Chase Freedom offer, additional 5% on select categories

[coldfusion]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I don't think anybody else thought of prepaying to take advantage of the offer. Genius!

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It's a pretty common technique to leverage promos or sign-up bonuses.  It often works well with utilities that either have no fee or use a 3rd party service like Western Union that charges a flat fee up to a maximum.  

[K-in-Boston]

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@coldfusion wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

I don't think anybody else thought of prepaying to take advantage of the offer. Genius!

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It's a pretty common technique to leverage promos or sign-up bonuses.  It often works well with utilities that either have no fee or use a 3rd party service like Western Union that charges a flat fee up to a maximum.  

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+1  In the city of Boston, for example, our electric and gas provider charges a $2.50 fee for each increment of $600 paid with a credit card via Western Union SpeedPay.  I very often just pay $600 on each one so that the fee is only 0.417% and when paid with a 5% utilities card like US Bank Cash+ I am still netting 4.583%.  Sometimes that results in 6 or 7 months of a negative gas bill.  LOL  For Verizon FIOS, I've paid ahead a number of months (no fee) and Boston Water & Sewer charges no fee.

So for this offer, I will definitely switch to my Freedom card, pay $600 on gas and electric, and earn a net of 7.083% since I use the Chase Travel portal to redeem URs.

[coldfusion]

lol, National Grid.  I do the same thing.  They don't care. 

[Ragdollkitty]

I can prepay gas bill, which I do since the fee is a flat fee.  Electric company (Comed) doesn't allow prepayment, but I still charge the bill every month and pay the fee asthe 5% Us bank return still makes it worthwhile.

Unfortunately for me, no offers on any of my Chase cards 

[Anonymous]

I'd have to look into it, I don't think my utility companies allow prepay. I also don't want to get too ahead of myself and keep it within PIF amounts because i don't want to wind up having to pay off more in one month than the other. I still have a monthly budget regardless of not having to pay those bills for the next few months.  I hate digging into savings for this type of stuff, plus I might need it if things don't improve soon.