[We’re reposting this since it starts tomorrow, June 2.]
Contents
NBA Finals 5x Dates
The BBVA NBA card earns 5x rewards twice a year: during the NBA Finals (coming soon) and during the All-Star weekend.
Read: BBVA Compass NBA TripleDouble American Express Card Review
We verified with BBVA that the exact dates the upcoming event period will be run from June 2 until June 16 – fifteen days total. It won’t matter how many days the games actually play out.
From June 2nd to June 16th. ~MM
— BBVA in the USA (@BBVA_USA) May 18, 2016
Getting the Card
It used to be possible to get the card online, but now it needs an in-branch application. Most of their locations are in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas. (Locator) As far as I know, it’s not possible to sign up over the phone either.
The card no longer has any signup bonus.
Limits?
Starting July 1, 2016, we’ll only earn 5x points on purchases up to $5,000 per event. We’ll be able to do $5,000 during the All-Star and another $5,000 during the finals – $10,000 per year or $500 cash back if maximized.
This upcoming Finals, from June 2 – June 16, is the last time we’ll be able to get the 5x without a limit.
Bear in mind, that we’re obviously limited by the credit line. Since there are 15-days to get 5x, you should be able to pay off the card and reuse the credit limit again if you have lots of purchases to make. It would be a good idea to make the payment immediately so as to free up the credit line quickly.
BBVA Issues Resolved
During previous NBA events, there were problems with how BBVA calculated the points, and we wrote a detailed post on how to make sure you’ll get your points. Luckily, this past February, there were no issues at all, and any purchase made during the eligible days got the proper rewards.
A few other points:
- Remember that online purchases don’t always follow the order date; if you order something online on the last couple days of the promo, it might not count
- Previously, it had been possible to get 6x on grocery store spend since grocery always gets 2x and they added 4x, but this changed last time and we now get 5x on everything
- Some people remember the first time BBVA ran the 5x event which resulted in a lot of fraud locks on people’s accounts; I believe in subsequent events things went much smoother for most of us
Tips to Maximize
Here are some ideas…
- Pay bills Insurances, medical bills, gym memberships, college tuition, etc.
- Prepay bills Same idea – some bills can even be prepaid. Consider paying off these bills for the rest of the year or however much you’re comfortable with.
- Buy Visa gift cards at your local supermarket or drugstore. Unload those with money orders or just use them for regular spend in the future.
- Pay taxes If anyone has some tax liability they can pay now (e.g. quarterly taxes), this is one real opportunity to do so. The fee can be less than 2%, and you can profit 3% without getting out of your PJs. See our Guide to Paying Taxes with a Credit Card for more information.
- Pay your rent Fees can be as low as 2.5% and many will take Amex for the payment. See our Complete List Of Options For Paying Your Rent With A Debit Or Credit Card.
- Pay your loan bills with Plastiq. You can use the NBA card to pay bills that don’t usually accept credit cards utilizing the Plastiq billpay service. For example, pay the mortgage, car loan, home equity, and similar. There is a 2.5% fee for Amex and you’ll net around 2.5% on each bill payment. Again, an easy option to do in PJ’s and perhaps the most scalable for some people. [If you never used Plastiq before, grab a referral from the comments of this post to get your first $200 in processing free.] Update: Readers note that not all Plastiq payments will earn 5x.
Fund a bank account Many banks allow credit card funding and there are a few who allow Amex cards as well. We have a page dedicated to clarifying which banks allow credit card funding and which don’t. Here are the ones mentioned there as being able to fund with Amex: US Bank $500 (varying data points on cash advance), Consumers Credit Union $1,000, American Heritage Credit Union $500, Destinations Credit Union $1,000, and there may be others as well. [It’s worth trying to lower the cash advance limit to be safe.] If you were considering opening one of these bank accounts, this can be an opportunity to do so and hopefully it will come through at 5x.- Charity Give any charitable donations you had in mind, most will accept credit card or Paypal.
- Buy merchant gift cards to places you shop – local shops, favorite restaurants, or online merchants.
- Amex Offers If you have any Amex Offers added to the BBVA card, hold out on using it until June 2 if you can.
Be sure to consider the alternatives before racking up spend on the BBVA card. For example, it wouldn’t make sense to pay your cellular bill if you have an INK card that isn’t maxed out or if you have an Amex Offer that would give you 10% off. And it wouldn’t necessarily make sense to buy up restaurant gift cards for the rest of the year if you can get them using your Discover card in this quarter or using your Freedom card in the next quarter of 2016.
Warning
In the past, all purchases earned 5x rewards besides something that comes through as a cash advance. However, there’s always a chance that they’ll decide to manually review purchases and exclude certain transactions.
The fine print mentions:
…you will not earn points for…payments made for prepaid and reloadable cards such as certain gift cards, and similar cards, payments made for payment instruments that can readily be converted to cash (for example, travelers cheques, money orders, wire transfers, and similar products or services)…
Purchases made at superstores and wholesale clubs, through a third-party payment account or on an online marketplace (with multiple retailers) will not earn additional bonus points. A purchase may not earn additional bonus points if the merchant submits the purchase using a mobile or wireless card reader or if you use a mobile or digital wallet to make the purchase.
Once again, in the past everything that came through as a purchase worked, but beware of the small risk that they’ll make problems. Last time around, I recall people getting verbal confirmation from BBVA that paying taxes is okay, so I imagine that would be fine.
Update: I hadn’t been aware of this, but readers note in the comments that BBVA has NOT been crediting 5x for all purchases. Here are some things that will NOT earn 5x:
- Serve loads
- Some Plastiq payments (it seems to depend on the payment)
- Costco and Sam’s Club
Since Serve loads don’t work, I wonder if other financial transactions, like funding CCU bank account, will also not earn 5x.
Final Thoughts
This NBA Finals will be the last chance to get an unlimited 5% back on all purchases using the BBVA NBA card. It’s certainly an opportunity to maximize and try to run whatever forthcoming purchases and expenses you have.
I was just about to pay a big car insurance bill until I realized that there’s still a few weeks until it’s due and it can be paid with the NBA card on June 2. I’ve also been on the fence to open a Consumers Credit Union account for the 4.59% APY, and I may take the opportunity to do so during the Finals and fund it $1,000 with the BBVA card.
We’ll repost this when we get closer to the promotion but thought it was worth putting out the dates and some tips for those who like to pre-plan.
Don’t know if anyone will see this, but wanted to give another data point on Plastiq…
Universal Property Insurance payment via Plastiq did NOT earn 5X (the fee did though). Boo.
I didnt do so well on this one, I put a little more than $4000 of spend on my card but I have only received a little over $100 in points, I didnt receive 5x on a $558 car insurance payment through plastiq, but I did on the $5 plastiq service charge. I also spent $1500 on giftcardmall and another $400 on amex gc on the 16th which I didnt receive 5x on, bbva showed the purchase on the 18th and posting on the 20th. Im going to see what happens between now and the end of my billing cycle and then maybe try calling them. It kind of stinks getting only about half of the points I was anticipating.
Yep. Happy to report I got all of my 5x back. I will miss this next year. All of my purchases were at drugstore 😉
Couple of datapoints for future. I paid my eBay seller fees (not a purchase) and purchased Amazon gift card from Amazon just to test it it.
Both purchases earned 5x.
eBay was posted as “EBAY INC. 0000”
Amazon was posted as “AMAZON.COM”
Thanks, it seems like just about everything worked.
Yep. Some of my purchases beginning on 6/7 are posted as 5x. Some are not. But none before that date have posted as 5x. Such a crap bank.
I think they have people manually doing these, since there’s no rhyme or reason to it. For example, sometimes costco posts as 2x, sometimes as 1x. It’s a mess.
anybody else seeing purchases from June 2 and June 3 posting on the Triple Double rewards site as only 1x??
None of my purchases after that date have posted yet (and i made many on June 4 – June 12), but the first handful i made have showed up showing no bonus, only the 1x. I’m hoping they get modified later. they are clearly legit purchases that qualify for the promotion and are on the correct dates.
Yeah, I’m seeing it too. Waiting….
Same here….
Any purchase 6/2-6/7 thus far only at 1%…
Then a S&S purchase at 5% on 6/8
then a CVS purchase back to 1% 6/8
then a Simon purchase at 5% on 6/9
This looks like a screw up IMO. At what point do I call in? I figured I’d see what the next ‘wave’ over the next few days looks like, then call and complain. They aren’t the brightest bulbs at this bank, so I could see it being an issue if not resolved quickly.
Give it another few days, I think
Do we think the dates are going to be extended now that they’re going to game 7?!
No, I don’t think so.
Doubtful, they aren’t reduced if it only goes to four games.
data point..i assumed it would go all the way until 6/19 cuz that’s when game 7 was. i made a purchase on 6/17 and only got 1x credit. i contacted them and explained i assumed it would go up to game 7 and they gave me and addition 4x credit as a one time courtesy.
So does it go by purchase date or post date? In other words, do all purchases count as 5x through the 16th, even if they post later?
Has been post date in the past.
Wasn’t it trans date? I am pretty sure purchase during all star weekend didn’t post until few days late and I still got 5X.
Not sure, didn’t participate in All Star Weekend unfortunately :(.
I had some items ordered online from Home Depot during ASW that didn’t post until later in the week. I did NOT get bonus on these orders.
Not sure for online orders. Maybe they work differently as transaction date might be even they ship it out. My were all in store purchases and BBVA took sweet time to post the purchases. I still got 5x back.
I paid my taxes on June 5 and my statement closed June 9. I logged into my rewards site and don’t see any rewards yet. Anyone know how long it takes after statement closing for it to show up?
They aren’t showing them until after the promo for some reason.
Maxed out my credit line the first day of the promo. The bank has already received my payment for the full amount but they say they will not free up the credit line for 5-10 business days. Any suggestions or magic words to get them to free it up sooner so I can spend on the card before the promo period ends?
Yes, that;s my experience as well, maxed out the credit line, sent in payment within 2 days, and they accepted one payment to bring the avial credit back up, with my reg stmt ending mid-promo period in my favor. BUT the third time I submitted a payment to bring my CL up to do more spend, they HELD the pymt received as “pending” for 5+ bus days … they are slowing the spend to cut their losses … 🙂