Buying Visa Gift Cards?

Let’s look back at what your last couple weeks may have been like. The first assumption is that you have a Chase Ink Bold and an Ink Plus card. With them, you’ve been buying $200 Visa gift cards every day. Conservatively, maybe 9 of them on each card. That means you’ve been earning 18,000 Ultimate Rewards points every day. Considering, you’ve also been making a few bucks doing this, it has been well worth the effort, right? Wait…you haven’t earned 100,000+ points in the last 2 weeks? Sorry! Well, here’s the way I’ve been doing it:

  1. Making sure my Visa Business cards are registered with Visa Savings Edge. This gives me 1% back on the Staples purchases.
  2. Accessing Staples through Swagbucks. That was the best portal for a while. Now their 6% back has dropped to 4%. Upromise is a good portal choice at 5%.
  3. Buying gift cards.
  4. Waiting on my friendly mailman to deliver them.
  5. Cashing them out. Maybe by using Amazon Payments and/or loading Bluebird at WalMart. I’m assuming you have access to multiple accounts with each. Or maybe you have a friendly store willing to sell you money orders with debit cards.
  6. Racking up points.
  7. Taking fun trips.

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A Whopping $1

In what has to be the smallest deal in the history of MileNerd, you can get a free buck from Hotel Tonight. A buck?? Obviously (I hope), the point of this deal isn’t the dollar. It’s that you can delay your Hotel Tonight credit balance from expiring for another year.

If you already use Hotel Tonight:

  1. Open the app.
  2. Click “Credits.”
  3. Type HEYMAMA in the “Redeem Promo Code” box.
If you don’t use Hotel Tonight:
  1. Download the app on your phone or iPad.
  2. Open the app.
  3. Click “Credits.”
  4. Type RWALIA3 in the “Redeem Promo Code” box. This gives you a free $25.
  5. Do the 3 steps above.

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Marriott Business Card

Reader Steve pointed out that I haven’t mentioned the new 50,000-point Marriott Business card yet. That’s a good point, Steve. I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong, and well…I’m kind of/slightly/a little/wrong-ish here. In fairness, the 70,000-point Personal card has been high on my list. But, yeah, I’ll have to mention the Business version on the next Top 25. Well played, Steve. You’re pretty smart…

…ish.

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Reconsideration

I recently applied for 7 credit cards and was instantly approved for 4 of them. Yup, denied for 3. That’s actually pretty good. Even with a credit score near 800…after a while, instant approval is far from a lock. With a little work (picking up the phone), you can usually turn decisions around. In this case, I made 3 calls and got all of my applications approved. I’ve talked about reconsideration phone numbers in the past, but they seem to change a lot. These are the numbers I’ve had luck with lately. The one for Bank Of America is actually the Spanish line, but it worked out well! As always, you get the best results by not being shy and asking for what you want.

Bank of America: 866-865-7843

Citibank: 800-695-5171

Amex: 877-399-3083

Chase: 888-245-0625

Barclays: 866-408-4064

jerry maguire

Deals To Start The Week

  • I just got an email for 750 free Southwest points. This was for an easy merging of my AirTran and Southwest accounts. Check your spam folder if you didn’t get the email. No AirTran account? It might be worth signing up for one now just in case.
  • If you live in New Brunswick, you get free Uber rides. Hey, finally something good comes out of living in New Brunswick!
  • $75 for signing up 3 friends who spend $25 through Ebates.
  • 15% off booking hotels from Orbitz with code GETHAPPY.
  • A really, really good guide to British Air Avios here.
  • Get a 50% bonus converting Royal Bank of Canada Rewards to Avios.
  • Free Hilton Gold status for a bunch of MBA graduates.
  • Win First-Class flights on American, a free flight on Alaska, 140,000 Hawaiian miles, or a Vegas vacation.

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