American Express Premier Rewards Gold Charge Card Changes - $100 Travel Incidental Credit

American Express is making some changes to their Premier Rewards Gold Charge Card starting June 1st.  They are mostly positive, but there are some negatives.

Changes:
-2nd year annual fee increasing from $175 to $195
- $100 credit for incidental travel fees - This is calender year based so you can get two credit your first year, one in 2015 and one in 2016.  As reported by DansDeals, this works on $100 American Airlines gift cards.
- Restaurants are now 2x points, along with gas stations and supermarkets.  Airline tickets remain at 3x.
- No more foreign transaction fees

$1 Amazon Promotional MP3 Credit Free

Download an app from the Amazon App store from a select group and get a $1 Amazon MP3 promotional credit for free.

Many of the apps to download are free as well.

$1 MP3 Credit for Free

You can download from now until the end of the year and the credit expires at the end of January 2016.

HT: DansDeals

Discover it Miles - First Year 3% Cashback Redeemable for Travel

Discover has come out with a new credit card called Discover it Miles and it is quite attractive for any spending done during the first year.


The rewards structure for the card is quite simple.  You get 1.5 "miles" for every dollar you spend. They aren't really miles, rather they are redeemable against travel purchases.  This is more similar to the Capitol One Venture and Barclays  Arrival Plus World Elite (Yeah, it's a mouthful) category of miles.

Discover miles are best for domestic inexpensive airline tickets and other types of travel expenses. Usually you will do much better with regular miles from United, BA Avios etc. for last minute, first class or extremely short distance flying.

Double Miles Your First Year

RedBird, Serve and BlueBird Rumors - American Express Prepaid Card Rumors

There have been a lot of rumors going around the web regarding the American Express Prepaid Cards RedBird, Serve and BlueBird.   These cards are highly lucrative for Manufactured Spend so they can generate a lot of chatter.

Here are the rumors:

Prepaid Card Loadable with Credit Card with Bill Pay Function

There is a new prepaid card making the rounds of Flyertalk and the Blogosphere.  If the reports are true, this card has the potential to be a game changer.  More likely, this deal will die a quick death due to more exposure or will lead to many shutdowns with people having money tied up for a while with MetaBank.

American Express for Target - Emergency Manufactured Spending, but Slightly Better

Update: you can no longer use credit cards to load this product.


It's always good to have a few tricks up your sleeve for Manufactured Spending.  If you need to spend a few thousand dollars for a credit card sign up bonus and you don't have access to more lucrative Manufactured Spending options, how can you do it quickly and inexpensively?  What happens when RedBird no longer allows credit card loads and you were banking (haha, get it?) on using that?  This is where your Emergency Manufactured Spending comes in.


In addition, some techniques like Nationwide Visa Buxx and American Express Gift Cards are not useful with Citibank credit cards since they will code the transaction as a Cash Advance.

Raise - Dunkin Donuts Gift Cards Up to 26% off!

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site:  Raise and Top Cashback

Chase Ink Plus Increased Sign Up Bonus - 60,000 Ultimate Rewards Points

Chase has increased the signup bonuses for the Ink Plus Business card until the end of March.

The INK Plus sign up bonus has been increased from 50,000 to 60,000 after spending $5,000 in 3 months.  You also get 5% cashback at Office Supply stored.

This is an extra 10,000 points, but the annual fee is not waived for the first year. Essentially you are buying the extra 10,000 points for $95, which is an all right price, but not a great price to get too excited about.  There are also reports of the annual fee being waived if you apply at a branch and you will still get 60,000 points.  It's worth a shot.

American Express - $30 off Your Phone Bill

Check your American Express "Offers for You" for a $10 cashback offer for paying your bill of $75+ with Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or US Cellular.  You can get up to 3 $10 credits if you spend $75 three times on the same card.  I have it on 5 cards so I could save a total of $150 if I spend $1,125.

Free Sample of Gevalia Coffee

Free Sample of Gevalia Coffee

One free sample per mailing address.  The form was accepted for me and my wife even though they are being sent to the same address


I'm pretty sure that regular Gevalia coffee has a hashgacha, but I would check once it comes.


HT: Hey It's Free

Using American Express Gift Cards for RedBird

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Top Cashback








Ever since I have gotten RedBird it has instantly become part of my inner circle of cards.  Don't worry, it's a big circle.  RedBird allows me to create $5,000 of Manufactured Spending fee free every month.  Since my wife has one as well, that's doubled to $10,000 a month.

Loading is quick and easy.  It usually takes me about 20 minutes door to door to get to Target, load and come back home.  The Target employees are always very helpful and never look at the name on the card even when I hand them two.  If I put $10,000 a month on my Fidelity American Express that's $200 a month of free money!

But you know me, I'm always thinking, Can we do better? So, can we do better?  The answer, of course, is yes!

American Express Gift Cards and RedBird - Like Peas and Carrots

I've posted many times about American Express Gift Cards.  One of their best uses is to load money onto RedBird.  Here is how it works:

1) Start at Top Cashback and then go to the American Express Gift Card website.
2) Buy AMEX gift cards with your Fidelity American Express
3) Use your Gift cards at Target to load RedBird.
4) Rinse and Repeat next month


Top Cashback lately has a baseline payout of 1.5% for American Express Gift Cards and sometimes it goes up to 2.25%.

Assuming a 1.5% payout, you will still get your 2% cashback from Fidelity.  The best way to maximize fees is to buy 5 $2,000 gift cards at a time ($3,000 gift cards seem to no longer payout on portals).

Fees come out to $28.70.  You get $200 cashback from Fidelity and $150 from Top Cashback or $350 total.  After fees, it comes out to $321.30 or 3.21%.



That's $160 every month for every RedBird you have.  If you have two cards like me, you will be getting $321.30 every month or $3,855.60 a year!

But wait, there's more!

If you can buy in at 2.25% payout, it's even better for the same amount of work.

Your fees come out to the same $28.70.  You get $200 cashback from Fidelity and $225 from Top Cashback or $425 total.  After fees, it comes out to $396.30 or 3.96%.

That's $198 for every RedBird you have.  If you have two cards like me, you will be getting $396.30 every month or $4.755.60 a year!  Realistically, you aren't likely to get a full year's worth at the 2.25% cashback and even the 1.5% may disappear at some point, but I will enjoy it until it goes away.