Category Archives: Credit Cards

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7 Lessons I Learned from Sinemia Closing Down

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  On Thursday, Sinemia posted the following note on their homepage alerting members that they would be ceasing operations in the United States immediately.  This happened on opening day of the biggest movie of the year – Avengers: Endgame.  This is very disappointing for many reasons (I was a big fan of Sinemia and went to 2-4 movies a month with my monthly plan).  After closing my MoviePass account and opening my Sinemia account in August 2018, I’ve seen Sinemia evolve and change in the 6-7 months since then.  I thought it would be interesting to review the warning signs and the 7 lessons I learned through the process.

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eBay MC999 Account Warning Notice: Did I Buy Too Many GCs & eGCs During eBay Deals?

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great Easter or Passover Weekend.  Earlier this morning, I received this email from eBay telling me that my purchasing behavior is violating eBay’s Site Interference Policy.  Basically, eBay is accusing me of buying items via eBay Deals for the purpose of reselling.  I have been known to buy a few discounted GCs/eGCs from eBay, but I didn’t think it warranted a warning letter.  It’s not like I have 10 different eBay accounts and buy as many discounted GCs/eGCs as possible.  Here are the main parts of the email:

Listings promoted on the eBay Deals have a limit on the amount of items you can purchase, primarily to maintain an equal marketplace for all members and allow other eBay members the opportunity to take part in the eBay Deals.

The activity involved with these purchases appears to be related to the procurement of inventory for re-sale by a separate entity. If there is another reason for the volume purchased during this sale, please bring this to our attention.

Here is the complete email:

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My Experience with the American Express Gold Card $100 Airline Fee Credit

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Good afternoon everyone.  As part of my March App-O-Rama, I was approved for the American Express Gold Card.  A few weeks ago, I wrote How to Enroll in American Express Gold Card Benefits ($120 Dining Credit & $100 Airline Fee Credit).  In that post, I showed how to enroll in the $100 airline fee credit benefit.  The process was very easy.  I selected Southwest Airlines as my airline of choice and purchased a $100 Southwest Airlines eGC to trigger the $100 airline fee credit.  Unfortunately, my $100 purchase did not trigger the benefit.

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Keep, Cancel or Convert? American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card ($450 Annual Fee)

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Good morning everyone.  As part of my “Keep, Cancel or Convert?” series, I like to evaluate and reevaluate credit cards to make sure they still deserve a spot in my wallet (or credit card drawer).  In today’s post, I will share my thoughts regarding my American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card.  I was reviewing my recent credit card statement and spotted a reference to the annual fee (it was very subtle and is probably overlooked by most people).  I decided to check out page 4…

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Keep, Cancel or Convert? Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card ($95 Annual Fee)

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Good afternoon everyone.  As part of my “Keep, Cancel or Convert?” series, I like to evaluate and reevaluate credit cards to make sure they still deserve a spot in my wallet (or my fiance’s wallet, in this case).  Last year, my fiance was approved for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card and she used it heavily when she first got the credit card (to meet the $4,000 minimum spending requirement), but that credit card hasn’t gotten much use lately.  This is mainly because I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card that offers 3x on travel and dining vs. the Chase Sapphire Preferred’s 2x on travel and dining.  And since my March App-O-Rama, I have been using my American Express Gold Card since that credit card offers 4x on dining.  Long story short, my fiance’s Chase Sapphire Preferred was not worth the $95 annual fee.  This is hard to believe since the Chase Sapphire Preferred was one of the best travel rewards credit cards just a few years ago.  We decided the best thing to do would be to convert her Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card into a Chase Freedom Credit Card, since we did not have a Chase Freedom between the two of us and the 5% rotating cash back categories would be easy to use.

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