We’re getting closer to the start of quarter four of 2014, which means it’s now possible to activate your 5% cashback categories on cards that offer 5% rotating categories (Chase Freedom, Discover it & Citi Dividend). Below we look at how to sign up for each card, what each card’s categories are and ways for you to increase your spend in those categories.
Contents
Chase Freedom: Amazon.com, Zappos.com & Select Department Stores
Last year Amazon payments did not code as an Amazon.com purchase, so that option is out the window.
Discover it: Online Shopping + Department Stores
Update: Google Wallet codes NFC transactions as “online shopping” and will pay out 5% cash back.
Last year, Amazon Payments was considered online shopping and thus it was incredibly easy to hit the $1,500 spending cap. In case you haven’t heard the news Amazon Payments will be shutting down the P2P payments on October 13th. This means you’ll have one month (October) in Q4 that you’ll be able to use this method. Unfortunately Amazon Payments is limited to $1,000 per month, which will leave you with an additional $500 in your spending cap.
Citi Dividend: Best Buy, Department Stores & Toy Stores
Most of you will have already maxed out the $6,000 in spend a year that Citi allows in it’s 5% rotating categories in the first quarter when they offered drugstores and CVS was still selling Vanilla gift cards.
Our Verdict
If you’re not sure how a business will code, my suggestion is to read this post and then do a small test purchase first. This quarter isn’t particularly interesting for me at the moment, I’ll likely use my cards for online purchases for gifts for friends & family and also visit some local department stores to see if they sell any giftcards that I find interesting. You can view all the cards that earn 5%+ cashback by clicking here.
What tactics are you planning to use to meet the $1,500 in spend you have available? We will keep this post up to date with anything we test/try.
All bloggers are urged to write a post about how not a smart idea is to get cancelled.
Chase:
Chase has been cracking down for sometime and has increased their crackdowns recently
They are cancelling for:
Too many new credits in short time( new credit alerts not just with chase)
Abnormal large purchases with chase cards
MS deposit in chase checking= your checking and all your cards will be shut down.
The shut downs are done by chase risk management dept. They are separate from those who approved your applications. YOu can brag about getting multiple cards approved but they risk management people careless about your prior approval success. Their sole job is to SHUT DOWN accounts. If they see a slight risk, they will shut down even if you have been with them for 18 yrs.
What about Simon Visa Gift Cards from Gift Card Mall?
https://www.giftcardmall.com/simon.aspx
$7 fee including shipping for a $500 Visa gift card. Almost 4% cashback. Not incredible, but not too bad.
Good to know about the discover card and AZP. I’ve been holding off of almost all purchases just so I could utilize this quarter’s categories. Boring I know, but if I hadn’t done that, I’d look into sales + coupons + poerals for reselling GCs or products.