchase. The $200 purchase doesn’t need to be one transaction, it can be multiple transactions. However, since we’re racing against eveyone else to get access to the redemption form, I’m thinking a $200 Amazon purchase will take of this requirement immediately.

Stack the offer. You should be able to stack this offer with the Citi Diamond $200 Credit for Online Shopping. I can’t see any reason why the online purchases won’t count for both promotions.

Which cards are Mastercards? I don’t keep track of which cards are Mastercard vs. Visa in my head (do you?) Here’s a quick cheat sheet of some of the Mastercards we talked about recently, so you’ll probably have some of these handy to use to enroll in the offer:

• Chase Freedom with $200 Cash Back
• Citi Dividend with $200 Cash Back
• Citi Thank You with $500 Gift Cards
• Chase Sapphire with 50,000 Bonus Points

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Enjoy the $200 from Citi as we continue our month long back-to-back Free Money offers.

How to Get Your $200 Statement Credit

1. Sign up for the Citi Diamond Preferred card.
2. Earn a $200 statement credit after you make $500 online purchases in your first 3 months. (Anybody thinking Amazon?!)

Citi Terms and Conditions

• No annual fee.
• After 0% intro APR, APR will be 11.99%-21.99% based upon your creditworthiness.

More on Citi Diamond Preferred

0% Intro APR. Citi is offering a 0% Intro APR on Balance Transfers and Purchases for 18 months. That’s great news for those of you trying to get back in the credit card arbitrage game!

Special Access. The Citi Diamond Preferred card offers special access for cardmembers to purchase presale tickets, preferred seating, VIP packages, and other unforgettable live entertainment experiences through Citi Private Pass.

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You should have seen the look on the cashier’s face just a few days earlier when she reported how much free gas we had earned!

I think it’s been a few years since I had a credit card that I was so in love with, but the ability to stack it with other promotions is quickly making it my favorite credit card this year!

Gas Rewards

Our grocery store participates in the fuelperks program. I’m guessing you probably know how it works if your grocery store has a gas rewards program since they are pretty popular. Essentially, we earn 5 cents off a gallon of gas for every $50 in purchases.

We spent $3750 at the grocery store last month and earned $3.75 off per gallon. At 20 gallons of gas, we got $75 in free gas!

Now we all know that I didn’t spend that much on groceries last month. It was more like $250 on groceries and $3500 in Visa gift cards.

I thought for sure that the grocery store wouldn’t allow you to earn gas rewards on gift card purchases, and I think it states that it specifically excludes them, but the registers are programmed such that you earn them!

Doing the Math

Here’s the breakdown on the total cash back earned stacking all the rewards:

• Purchases: $3500 in Visa gift cards
• Fees: $41.65
• Gas Rewards: $70
• Envaulted Cash Back: $43.75
• 6% American Express Cash Back: $212.50

Effective Cash Back: 8.13%

Stacking the Blue Cash Preferred Card with gas rewards and Envaulted almost doubled the amount of cash back I originally planned on earning when I got the card.

Purchasing Gift Cards

For more information on buying gift cards with the American Express card, you can read the introduction on the American Express 6% Cash Back Credit Card.

We’re using the gift cards to pay real estate taxes, but if you don’t have a need for the gift cards, you can find out how to Empty Your 6% Cash Back via ATM and Cash Advance.

Other Gas Perks

In addition to fuelperks which serves Roundy’s, Bi-Lo, Martins, and Winn-Dixie, one of our experts on the American Express Blue cash back, reader Barbara checked into the gas rewards program at Safeway:

• Safeway is giving 4X the number of points on gift card purchases until December 10.
• Safeway does NOT give gas rewards for the Visa Prepaid cards.
• Each 1000 points equals $1 off per gallon of gas at Safeway gas stations.
• There is a limit of $1/gal off at each fill-up.

And another reader LOTRGandalf checked out Shop n Save:

• A purchase of 2 $500 gift cards earned 2 $5 off fuel card coupons (for when you buy $100 or more in fuel gift cards).

When we head south for the holidays, I’ll also check into the Kroger gas program and see if that one is working.

Homework Assignment

Do you have the Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express? If so, I think it’s time for you to visit your gas station and find out if gas rewards are stacking for you! Let us know and we’ll add your store to the list!

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Barbara first came up with the idea to cash out the gift cards for actual cash instead of using the cards for spending in our American Express 6% Cash Back Q & A.

After they reported back on their test runs at the bank, I’m more than excited at the potential this card has!

Cashing Out at the ATM

Kelly was originally working on using the gift cards for large payments but couldn’t resist the challenge of cashing out the gift cards at the ATM. Here’s a summary of Kelly’s adventures:

• Kelly bought a $500 PayPower brand gift card with her Amex Blue Cash Preferred at the grocery store (Safeway) to earn 6% cash back.
• She activated the gift card and established a PIN number.
• She cashed out the gift card at an ATM, paying a $3 ATM fee and $1.95 to PayPower.

Her comments:

In my learning process I ended up making two withdrawals and paying the fees twice. Keep in mind that even though you loaded the card with a value of $500 you’ll probably only be able to withdraw $480 at the ATM because most ATM’s only allow you to withdraw in multiples of $20 and because there has to be enough money on the card to cover both the ATM’s fee and PayPower’s ATM withdrawal fee….
Also, with the PayPower cards they require you to provide your Social Security number to them and from what I’ve read looks like you’re only allowed one PayPower card per person. That’s the other reason I think I’d have trouble repeating this, if I tried to buy another PayPower card I think I’d have trouble with PayPower’s verification process.

I promised Kelly that next time I’m at the grocery store I’ll check to see which brand of gift cards allow ATM withdrawals in our area so we can help Kelly expand beyond the PayPower cards. If anyone else has names of other gift cards that allow ATM withdrawals let me know and we can start a list.

Cashing Out with a Cash Advance

And I’m really excited to report that Barbara is back from her mission and has another way to empty the gift cards: cash advance. Here’s a summary of Barabara’s adventures:

• Barbara bought a $500 Visa prepaid card with her Amex Blue Cash Preferred at the grocery store to earn 6% cash back.
• She paid a $3.95 activation fee.
• She took the card to the bank and asked for a $498 cash advance. She kept $2 on the card to cover the cash advance fee.

Her comments:

In less than five minutes, I had $498 deposited to my account. Then I came home and checked the account online and for whatever reason, Visa did not charge me $2 so I have $2 remaining on the card. Glad I did not cut it up.

I’m glad you didn’t cut it up either! We found the easiest way to empty out small amounts left on various cards was to just add them to our Amazon account for the holidays.

Let’s Do the Math

We covered the basics of the American Express 6% Cash Back Credit Card when buying gift cards for the purposes of spending. Now let’s take a look at the math for cashing out the gift cards instead:

• Earn 6% cash back on the gift card purchase at the grocery store.
• Pay a $3.95 activation fee, and possible $2 cash advance fee.
• Earn $30.24 in cash back, less $5.95 in fees.
• Pure profit for each card: $24.29
• Multiply and repeat: ???

Wow. I’m only imagining at this point, but using just a portion of a $15,000 credit limit (saving some for actual groceries and other purchases), you could buy 20 cards a month for an extra $485 per month in free money….

And this is before we even talk about the gas rewards!

Blue Cash $150 Sign Up Bonus

This card just keeps getting better. American Express increased the sign up bonus for the American Express Blue Cash Preferred card to $150. Just spend $1,000 in the first 3 months… which shouldn’t be too hard now that we can cash out the gift cards!

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The Southwest offer is for $500 in gift cards or two free roundtrip flights.

How to Get Your Sign Up Bonus

1. Apply for the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Card.
2. Make a single purchase.
3. Get 50,000 Bonus Points, redeemable for over $800 in Southwest Wanna Get Away fares or $500 in gift cards!

Terms and Conditions

• $69 Annual Fee.
• Fare availability dependent on destination, time, and day of travel, which are subject to change.
• Travel is subject to the government-imposed September 11th Security Fee of up to $10 per roundtrip.

More on Southwest

More Points. You’ll earn 2 points per $1 spent on Southwest tickets and Rapid Rewards Hotel & Car partners, plus an additional 3,000 points ($50 in Wanna Get Away fares) every year on your Cardmember anniversary.

Travel Benefits. Southwest offers no change fees, no blackout dates, no points expiration, unlimited reward seats and your first and 2nd bags checked for free!

Gift Cards. If you’d rather redeem your points for gift cards (holiday shopping, maybe!), some merchants include: Amazon.com, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wal-mart.

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