Tag Archives: Cash Back

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Quirky US Bank Cash Plus Credit Card Rewards Activity (Different Amounts Before & After Statement Closes)

Good evening everyone.  I spend a lot of time with my credit cards and banking apps (probably more time than most normal people should), but I wanted to share a quirk I noticed with the US Bank Cash+ Credit Card.  I love this credit card so much (I have 2 of them), because of the ability to select 2 different 5% cash back categories each quarter, and you can select the same 2 categories each quarter.

The 2 categories that I have picked lately are Home Utilities (which covers water, gas, electricity, trash, etc.) and TV / Internet / Streaming Services (which covers all the well known and niche streaming services I have tried).  Now, this is where the quirkiness comes in…

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2 Recent Credit Card Retention Offers: $150 Statement Credit & 4,000 Customer Appreciation Points

Good afternoon everyone.  Part of my credit card strategy is to call and ask for a retention offers every time a credit card annual fee posts to my account.  I am not successful 100% of the time, but I always find it worthwhile when I receive a retention offer for $50, $100, $150 or even $695 with a single call.  Today’s post is a friendly reminder to call and ask for retention offers.  The worse thing that can happen is that the rep screams at you relentlessly says they have no offers available.  You can then decide to keep the card open, downgrade to a no annual fee credit card, or cancel the card.  Here are my 2 recent examples.

The $450 annual fee posted to Laura’s JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card on January 1.  She called the customer service number on the back of the card and received a $150 statement credit to keep her credit card open.  The $150 statement credit posted at the end of January and then she paid off the remaining credit card balance.  $150 for a 5-7 minute phone call is a great hourly rate :)

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Starbucks 15% Off Chase Offer (Gift Card Balance Reloads Worked)

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  A few days ago, I wrote Peets Coffee & Tea $10 Off $25 AMEX Offer (Gift Card Balance Reloads Worked).  If you are a fan of Starbucks, you won’t want to miss this deal.  There is a new Starbucks Chase Offer available where you can earn 15% cash back, up to a $4.50 statement credit on a $30 purchase.  I added the offer to all my eligible Chase credit cards and made a $30 Starbucks gift card balance reload and that triggered the Chase Offer.  You can repeat that process with each Chase credit card that has the Starbucks offer.  Here are the details:

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Peets Coffee & Tea $10 Off $25 AMEX Offer (Gift Card Balance Reloads Worked)

Updated 3/6/24 at 8:30am PT: I successfully used this AMEX Offer 3 times and all 3 statement credits posted quickly.  Please scroll to the bottom of this post for more details.


Good morning everyone, happy Saturday!  If you are a fan of Peets Coffee & Tea, you won’t want to miss this AMEX Offer.  There is a new Peets Coffee & Tea $10 Off $25 AMEX Offer available and I immediately loaded the offer to my AMEX CC to see if reloading my Peets gift card balance would work.  Yes, it did! This AMEX Offer can be done up to 3 times for a total of $30 statement credit  After you load the offer to your AMEX CC, open the Peets app, go to the Wallet tab, and click Add Funds.

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Payment Posts Instantly when you Pay Bilt Credit Card via Wells Fargo Checking Account

Good afternoon everyone.  A few weeks ago, I wrote I Finally Got A Bilt Credit Card (Application Process, Earning & Redeeming Strategy, and Unboxing).  In that post, I shared that I was excited that I was approved for the Bilt Credit Card (my referral link) but confused why I was only approved for a $4,000 credit limit since I applied for 2 other credit cards afterward and was approved for a $22,000 credit limit on a Bank of America Air France / KLM Credit Card and a $17,200 credit limit on a Barclays JetBlue Plus Credit Card.  I knew with a $4,000 credit limit, it was going to be impossible challenging to spend $12,500 in the first 5 days in order to receive the maximum 50,000 bonus Bilt Points for new card members.

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