It is that time again for a roundup of the credit cards I plan to apply for in the next few days. It has been over three months since the last credit card application party I threw for myself. It really is not a party it is more of a night that I set aside to find the best cards that give me the most benefits or rewards in the upcoming spending season.
I plan on canceling a Chase Marriott Card that renews with an annual fee and a Starwood Preferred Guest from American Express that also has an annual fee the second year once these apps go through. I have had the Chase Sapphire Card before as a Visa. I am hoping to get that card as a MasterCard this time since it has been a few years and get the bonus offering.
I have decided to apply for two Barclayscards since they seem to have some of the best offerings right now for immediate gratification of points or miles. One card which is a US Airways card I found with no annual fee gives me 35,000 AAdvantage miles basically before the merger is completed and they get rid of US Airways branded cards. American Airlines will most likely discontinue their relationship with Barclayscard then move the US Airways customers over to a new card with Citi. It could go either way though and both of the banks lose out. They have a longer relationship with Citi so it is best you act on this now. I need all the American AAdvantage miles I can get.
CitiBusiness card was straightforward when I was approved it was instant and said my card will be in the mail within two weeks. This card is a card I have previously held and churned now but I believe I had the Visa version of it. This will be the MasterCard version and will give me 30,000 AAdvantage miles after I spend $1,000 on anything. I am hoping to use this card to just book rental car travel such as Hertz, Avis, or Budget because it pays 2x on these purchases.
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I signed up for the Commerce Bank Rewards Visa Card just one year ago this week so now that I have paid off my balance I am looking over the reward program. This card started out as a 0% Balance transfer card for 12 months with no fee if done by February 24th of last year. I took advantage of that offer as I do many 0% offers with no transfer fees. These are hard to come by so you have to move fast. There are only a few of them out right now and those are from Chase Slate and possibly this card. It is rare when they come along but they do from time to time.
The Discover it Card is a “revolutionary” CashBack Bonus rewards card that will be available to both regular consumers and college students. There will be two Discover it™ Cards available to consumers and one for Students. As you can see below the main difference in the two customer cards is the purchase APR and the length of the introductory 0% APR offer from 14 to 18 months. We see no difference in the cash back or the annual fee remaining at zero. We see lots more flexibility compared to older versions or current Discover cards but still no mention of when you can redeem your cash back which is a major problem with Discover. They make you wait until you get to $50 in Cash before you can get a credit statement so we are hoping they change this also to compete with Chase Ultimate Rewards where you can redeem with any amount of points. The 1% cash back on all other purchases with an asterisk may be the only real change we see in this new card besides the IT name and perhaps the design. We will wait to see if they bring out something more “revolutionary” than these bullet points because this so far is nothing THAT or “IT” new. 
Kohl’s this season has been one of my favorite places to shop thanks to some extremely hot cash back offers from Chase. We are also double dipping our rewards points with this retailer. Kohl’s is offering an extra 25% off when you spend $100 or more with code MOREGIFTS25 and free standard shipping for orders $50 or more. Make sure you pair this with 10X per dollar spending cash back via the Ultimate Rewards Mall and using your Chase Freedom Visa or MasterCard to complete the purchase gives you an additional 5X cash back. If you have a Kohl’s credit card don’t use it but instead use the Chase Freedom Card until the end of the year. 
American Airlines has one of my favorite miles programs out there so this is pretty exciting to get an easy 500 miles added to your account especially if you need some activity in the account. All you need to do is fill out a 1 or two minute easy survey on Facebook that awards 500 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. 
This is the greatest thing since sliced bread… really. Citi’s ThankYou points has been junk for years and not worth anyone’s time if you ask me until now. Citi is following the lead from Discover Card and is now letting you make purchases with Amazon by signing in. This could not come at a better time since Black Friday is next week and Holiday Shopping is in full swing. Ordering from Amazon with the Thank You Points is simple and it seems to be closer to 1 point per $1 purchase than redeeming for statement credits or cash.
Is this card the real deal that all these travel bloggers are going crazy about the last few weeks? I have read countless posts on how you can go up to an Office Depot and BUY a Vanilla Reload card with a credit card then go over to a Walmart to buy a Bluebird card and use that Vanilla.com site to load up the Bluebird card in increments of $500 or so. If you do this you end up making 1% to 5% on some credit cards in rewards. This is great if it proved to be true it would help me pay on my taxes without writing checks directly. This being because you can use the Bluebird card to pay bills or even get the money out at ATM’s but they may charge a fee if you go out of their network or not initiate direct deposit within 30 days.
My new U.S. Bank Cash Plus Card came in the mail this week and I have been uber excited. This is the card I told you about a few months ago that gives you 5% cash back in 2 categories you choose. I just activated my card then signed on to their Cash+ site to select my categories. I picked the 2% category for groceries which I may not really use. I already have a 2% back card that gives a FULL two on everything so that is not really needed but just in case it happens to be in my wallet at the grocery store.
This seems to be an offer that is targeted but I am sure if you call in to Citi they may be able to sign you up if you have an AAdvantage (American Airlines) rewards card. The deal is that you get 3X AAdvantage Miles on Eligible Holiday Shopping Purchases. That’s when you ask what qualifies for a holiday purchase?
The best way to maximize your spending when it comes to rewards is to make out a plan and look up all of the promotions while you are paying bills for the current billing month. I make a spreadsheet or in this case I just decided to write it out for this blog post and go back to remind me what cards I should be using for what purchases. I plan on using two credit cards from Chase and Discover the most the final quarter of the year starting October 1st. The Discover More Card is offering 5% Cashback Bonus on up to $1,500 in purchases at Department Stores and for all Online Shopping from October through December. Chase is offering through it’s Freedom branded line of cards a 5% back at airline and hotel purchases and on retailers Best Buy and Kohl’s. I liked it much better last year when it was 5% at Amazon.com. I will just use my Discover More for Amazon since it covers all online up to $1,500 supposedly.