Citi Custom Cash℠ Card: Earn $200 after Spending $750 in First 3-Months Expired

Thing is, I used that phrase, and then in parenthesis said exactly what I meant by it. And you ignored that and said that you don't do it (while giving an example of something you do that was essentially in my parenthesis). I'm not sure if there's a better word or phrase to describe massively rearranging your spending by paying bills early, buying gift cards to use later, etc

Quite frankly, neither have I, but that's not the point(and it was a minor point anyway).

Unlike cash, you can't tell if a gift card has a balance by looking at it.

. Also, some people live in safer areas than others, and for some people, carrying little or no cash/equivalent and relying on credit cards can minimize that risk.

And yet the best example you've given in this conversation required $7500.

I said hassle. You just added "lots". You are pretending there's NO work involved

but there is SOME. Some work for one card may be no big deal. Some work for dozens of cards can be a hassle.

As much as I'm emphasizing the steps involved in signing up for and sometimes canceling credit cards, you are ignoring and/or exaggerating the simplicity of it. Surely, it takes a typical person far more than 10 seconds to fill out a credit card application

, never mind glancing over the dozens of pages of terms and conditions you're agreeing to each time.

I'm not mentally disabled, but it certainly takes me more than 10 literal seconds to link a new bill/account to a bank for payment.

. Do you even live in the same America I do? To be fair, I did say it's been a while since I've canceled a credit card. Up until CSP offered $1250 of dining and groceries for signing up last year, it may have been close to a decade since I last went through the hassle

.
- and yes, it was a hassle, and did involve being on hold for an hour or more

.
Gaslighting ..."makes someone question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality"

. there are no artificial limits on what you can bring or how you pack (other than it has to fit in the car).

You think it's odd that I don't want to post personal information on a public forum?

I did say it's been a couple/few years, and I don't know how to look up old flight costs

You'll have to look back on this one -- my comment wasn't in reference to the signup bonus spending, but rather the spending required to "earn back" the annual fee. We were talking about making the $95-$250 for CSR/CSP "worth" keeping beyond the first year. This came up a few more times

And now you're just wrong. From the public website describing CSP: "Earn 5x total points on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards". I think it's a newish feature (6 months?). I was responding to your comment about turning a 5% card into a 6.25% card.

I understand that, and referenced that elsewhere. If you value the 25%-50% bonus at 25-50% (I don't always, as previously discussed), and if you max out a freedom card (some of the categories suck, so I don't), you'd get $75 towards CSP or $150 towards CSR (over the money you'd get by Chase Freedom alone), so that by itself doesn't cover the annual fee

somehow without spending any time verifying the charges on any of your dozens of active/churned accounts, you're fully confident that you have never missed a fraudulent charge

But when you say 5-10 minutes earns you hundreds to thousands of dollars, you're either talking about rare special cases, or you're ignoring a lot, intentionally or otherwise

So, to be fair, I've never been to one of these things, and don't know how much of a benefit it is. In any case, the benefit is relatively intangible. It doesn't technically save you time or money, as far as I am aware.

but yeah, that's the rub I guess. So getting a family of 5-6 into these things would require 2 sets of minimum spending, close enough together to overlap the benefits, and technically, even that wouldn't be enough for my family.

That's funny -- you think I'm the only one assuming things here. Apparently, yes, I made one mistake, although:

So for kids between 12 and 18, you'd have to carry a card with this benefit for each kid (with annual fee? or a new card each year for each kid?)? Again, I'm not seeing how that's not a hassle, unless you travel a LOT (or travel without the kids)

Perhaps that's true -- I'm not an expert there. I only know that hard pulls can hurt and that people can be denied for too many recent ones. (particularly with the 5/24 rule

, but I could swear I've read about other issues blamed on that - certainly an altered/non-approved mortgage could negate all the credit card games, if you're not careful).

Just as with airlines there's no "artificial limit" but it has to fit in the overhead bin and/or under your seat.

Except, I'm not.
Because AGAIN YOU CAN GET 5X FROM OTHER CHASE CARDS.

thank you points is definitely not 1 point to 1 cent when redeeming for cash, at least not for my account. It's half of it. Not sure how the bonus is gonna work since it's 20,000 thank you points

You said what you meant but kept using the wrong term to describe it.

Manfactured spending is spending you would not ever do at all if not for the credit card rewards.

Like buying a money order, or funding a bank account, or buying thousands in pre-paid VISA gift cards.... and then taking the $ back out of those things to pay off the CC bill and net the rewards.


Spending you WOULD otherwise do (even if at a different time) is still organic spending (the most common term)

You're simply time shifting that otherwise-normal/expected organic spend.

They're fundamentally different things.


Some CC companies have entire teams dedictated to actively shutting you down when doing manufactured spend- and thus why there's various reddit and other groups dedicated to constantly finding new ways to sneak that past them.


But organic spend, where you just pay the power bill you WILL be spending on anyway a few months in advance? Nobody cares you're doing it, and nobody shuts down your account for doing it.


There's a fundamental difference

So you can't just hand-wave that away with "Well, I call it the wrong thing anyway so it's right"





I mean, it kinda is... "THIS IS A CONCERN WITH YOUR IDEA- I MEAN IT NEVER HAPPENS BUT I AM SUPER CONCERNED ABOUT IT" is called concern trolling.





I....guess? But you can with 30 seconds of calling the # on the card-- or checking the website on the back of the card.





Ok... if you live somewhere you routinely get mugged for your gift cards while on the way to use them I guess this isn't a great idea.... TOTALLY likely and rational point there!




No, it's not.

There's tons of cards, including ones mentioning the thread, only requiring 2-4k over 3-4 months with larger bonuses than this one.

For example:

https://www.usbank.com/credit-car...-card.html


$500 cash signup for 2k spend in 4 months. That's not "thousands a month" as you claim.





It's weird you say that when I mention some of these things DO take 30 seconds, or as much as a few minutes in some cases, of "work"

But if you can let me know where ELSE I can get hundreds, or in many cases thousands, of dollars in free money for seconds or minutes or work THEN you can tell me what a "hassle" getting that this way is.

Otherwise it sounds ridiculous.





Do you only work 1 hour a week, because it's less hassle than working dozens of hours?

Again- this is a flat out silly argument.





Why?


Does your browser not have autofill?

Name, address, etc should all take 2 seconds.

Income autofill will probably get if it hasn't change significantly.... but overall you'll need to manually do SSN, and MAYBE a couple boxes around employment depending on the bank.... that's typically it.

So I guess 30 seconds if you type slow?


But again, you're now arguing "WELL IF IT TAKES 90 WHOLE SECONDS TO EARN $500 THAT IS HASSLE CITY BABY!"







Assuming it's from a reputable bank, why would you bother?

It's all the same boilerplate terms every other federally regulated bank has.

The only thing likely to be different is the interest rate- and if you care about THAT you shouldn't be signing up for cards at all.





Why?

I mean, I could see 30 seconds- but again, free money for almost no work

Like for BOA the add to payee function I click "credit card" for type, I click "Chase" (or whatever bank it is from their list), then I type in the account # and give it a nickname.

I guess that could maybe take a FULL MINUTE if you're on dial-up or something?





So you're posting long walls of text based almost 100% on 10-year-old experiences with how CCs work.


And BTW I called Citi for a retention offer on my Prestige a few weeks ago... hold time was about 3 minutes and the guy was clearly from Texas, not India.

I called US Bank for similar on my altitude reserve 10 days ago-- NO hold time, and the guy was again clearly American.

If I'd wishes to cancel either I could have- but both made me good enough offers to keep the cards ADDITIONALLY PROFITABLE another year.





Again your info seems badly out of date.




Naah.

Gaslighting involves FALSELY doing that.

You keep citing things that legit are now how they work today

And then admit you haven't actually been involved in doing this in 10 years.




Just as with airlines there's no "artificial limit" but it has to fit in the overhead bin and/or under your seat.




I flew from Airport X to Airport Y on some specific date in the past is not "personal information"


We're not gonna go review old airport camera footage with facial recognition to figure out YOUR SECRET IDENTITY dude.

We're just trying to confirm the claims you're making.




So again you're trying to discuss the current state of affairs with years out of date info (and info you won't even supply any details of)





But again- to transfer to airlines (or get the 50% portal bonus) you NEED a paid chase card.

And near any single transfer is going to make you that $ back easily in the greater value for the points received.




Except, I'm not.

Because AGAIN YOU CAN GET 5X FROM OTHER CHASE CARDS.

Then move those 5% points to the CSP and get 6.25% in the portal


You are again trying to discuss something you fundamentally don't even understand.





It does though.


Because you can have multiple freedom cards for one.

For another you can ALSO get 5x on phone, cable, and internet with a no-fee Ink card.

And 5x on office supply store spending (which you can turn into several other types of spending via gift cards)

You ALSO have to count that bonus against the 3x earnings for dining and travel on the Sapphire card itself so another 25-50% on THAT.

Plus it turns the 1.5x unlimited card into a 2.25% card so that ALSO counts.


Add ALL that up and you easily make back the annual fee.

And even MORE so if you transfer the points- where you can take a 5% card and effectively be getting 15-25% cash equivalent for hotels or airfare.







I'm not USING dozens of cards at a time dude... again you are (intentionally or out of ignorance of how any of this works) grossly misrepresenting what actually happens.

At any given time I've got:

A couple of cards that are the SAME charges every month.... so it's obvious there's an issue if the amount changed from what is automated... (this is stuff like the bonus categories for phone/cable/internet).

A "new" card I'm doing a signup bonus on... where obviously I know exactly what I spent or did not, since I JUST DID IT- and likely the card is going away after 1-3 months in a drawer. I don't need to constantly "check" for fraud--- because if a bill shows up after that- it's fraud. THEY alert ME in that case.

Same for all the ones ALREADY in the drawer. THEY alert ME because a bill shows up on a card not being used.


Then I've got a very few cards for "normal" spend when a new signup isn't happening.

Again, unless you've got memory problems, you KNOW what you spent in the last month, so fraud would be obvious just looking at the normal bill as you go to pay it.





I'm really not.




You get free food and drinks... in many cases quite good food and drinks. Plus a much nicer/quieter place to wait for your flight, nicer bathrooms. Sometimes even with a shower available.

You can also get up to $56 for 2 in free food/drinks at dozens of restaurants at the airport as well.


If you never fly, or are happy to bring your own PB&J to eat with water fountain water- this possible isn't much value. For most folks it's a very nice perk though (to the point many others pay significant $ to get this type of access)






Many cards offer priority pass memberships now where they're worth keeping year over year, so once you've each got one you just keep it going forward.

But if you've got 5 or more older non-adult kids (most let little ones in "free" with adult guests) and only 2 adults for memberships yeah you're outside the demographic on this one.






Because that's- again- not how any of that works


You sign up for precheck with the government.

You pay the government with [Bone[/B] of the like 20 credit cards out there that has a TSA credit so your net cost on precheck is $0.

Then you get a known traveler number.

Which is good for five years at a time

When you book your ticket, you include that # on the booking (you can save it in yoru account with the airline so you don't even need to retype it for future bookings).


Then EVERY ticket you buy with them should say TSA PRECHECK on it. And you just show your ticket like you have to anyway at the boarding lines- and get into the vastly shorter pre-check line.

With your kids.


It's not only zero extra hassle when actually taking the trip, it's significantly less because you get to go through the shorter, faster, line where you don't have to remove your shoes or do some other stuff the "normal" line does.



As you approach 5 years, you can renew it (online even!) with the same (if you still have it) or any of the bunch of other cards that provide a precheck credit.







Again your information is not accurate.

5/24 has nothing to do with hard pulls.

5/24 says Chase will deny your application if you have opened 5 or more new personal accounts in the last 24 months.

You could have more than 5 hard pulls (way more) but only have OPENED 3 cards, and you'd be fine.


Also- business cards don't count toward the 5- which is one of the (many) reasons business cards are awesome.





I've done 2 full mortgages, 1 refi, and 1 HELOC all while churning cards and never had an issue other than the time between the application for the home loan and closing you don't open anything new (because on the home loan application and closing docs you're promising you didn't ask for any OTHER new credit in this period).


Again if you don't completely do everything wrong it's pretty trivial to have a credit score well north of 800 while churning cards.

Sorry if it has been asked before, I can't find if there's a minimum of cash back earned before we can redeem for statement credit. Does one point always convert to one cent with this card when you want to cash out?

You only have to worry about credit hits from applying for CCs if you are applying for a bunch of them around the same time or are about to get a mortgage/car loan and want to keep it as clean as possible for that. Otherwise there is no reason to worry about a single hard pull for a new CC.

$1000 credit card bonus? where?

lol. do people seriously suddenly buy a house or a car? especially via a loan?

Walmart is in what category?