Tag Archives: Discover It Credit Card

Weekend TWG Homework Assignment: What are the Best Credit Cards for Downgrades or Conversions?

Which Credit Card

Weekend TWG Homework Assignment: What are the Best Credit Cards for Downgrades or Conversions?

Good evening everyone, TGI (Thank Grant It’s) Thursday.  I will be flying up to San Francisco Friday night and coming home early Monday morning from Oakland.  I will not be blogging this weekend, but I will bring my phone so I can respond to emails and blog comments.  Since the collective knowledge of TWG readers is far superior than just my knowledge, I need your help.  I am working on compiling a page on best credit cards for downgrades or conversions.  For every annual fee credit card from a bank, there is a related no annual fee credit card.

Do you remember that kid in school who always asked the teacher if there was any homework due next week when the teacher clearly forgot to assign any?  Well, you can all thank Dan P for the suggestion (link):

I think a blog post about all the “good downgrading cards” would be great. Include the BoA Better Balance Rewards and the Citizens Bank Green$ense (pays you $0.25 per transaction, up to $20 per month; great for purchases under $5) in addition to other cards. Although other than those two I haven’t found any really useful, zero annual fee cards.

Steven got the ball rolling with this comment:

Best practice is to convert the Alaska card to a Better Balance card which will award $100 a year for minimal spending. I have 6 of them. :)

Followed by Jivepicnic’s comment:

I only have one Better Balance Card, so I have some work to do to catch up to Steven! I purchase an Amazon eGC for $0.50 each month, so I spend $6 per year to get $100. Actually for me it’s $120 because you get a $5 bonus per quarter if you have a BofA checking account as well.

Clearly, I have been living under a rock since I was unaware of this card until a few days ago.  I have closed several Bank of American credit card in the last 2 years to avoid the annual fee, when I could have earned $100 a year for keeping a credit card open (link).

BofA Better Balance Rewards

Continue reading

New Discover It Chrome Card and Minor Changes to the PayPal Business Debit Card Terms

Discover It Chrome vs Regular

New Discover It Chrome Card and Minor Changes to the PayPal Business Debit Card Terms

In other credit card related news, Discover announced a new version of the Discover It… the Discover It Chrome Card.  I personally like the color better.  The new version of the Discover It credit card now earns 2% cash back on all restaurant purchases and gas station purchases, year round.  There is a cap, however.  You can only earn 2% cash back on the first $1,000 of combined purchases each quarter.

Discover It Chrome Card

Continue reading

Random News: New AMEX Offers for AT&T / Sprint / T-Mobile / Verizon, Best Buy, PF Chang’s, Elephant Bar, and Nestle Life Water Delivery; Targeted 2,500 Alaska Airlines Bonus Offer; Free $5 Starbucks eGift Card from Discover Card; and New Chime Offers

AMEX Offers

Random News: New AMEX Offers for AT&T / Sprint / T-Mobile / Verizon, Best Buy, PF Chang’s, Elephant Bar, and Nestle Life Water Delivery; Targeted 2,500 Alaska Airlines Bonus Offer; Free $5 Starbucks eGift Card from Discover Card; and New Chime Offers

It’s been a while since I last posted a few good AMEX offers.  These are all targeted offers, but hopefully you have some/all of the ones below.

The first offer seems like a great deal.  I’m guessing that 90% of you have a cell phone from one of the big 4 cell phone providers.  AMEX wants to save you some money.  Up to $30 per registered AMEX card toward your cell phone bill.  This is one of the few offers that allows you to triple dip on the cash back.  Enrollment is limited, so you should hurry and register your AMEX card with this offer.

Cell Phone Bill AMEX Offer

Continue reading

Where can you Buy “Gas” with a Chase Freedom or Discover It Credit Card?

Chase Freedom

Where can you Buy “Gas” with a Chase Freedom or Discover It Credit Card?

Warning, this is an untested experiment, so YMMV.  Proceed at your own risk.

I’m sure most of you already know that the Chase Freedom and the Discover It credit cards offer 5x or 5% cash back at gas stations this quarter (July 1 – September 30).  But do you know what Chase and Discover consider “gas stations”?  Let me explain…

Freedom 5 Q3 Gas Stations Kohls

Discover Q3 Categories Gas Stations

Credit card companies use Merchant Category Codes (MCC for short) to determine which merchant or merchant category you are shopping at.  For example, Office Supply Stores are one MCC, Marriott is another, and Gas Stations are another.  You can learn more about the MCC search tool here.  For this post, I will just share what I did and point you in the right direction.

To start my search, I searched for my local gas station chains (ARCO, Chevron, and Shell) near my zip code.

Visa Supplier Locator

Continue reading

$15 Statement Credit with $75+ Home Depot Purchase (AMEX Offer), Chase UR Points on IHG Reward Night, and Discover It Q3 Activation

AMEX Offers

$15 Statement Credit with $75+ Home Depot Purchase (AMEX Offer), Chase UR Points on IHG Reward Night, and Discover It Q3 Activation

Are you ready for some random miles and points news?  I hope you said yes, so let’s go.  This has been blogged about a few times today, but thought I would chime in anyway.  There is currently an AMEX Offer for You deal where you get $15 statement credit after spending $75 or more at Home Depot.

AMEX Offer HD

Continue reading