topic Re: What's the best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) you have ever seen? in Credit Cards

Best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) ever?

sammydavidjr — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 18:43:31 GMT

The Amex pandemic promos like 6x and 12x points on grocery purchases are well known. Chase and Amex routinely offer great point multipliers at specific merchants (and occasionally categories) -- often up to a certain limit. What is the best credit card promo you were ever targeted with?

A couple of years back I received a letter from FNB Omaha letting me know that between August 1 and October 31, 2018 my MLife Mastercard would earn 10x the usual points: 30 per $1 (instead of 3) for spend at MLife properties, 20 per $1 on gas and supermarket, and 10 per $1 on everything else. That meant an equivalent cash back ranging from 10% to 30%, with *no limit* on how many points one could collect. Needless to say, I put every last dollar of my spend on that card (that had otherwise been mostly a grocery card for me).

Most (if not all) of these branded credit cards require the card issuer to pre-purchase a set number of points from the merchant brand every year, and I assume the reason First Bankcard was so generous was that they had committed to pre-purchasing more points than they ended up using, so they used them to incentivize customers to put spend on the card (October 31st is the annual cutoff date of the MLife's program).

The best letter I have ever received

Re: What's the best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) you have ever seen?

K-in-Boston — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 18:50:05 GMT

That was super easy. Because I was transferring Starwood points to Marriott 1:3 at the time and getting about 8 cents per Starpoint, I earned 35k Starpoints (20k from normal spend and 15k bonus) that I used for about $2800 in hotel stays on $20k spend in about 6 weeks, or about 14% back on $20k spend. Oh, how I miss those early Starriott-Carlton merger days.

Re: What's the best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) you have ever seen?

RadioRob — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 19:32:50 GMT

Amen! Although right now I just miss being able to travel and stay in a nice hotel... I'm going stir crazy something terrible here. At home over a quarter straight when last year I had over 110 days logged in a Marriott. (That does not include the Vegas trips when I was at the Aria either for two work conventions!)

Re: What's the best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) you have ever seen?

wasCB14 — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 20:02:23 GMT

Casino traffic is down a lot, even where they may be open. I read in NYT (paywalled) that many gamblers have moved on to betting on professional video game "esport" competitons.

Best retention offer was the recent 50k MR no-spend retention offer on Schwab. Got 100k new Marriott points as an upgrade SUB in 2018 and just got 25k to upgrade back to EDP.

But as a regular ongoing promo it would be much smaller.

Re: What's the best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) you have ever seen?

sammydavidjr — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 20:28:58 GMT

@wasCB14 wrote:
Casino traffic is down a lot, even where they may be open. I read in NYT (paywalled) that many gamblers have moved on to betting on professional video game "esport" competitons.

The offer I posted was from 2018... business was great for Vegas back then (maybe not so much for First Bank, which was probably sitting on a lot of pre-paid MLife points)

Re: Best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) ever?

coldfusion — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 20:36:10 GMT

Simple one I just completed was 20X Bonus + 1 standard TYP per $ on gas/groceries/restaurants on my Sears M/C from Apr-Jun for up to 20,000 bonus TYP/month. Jan-March it was 15% cashback on gas/groceries/restaurants for up to $800/month spend.

Re: Best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) ever?

AverageJoesCredit — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 20:38:05 GMT

@sammydavidjr wrote:
The Amex pandemic promos like 6x and 12x points on grocery purchases are well known. Chase and Amex routinely offer great point multipliers at specific merchants (and occasionally categories) -- often up to a certain limit. What is the best credit card promo you were ever targeted with?

A couple of years back I received a letter from FNB Omaha letting me know that between August 1 and October 31, 2018 my MLife Mastercard would earn 10x the usual points: 30 per $1 (instead of 3) for spend at MLife properties, 20 per $1 on gas and supermarket, and 10 per $1 on everything else. That meant an equivalent cash back ranging from 10% to 30%, with *no limit* on how many points one could collect. Needless to say, I put every last dollar of my spend on that card (that had otherwise been mostly a grocery card for me).

Most (if not all) of these branded credit cards require the card issuer to pre-purchase a set number of points from the merchant brand every year, and I assume the reason First Bankcard was so generous was that they had committed to pre-purchasing more points than they ended up using, so they used them to incentivize customers to put spend on the card (October 31st is the annual cutoff date of the MLife's program).

The best letter I have ever received

I dont think those Amex Pandemic promos went the way people thought

Re: What's the best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) you have ever seen?

wasCB14 — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 20:39:21 GMT

@sammydavidjr wrote:
@wasCB14 wrote:
Casino traffic is down a lot, even where they may be open. I read in NYT (paywalled) that many gamblers have moved on to betting on professional video game "esport" competitons.
The offer I posted was from 2018... business was great for Vegas back then (maybe not so much for First Bank, which was probably sitting on a lot of pre-paid MLife points)

Guilty of reading inattentively while on the phone.

Re: Best credit card promo (not APR/SUB) ever?

AverageJoesCredit — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 22:08:39 GMT

@coldfusion wrote:
Simple one I just completed was 20X Bonus + 1 standard TYP per $ on gas/groceries/restaurants on my Sears M/C from Apr-Jun for up to 20,000 bonus TYP/month. Jan-March it was 15% cashback on gas/groceries/restaurants for up to $800/month spend.

Now THATS the CF i know