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Archive for November, 2014

Cashing out rewards

November 25th, 2014 at 05:48 am

Discover email about cashing out reward at any amount came at a most opportune time. It reminded me that most CCs have some sort of program with Amazon that allows for purchases with reward points. So in preparation for closing down several cards, that had a few points here and there, I linked them all to Amazon and bought gift cards for the same amount as the rewards. Managed to clear out $16.54 that I would have lost had I closed them as planned.

Citi sucked as usual with an exchange rate of 125 pts for $1.00. So instead of converting an existing card to the double cash back card, I've decided to wait for a sign up bonus to apply. In the mean time, I planned to make use of the quicksilver 0% APR until August 2015. This would actually be a better deal than paying up front and getting 2%.

My third card also came in, no credit score though. The card itself certainly felt more luxurious than the other two, however, it came in a flimsy envelope with the card numbers printed on the front page, right above the delivery address. Any one could simply tilt the envelope and look though the address window to see it. My envelope was torn...I wonder if any post office employee thought there might be stacks of bills in there.

Still Execellent

November 14th, 2014 at 03:27 am

Two of the cards I applied for came in recently along with my credit scores. They used different type of scores but to see a difference of 86 points as well as a drop from the top to the third group was quite shocking. Especially as they came from the same source.

The card with the lower score offered free credit tracking so I decided to take advantage of it. It pulled data from another source and showed a higher number, right in between the 2 I received and still in the excellent zone.

I'm interested in what score the third card will show.

Mitigation of damages

November 6th, 2014 at 07:29 pm

Tring to make use of credit card sign on bonuses to help out with the dental bill, but it’s slim picking out there. Hopefully more deals would show up closer to Black Friday. For now though, I’m limited to Discover, possibly converting a Citi card to Citi Double Cash, and maybe two bank bonuses. I’m not particularly thrill about the Citi card given their reward reduction in recent years, annoying separation between card and reward accounts, and worst no one has reported receiving the second percent on the Double Cash. Maybe I should just close all my Citi cards as initially planned and go for the Quick Silver. Decision, decision…

October Review

November 2nd, 2014 at 03:04 pm

Too many costly mistakes this month.