Best card to use at Costco

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Yeah it looks like a good alternative to the BoA travel rewards card for people who can't put 100k into a Merrill Edge account (which gets you a no-fee card with a higher return than this).

---

Or have other reasons.  You're being very presumptious that some of us have not already run the numbers.  I can easily move a small portion of my portfolio into merril edge, prefer not for several reasons as mentioned already.  Moving assets to achieve a miniscule increase in a credit card return is extremely poor financial reasoning to change brokerages.  To make a decision like this for a very small credit return is missing the forrest for the trees. There are much more important and larger financial considerations/impacts to consider.  And there are far superior ways to get a vastly higher credit card ROI than trying to grind out an extra 0.01% if that is the goal.  All that said, when the ME bonus is back at 1 K, I'll revisit it to see if it makes sense.  I still don't like the fact that I'd be locked into ETF's instead of my preferred index funds.  Charles Schwab has better investment offerings (index funds) than ME for a lower cost/lower expense ratio.  They also have a nice credit card option as well with the amex plat 1.25 liquidation boost which is nice with the BBP and just cashing out churned amex rewards.  For those reasons, I prefer CS for my brokerage needs.

[BronzeTrader]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Yeah it looks like a good alternative to the BoA travel rewards card for people who can't put 100k into a Merrill Edge account (which gets you a no-fee card with a higher return than this).

---

Or have other reasons.  You're being very presumptious that some of us have not already run the numbers.  I can easily move a small portion of my portfolio into merril edge, prefer not for several reasons as mentioned already.  Moving assets to achieve a miniscule increase in a credit card return is an extremely poor reason to change brokerages.  To make a decision like this for a very small credit return is missing the forrest for the trees. There are much more important and larger financial considerations/impacts to consider.  And there are far superior ways to get a vastly higher credit card ROI than trying to grind out an extra 0.01% if that is the goal.  All that said, when the ME bonus is back at 1 K, I'll revisit it to see if it makes sense.  I still don't like the fact that I'd be locked into ETF's instead of my preferred index funds.  Charles Schwab has better offerings than ME for lower cost/lower expense ratio index funds.  They also have a nice credit card option as well.  For those reasons, I prefer CS for my brokerage needs.

---

Do you know that Merrill Edge offers no-fee trading with top level PR accounts?  Tell me what other large brokers, CS, Fidelity, E*Trade etc., who offer no-fee trading other than during its promotion period?  I'd like to find those trees in the vast forest.  The difference may be miniscule with $100,000 portfolio, but I'd like to know....

[Anonymous]

---

@BronzeTrader wrote:

---

@Anonymous Do you know that Merrill Edge offers no-fee trading with top level PR accounts?  Tell me what other large brokers, CS, Fidelity, E*Trade etc., who offer no-fee trading other than during its promotion period?  I'd like to find those trees in the vast forest.  The difference may be miniscule with $100,000 portfolio, but I'd like to know....

---

I keep my brokerage investments in pure passive index funds with extremely low fees -- hence no need for no-fee trading.  I am not an active trader as it's not sound financial strategy.  What I care about is low cost index fund options.  CS is the best at this (lowest cost), and Vanguard has the widest selection.  For those reasons I stick with them.  I have zero need or desire for doing multiple trades.

[UncleB]

While touching on other related topics is fine we need to try to keep this thread focused on discussing the best credit card for use at Costco. 

Thanks,

--UB

[Anonymous]

Thanks Uncle. The topic touches on these other aspects in the sense the to get the 3.5 percent at Costco you have to be willing to put 100k in M.E. and so I think there's some value in discussing whether they has a cost.

I am also a low cost passive investor and for the record the 100k I put into the M.E. account is in a Vanguard mutual fund, which I transferred from Vanguard. I don't plan on selling this fund, I don't plan on buying new funds, I'm just parking it there for the next twenty years.

So personally I think the cost of doing this is zero. Actually, M.E. has a $20 fee to trade funds (zero to trade ETFs) but I don't plan on ever paying that $20. New money continues to go into my account at Vanguard and it costs me absolutely nothing to park this Vanguard fund at M.E. (actually they paid a bonus to move it).

The benefit of the Cash Rewards card then goes from 2% at Costco to 3.5% and Travel Rewards goes to 2.63% everywhere (including Costco) which in my opinion is not a small increase but I guess it depends how much your spend at Costco.

[BronzeTrader]

Too much analysis.  Get the Costco GC at 5% cash back (Discover or Freedom) and use those GCs.  Life is already complicted.  There is easy money to be picked elsewhere.  Good luck to all.

[wasCB14]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks Uncle. The topic touches on these other aspects in the sense the to get the 3.5 percent at Costco you have to be willing to put 100k in M.E. and so I think there's some value in discussing whether they has a cost.

I am also a low cost passive investor and for the record the 100k I put into the M.E. account is in a Vanguard mutual fund, which I transferred from Vanguard. I don't plan on selling this fund, I don't plan on buying new funds, I'm just parking it there for the next twenty years.

So personally I think the cost of doing this is zero. Actually, M.E. has a $20 fee to trade funds (zero to trade ETFs) but I don't plan on ever paying that $20. New money continues to go into my account at Vanguard and it costs me absolutely nothing to park this Vanguard fund at M.E. (actually they paid a bonus to move it).

The benefit of the Cash Rewards card then goes from 2% at Costco to 3.5% and Travel Rewards goes to 2.63% everywhere (including Costco) which in my opinion is not a small increase but I guess it depends how much your spend at Costco.

---

Keep in mind the quarterly $2.5k caps for all bonus categories combined. 3.5%/5.25% can suddenly drop to a marginal 1.75% (which isn't so bad). I'll keep my 2%/4% in the interest of simplicity and greater price/purchase protections. I can use BBP most places outside Costco.

ME got such awful reviews years ago that I'm reluctant to try it despite more recent (light) praise. It certainly has low fees for my needs (mostly individual stocks, a few ETFs). But the low price does not satisfy my unease about various IT bugs and mediocre customer service. With Schwab, I pay a little more but get good execution and customer service...and an effectively free Amex Platinum to top it off.

Again, unlike you, I am not a passive investor. I can see how ME might work for you, but I'm staying away.

[Anonymous]

So to be clear I didn't switch everything to ME, just enough to get Platinum honors. I still have an account elsewhere that I use for Investing new money and rebalancing. I moved a US index fund to ME, and I'm comfortable that I will hold that part of my portfolio without any trading for the next twenty years.

I won't discuss why I like my other broker better since I'd like to keep the focus on getting a good card for Costco, so just mentioning that I do not actually use ME for trading. I just parked a fund there. You can certainly keep Schwab and still park something at ME.

I do also have the travel rewards card which this deal makes 2.63% so if I spend more than 10k/yr at Costco on the Cash Rewards that is not a bad fallback.

[CreditCuriosity]

Thread has ran it course and turned into what Brokerage I prefer vs. what card to use at Costco.  So now it is closed for comments.