Published December 29th, 2008
in Shopping Promotion.
With the credit industry in crisis and economy in recession banks have been scaling down fat sign up bonuses and other costly promotions. If you act fast though you can still get on this one since Discover will be taking it down end of this year as well.
You can earn $100 Cashback Bonus when you make $1000 in purchases within 3 months after your account is opened, plus there is 0% APR on purchases for 12 months, very handy during holiday shopping since you don’t have to hurry and pay off your balance right away.
Individuals can apply as sole proprietors by using their name as the business name. Just fill in the Social Security number when requested and leave the Federal Tax ID blank. This worked for me in the past with no problem.
Published April 28th, 2008
in Money Saving Tips.
Update 10/26: This offer has expired and the card is no longer available
As gas prices approach $4 per gallon in our area I am scrambling looking for for new ways to save at the pump. Replacing my Honda Accord with something more fuel efficient is not yet an option and hypermiling while sounds interesting is not very practical taking into account my hectic lifestyle. So what other options do I have?
Cash rewards credit cards can offer an easy solution. I have used the Discover Gas Card for a couple of years collecting 5% with each filled gas tank until Discover limited the amount of gas purchases they reward each year to $1200. My current strategy is to put all my gas expenses on the Chase Freedom Plus which pays 3% (or more if you collect $200 in rewards before you redeem). Lately however my friend tipped my to this interesting promotion from BP which will allow me to triple my gas savings for the next 60 days.
As long as you are comfortable with BP as your gas supplier, you have an option to save 10% on gas for the next 60 days and 5% thereafter if you use BP Visa card at the pump. In addition the card offers 4% on travel and dining and 2% on everything else during the promotional period. The percentages are halved after that. The cash rewards are unlimited and can be redeemed in $25 amounts as BP Gas cards, a checks, or you can send them to an environmental charity.
This is so far the best gas rewards offer I am able to find. Alternatively, Chase PerfectCard looks pretty attractive. It doesn’t limit you to the gas from any single provider but as the price for the convenience you only get 6% for 90 days and 3% thereafter.
How do you save on gas? Do you use any cash rewards credit cards? Which one is your favorite? Please share your tips.
Published January 30th, 2008
in Shopping Promotion.
Do you have Discover More Card? It is not too late to sing up for a promotion Discover is running in February.
Go to this page, click on “Sign Up Today” and login to your account on the next page. This should sign you up for the extra rewards and you will see some sort of confirmation message.
I never got this far (see below) but in theory it should qualify you to receive additional 5% cash back in these categories in February:
- Restaurants
- Florists
- Candy Shops
- Bookstores
- Pet Stores
Your extra spending cap for February is just $200 meaning your max additional reward is just $10. I long hesitated if I should even write about it, yet since this is a relatively easy ten bucks I think it is worth a couple minutes of your time.
Only Discover More cards qualify
Unfortunately my Discover Gas card doesn’t qualify. When I try to sign up I get this error message:
As a Discover Open Road Cardmember, you are not eligible to participate in the Get More program. You’ll continue to get 5% Cashback Bonus on your gas & auto purchases.
Oh well, after they capped the qualified spendings on this card to a mere $1200 a year I decided to sack it anyway. Now I have one more reason not to keep it any longer. Will get the rewards out and off it goes! ;-)
Published July 31st, 2007
in Money Saving Tips.
Maybe this image hasn’t turned out very sharp (I was using my cellphone camera) but it won’t stop me from posting it here because this is a letter I received today from Discover Card. In it there are 7 Sharper Image gift cards $80 each — the cash back bonus I accumulated over the past 2 years.
I use my Discover Card exclusively at gas stations because it pays a flat 5% back on each gas purchase. Now, the most inquisitive readers will quickly calculate that 7 by $80 is $560 which would mean I have spent over $10,000 on gas over the 2 years. This is not so. In fact I spent just around $5,000, roughly $200 a month.
What is the trick? The trick is that with Discover you can use your cash back bonus to buy gift cards at some places for half the face value and Sharper Image store happens to be one of them.
I picked Sharper Image because I am a geeky kind and I love all the cool stuff they sell however you don’t have to. Here is the complete list of their partners. From these, here are those that sell their gift certificates at half the price:
- Big City Chefs
- Carnival Cruise Lines
- Celebrity Cruises
- Crabtree & Evelyn
- Enterprise Rent-A-Car
- FTD.COM
- Great American Days
- Holland America
- Hollywood Video
- Hyatt Hotels & Resorts
- Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet™ Grills
- Lenovo
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- Lobster Gram
- MobileCraze
- Mrs. Fields
- Norwegian Cruise Line
- PGA TOUR Ticket-to-Golf!
- Princess Cruises
- Royal Caribbean International
- Samsonite
- Sharper Image
- Sprint
- Ultra Diamond Outlet
|
I will spend some of my cash back to buy this digital camera (to replace the one my daughter broke during our trip to Ukraine) and will probably sell the rest using one of these gift card selling services. After all the math is applied, my cash back essentially comes to a flat 10%. What do your cards pay you? Please share in your comments!
For more information on what other cards I have and how I use them, please read my earlier post: Have a credit card — will save.
