Archives for September 2015

One of Chase’s small biz credit cards is called the Ink Plus® Business Card. It turns out to be very similar to the Chase Ink Bold Business card, but with the important difference that the Ink Plus is a credit card where you can carry a balance and the Bold is a charge card that you must pay in full each month. See terms for pricing details.

This means that the Ink Plus is a separate card with its own sign-up bonus, currently a 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points after your after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open. You can read about my Ink Bold bonus experience here.

Ultimate Rewards points are very flexible:

• Cash. 1 point = 1 cent in cash, so 60,000 points = $600 cash.
• Travel. 1 point = 1.25 cents towards travel, so 60,000 points = $750 towards travel at the same prices at Expedia or Travelocity (no % markups), split up however you like into multiple tickets, down to the penny. Good for people who don’t like to bother with miles.
• Frequent flier miles and hotel rewards points. Transfers directly to United miles, British Airways miles, Hyatt hotel points, and Marriott hotel points. Best for folks that are willing to research and maximize their miles. Top up your account to reach an award, an transfer over only what you need..

Here are the important features of this card:

• Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®
• Earn 5X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on cellular phone, landline, internet and cable TV services each account anniversary year.
• Earn 2X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent in combined purchases at gas stations and hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel each account anniversary year.
• Earn 1 point per $1 on all other purchases—with no limit to the amount you can earn
• No foreign transaction fees
• Chip-enabled for enhanced security at home and abroad when used at a chip card reader
• Employee cards at no additional cost
• $95 Annual Fee

Based on past experiences, you should be able to get this card and bonus in addition to the Ink Cash card as they are different cards. I already have the Chase Sapphire Preferred personal card, so I’ll probably wait for a bit and then try out this new card as well for my business. Gift cards purchases are also useful for satisfying the spending requirement for the bonus.

Many people aren’t aware of the fact that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. The business type is called a sole proprietorship, and these days many people are full-time or part-time consultants, freelancers, or other one-person business. This is the simplest business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. On a business credit card application, you should use your own legal name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID. This is how I got all my cards before incorporating, and how my wife gets her business cards for her small side business.

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Citi has gradually been improving the flexibility of their ThankYou (TY) Points rewards program. In the last couple years, they have added several internationally-based airline partners on a 1:1 basis including Cathay Pacific, EVA Air, Etihad, Flying Blue by Air France and KLM, Singapore Airlines, and Thai Airways. Today, Citi announced that eligible cardholders can now transfer their ThankYou Points to US-based Virgin America Elevate® points. The list is currently restricted to “premium” cards including the Citi ThankYou Premier® Card and Citi Prestige® Card. (As long as you have one of these cards, you can transfer in ThankYou points earned from other cards.)

What are Virgin American Elevate points worth? To keep things simple, the overall best redemption option is for US flights on Virgin America. (There are other partner airlines available, but that gets more complicated.) Here is Virgin America’s US route map ], which includes New York City, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cancun, and soon Hawaii.

Assuming you are interested in one of their routes, Elevate points are pretty easy to use. There are no blackout dates or capacity restrictions, so you can redeem points for any domestic Virgin America flight. The amounts of points for a reward flight is vary with the cash cost of the ticket (before taxes and fees). As long as you have an Elevate account, you can poke around and get an idea of the ratio. For the flights I looked at, it varied from 1.6 to 2.6 cents per Elevate point.

Here’s an example San Francisco to Honolulu flight at 2 cents per point for Main Cabin:

Here’s an example Austin to Los Angeles flight at 2.6 cents per point for Main Cabin:

Transfer ratio and value details. ThankYou points will transfer to Virgin America Elevate® points at a 2:1 ratio, with a 1,000 points minimum. In other words, the minimum transfer would be from 1,000 ThankYou points to 500 Virgin America Elevate points. At this standard redemption ratio of 2:1, that gives you a value of 0.8 to 1.3 cents per Citi ThankYou point using this transfer option.

Limited-time 25% transfer bonus. If you make such a transfer by 10/21/15 (11:59 p.m. ET), you will get a 25% bonus on your Elevate points. During this promo, every 1,000 Thank You points = 625 Virgin America Elevate points. At this promotional redemption ratio of 2:1.25, that gives you a value of 1 to 1.6 cents per Citi ThankYou point using this transfer option.

Better to book through ThankYou Travel Center? The problem is that the transfer are only limited to the premium cards, which already have a pretty good redemption option via the Travel Center, which is a aggregation site like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz that sells flights, hotel stays, car rentals, and cruises at similar prices.

• The Citi ThankYou Premier® Card offers 1 ThankYou point = 1.25 cents toward any travel booked through Citi ThankYou Travel Center. You also still get to earn elite qualifying miles on your redeemed flights.
• The Citi Prestige® Card offers 1 ThankYou point = 1.33 cents toward any travel booked through Citi ThankYou Travel Center. You still get to earn elite qualifying miles on your redeemed flights. In addition, you get 1.6 cents per points when redeemed towards American Airlines or US Airways flights. You also still get to earn elite qualifying miles on your redeemed flights.

I am interested in this development because I am currently in my first year of owning the Citi Prestige card and have already earned a 50,000 Thank You point bonus and want to spend them. For me, the two best redemption options value-wise are now on specific Virgin America flights depending on the point/price ratio and all American Airlines flights where I can get close to 1.6 cents per point value. The added flight choices make it easier to find a redemption overall.

I’ve never flown on Virgin America myself, but I wouldn’t mind trying them out as they seem to be at the top of many “best US airlines” lists for customer service and flying experience. (Not that the competition is all that great.)

I’ve written about American Express gift cards several times in the past, mostly when they had a promotion waiving both their purchase fees and shipping fees. In such cases, they were a cheap and efficient way to “time-shift” your purchases if you needed to meet a spending threshold soon to obtain a sign-up bonus, or if you needed some miles sooner for a reward.

American Express recently agreed to a class action settlement regarding these gift cards. Per the official settlement website, here is a summary:

The lawsuit claimed that American Express did not fully disclose all gift card contract terms, and misrepresented the value of the cards. The gift cards were subject to various fees, such as monthly fees and check issuance fees, resulting from trying to make transactions using multiple forms of payment. American Express denies that it did anything wrong, and the Court did not decide which side was right.

The dates for this settlement have been in flux, but the current deadline for claim submission is November 16, 2015. You can also exclude yourself from the settlement by this date. There is a scheduled court hearing on January 22, 2016 to consider final approval of the settlement.

You are a Class Member if you purchased, received, held or used a gift card issued by American Express from January 1, 2002 through September 21, 2011. Any gift card with an American Express logo counts. If you bought a card and gave it to someone else as a gift, you cannot get a payment for that card. The gift receiver should make a claim.

• Depending your specific claim details, if you have a record of your gift card number the settlement offers from $5 to $20 per gift card ($40 per Class Member max, total) from a total fund of about $6.75 million.
• If you don’t have a record of your gift cards and American Express can’t find your records based on your personal information, your max total is $5.
• You can also request to buy a $100 AmEx Gift Card without paying the purchase fee or the shipping/handling fee.

Each Class Member who unsuccessfully tried a split-tender transaction can get up to $20. Those who incurred monthly fees can get up to $8. Those who paid a check issuance fee can get up to $5. A Class Member can claim one or all of these amounts, but no Class Member may get more than $20 per gift card or $40 total. Class Members who held an American Express Card and unsuccessfully tried a split-tender transaction and as a result incurred either a monthly fee or a check issuance fee, and who do not know their American Express gift card number, can get a total of $5. If these claims total more than $1,000,000, the $5 payments will be reduced.

Anyone, even if not a Class Member, can cash out any AmEx gift card with a balance of $25 or less. Fill out a claim form, provide your e-mail, and if the settlement is approved they will send you claim instructions. They will refund your unused balance at no cost. Useful if you don’t want to use the Amazon gift card trick (or have less than 50 cents on it).

If you’re the type of person that keeps detailed records or all your old cards in a drawer, you may be eligible for the max $40 benefit per Class Member. Otherwise, anyone can ask to cash out their small balances. You must fill out one claim form for each gift card and submit it no later than midnight November 16, 2015.