Tag Archives: Chase Ink Business

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How Many Transferrable Points Did I Earn & Spend with AMEX, Chase and Citi in 2020?

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I don’t know about you, but 2020 was the year I earned a lot more transferrable points than I spent.  I am hoping that in 2021, I will be able to spend a lot more points than I did in 2020.  For this post, I looked at my 3 favorite transferrable points programs (American Express Membership Rewards Points, Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, and Citi ThankYou Points).  I looked at my starting balances on January 1, the number of points I earned in 2020, miscellaneous point transfers in/out, the number of points I redeemed in 2020, and the ending balance on December 31 (I don’t have any plans on redeeming any points in the next few days).  For a quick calculation, I earned 350K points across the 3 programs and spent a total of 211K points (most were with Chase’s Pay Yourself Back feature).

American Express Membership Rewards Points

  • Starting Balance on Jan 1: 240K
  • Points Earned in 2020: 201K
  • Points Redeemed in 2020: 4K
  • Ending Balance on Dec 31: 438K

With American Express, I earned 201K AMEX MRs with 3 cards (American Express Business Platinum Card, American Express Gold Card, and American Express Blue Business Plus Credit Card).  The Biz Plat had many pandemic bonus categories like wireless phones, shipping charges, and Dell purchases.  The Gold Card had bonus categories for restaurants and grocery stores, along with high referral bonuses.  And the Blue Biz Plus offered 2x everywhere and was my go to card when I wasn’t working on meeting minimum spending requirements on new CCs.  Across all 3 CCs, I received a total of 65K AMEX MRs from referral bonuses.  To view your points summary, click here.  To view your redemption history, click the View Redemption History link.

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My Experience Using Experian Boost to Increase my Credit Score (Mixed Results)

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I’m sure most of you have seen the Experian Boost commercials on TV or online, but how many of you have actually checked to see if it would boost your Experian credit score?  According to the Experian Boost small print, the average credit score increase is 13 points (which is not a lot), but it’s better than nothing.  Speaking of nothing, some customers may not see any score increase at all (which is what happened to me).  The last thing to keep in mind is that this will not improve your Equifax or TransUnion credit scores and some financial institutions may use a different FICO score or model.  Your credit score will not increase 100 points with Experian Boost, so keep your expectations in check.

The entire process took about 10 minutes and involved logging into my Experian account and linking my financial institutions that I use to pay recurring bills (like Netflix, phone and utilities).  After you link your financial accounts to Experian, Experian Boost will scan your accounts and recent statements to find recurring bills.  Once they find recurring bills, you will be asked if you want to add those recurring bills to your credit report, which may or may not increase your credit score.  In this post, I will walk you through all the steps.  To get started, go to the Experian Boost page and sign in or create an account by clicking the Start Your Boost button.

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How to Use Pay Yourself Back for Shipping Purchases with Chase Ink Plus Credit Card (1.25 CPP)

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your Friday is going well.  4 months ago, I wrote How to Redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points via Pay Yourself Back (1.5 Cents Per Point for Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Home Improvement).  In that post, I showed how to redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points for 1.5 cents per point (CPP) on your Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card toward qualifying purchases.  Over the last few months, Chase recently added support for other Chase Ultimate Rewards earning credit cards like the Chase Freedom Flex Credit Card and Chase Ink Plus Credit Card.

The Chase Ink Plus is no longer available for new applications, but for existing cardholders, Chase targeted some cardholders with the ability to earn 5x points on qualifying shipping and advertising purchases from August 1 through October 31, up to $10,000 in qualifying purchases.  You can see if you are targeted by navigating to the Featured Benefits section of the Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal.  In today’s post, I will show you how to redeem eligible shipping purchases made on your Chase Ink Plus for 1.25 CPP with the Pay Yourself Back feature.

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Keep, Cancel, or Convert: Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card ($450 Annual Fee)

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Buenos días everyone! I know it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me – I’ve got a couple of things in the works, but for now, I thought I’d hop on to Grant’s Keep, Cancel, or Convert? Series with my thoughts on the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card.

The CSR has had a spot in my wallet since it was first released, but over time, it’s been losing its luster for me as other cards have caught up with it. When Chase announced that the annual fee would be rising to $550, I knew its days in my wallet were numbered. Here’s why:

  • I opened the JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card right before Chase stopped offering the card to new applicants, which offers the same travel protections as the CSR and a better Priority Pass membership.
  • Late last year, I opened a Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card, which earns 3x on travel and allows me to transfer my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to airline and hotel partners.
  • Earlier this year, I opened a Citi Premier Credit Card, which earns 3x Citi ThankYou Points on restaurants and most travel purchases.
  • My Chase Freedom Credit Card and Chase Freedom Unlimited Credit Card now earn 3x Chase Ultimate Rewards Points at restaurants (though both cards have foreign transaction fees, so I won’t be using them in Mexico).

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Why I Redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back Feature

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I recently had a change of heart and decided to redeem 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back feature.  Chase introduced the Pay Yourself Back feature on May 31 and I wrote How to Redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points via Pay Yourself Back (1.5 Cents Per Point for Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Home Improvement).  Initially, I was not very excited about the new feature, since I convinced myself that I could use my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points in other ways and get more than 1.5 cents per point.

After realizing that I had no concrete travel plans remaining in 2020 (I recently cancelled trips to Boston & New York along with a big trip to Africa), I figured that my stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points would probably not be used much this year.  Before redeeming 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, I looked at Chase’s travel partners to see if there were any major reasons to keep my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.  Chase has 13 airline and hotel partners, but only has 4 exclusive partners (Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, IHG, and Hyatt), the remaining 9 travel partners are accessible with American Express Membership Rewards Points, Citi ThankYou Points, and Capital One Miles.

My wife and I have ~58,000 Southwest Airlines points and ~$150 in travel credit, so I would not need to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Southwest Airlines.  I am not a huge fan of United Airlines and can usually book Star Alliance flights with other travel programs, plus I have ~$178 travel credit from a cancelled United flight.  IHG points are worth ~0.5 cents per point and I have ~222,000 IHG points in my account.  Last but not least, Hyatt is the only travel partner that stands out from the list.  I decided to save at least 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points just in case we stay at a Hyatt later this year).

I figured that normal spending on our Chase Ink Cash Credit Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card, and Chase Freedom Credit Card this year would replenish our Chase Ultimate Rewards Points balance by the end of 2020.

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