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If you have a Bank Of America credit card, a new quartet of offers were recently activated. Now I don’t know if these become available to every member or they are targeted to a subset of their cardholders depending on whatever criteria their computer uses.
So with that YMMV out of the way, the four new offers that were recently added are shown in the annotated screen-shot picture right after this sentence:
It’s September 15, and this means, among many other things, you can now activate your 5% Chase Ultimate Rewards categories for the fourth quarter of 2015 (October 1st until December 31st). As usual, the quarterly limit is $1500 in eligible purchases. After that, you earn the standard reward amount (1% in most cases).
You can easily activate them when you login to your Chase account, in the summary page, there is an “Activate Now” button in the “5% Cash Back status” line for every eligible card in your account. You have to do this for each card. The 4th quarter is very Amazon-centric as it features purchases at Amazon, Zappos, Diapers and Audible, all original or purchased Amazon companies.
Strategy vs the Discover Q4 5%
Speaking of rewards, don’t forget to also activate your Discover Q4 rewards which also include Amazon, along with various department stores and clothing stores.
Strategically, depending on your purchases, you may want to use Discover for the department/clothing stores and shift the Amazon purchases to the Chase card. That’s if you are going to get close to the $1500 limits (for the 5% rewards).
If you have a Discover Credit Card, you can now sign up for the fourth quarter (October 1 until December 31 in 2015) 5% Cashback Bonus rewards. Activation is simple, you logon to your account, go to the Rewards page, and press the orange “Activate 5%” button.
The categories for Q4 are:
A screenshot of the relevant part of the Activation page is included below for those not already familiar with it:
This is a targeted promotion that is part of the American Express credit card offers, for cards with Membership Rewards points. The promotion runs from 9/1 to 10/31 in 2015, and gets you 1000 Membership Reward points if you make a purchase of $50 or more at a Whole Foods store. This amount has to be reached in a one in-store transaction (any combination of items that gets you to $50+).
If you stick close to the $50 mark, it is essentially a 20% discount, assuming you are planning to use the 1000 rewards points in a 1:1 (points to pennies) exchange rate later on (for example, redeem them for gift cards for other merchants).
The offer is limit one for the promotional period. As usual, you have to first manually opt-in, which is easier than it sounds, you just press the “Add to Cart” button on your account. While many of the offers are shared between this and the AMEX Blue cards (so you can choose which one to activate it on), this one, because it is a Membership Rewards promotion, it is not eligible (does not show up) in the Blue AMEX Offers.
With the Amex Blue offers, I did a combination of physical goods and gift card purchases and the promotion worked fine. This is the first time I am doing the Membership Points offer, but since gift cards are not excluded in the terms and conditions, it should be fine.
TD Ameritrade, the Borg discount investment company made up of TD Waterhouse, Ameritrade and Datek, has a credit card that gets you unconditional 1.5% cashback on purchases, with no annual fee, and no limits. And if you select to deposit your cashback into a TD Ameritrade account, you earn an extra 10% bonus on your rewards, effectively making it 1.6% instead of 1.5%. This is a Visa Signature so you get additional benefits. If you are a current or previous client, they have sent by postal mail a shiny folded postcard size promotion.
If you have a Chase Freedom credit card, you can now activate the third quarter (July 1 until September 30 in 2015) 5% rewards promotion. You can activate it through their website or 1-click activate through the email reminders they sent (if you are signed up for those). The Q3 features Gas Stations and Kohl’s. Keep in mind, both also offer a variety of gift cards for other retailers, so even if you won’t spend $1500+ on just gas and Kohl’s shopping alone, you can also buy gift cards for other retailers over there!
Surprise! For the 3rd quarter of 2015, the Discover 5% Cashback Bonus includes Amazon.com! Typically Amazon is included in the 4th quarter with the holiday shopping, so this is a nice bonus for frequent shoppers over there. Amazon is in addition to Department Stores and Home Improvement Stores eligible for the 5% bonus in the 3rd quarter (July 1 until September 30 in 2015).
You can activate this promotion right now to be ready. You will earn rewards on this promotion starting July 1st. Unlike Chase Ultimate Rewards that offer retroactive bonuses, this only works going forward, so it’s always a good idea to sign up as early as possible. The usual $1500 quarterly limit applies.
The fineprint has some more details on what qualifies (after the break)…
If you are part of the Lucky’s Rewards program, they sent an email today with a new promotion. When you make a purchase at a Lucky’s store using your Rewards card, your cash register receipt will have promotion codes that get you one free Redbox movie rental per week for the month of June 2015. Each free rental is only for one night. If you keep the movie for more than one night, you have to pay for nights #2 and later. As such, you have to provide a payment method when you rent the movie at the Redbox kiosks. Cannot be combined with other offers.
UPDATE: the promo codes work on all Redbox locations, not just the ones inside the Lucky store you got the promo code from.
If you are a member of the Citibank Thank You Rewards program, and have earned rewards ready to spend, they are having a one day Reward sale, on May 26 in 2015, from 9am ET to 11:59pm ET on that day. Select items in select product categories will be available to get with fewer rewards than usual. This offer is only for members. You do not pay for this with real money, you pay for them with your previously earned rewards.
If you have a Chase Freedom credit card with the rotating 5% reward categories, mark your calendars and your ToDo lists. You can sign up for the 2nd Quarter promotions starting on Sunday 3/15/15. The new categories go live on 4/1/15 until 6/30/15, and they are very nice as well, they cover Restaurants, Bed Bath and Beyond, Overstock.com and H&M. The usual limits apply, you earn 5% on up to $1500 in purchases, so the maximum rewards is going to be $75. For purchases over $1500 in these categories during the quarter, you will earn the usual 1%.
Here’s a screenshot of the reminder:
It is March 2015 and this means, among many other things, it is time to sign up for the Discover Q2 5% Rewards! The promotion runs April 1st until June 30th (the usual three months, per calendar quarter), but sign up begins one month before the offer goes live. And the Q2 offers are really good, Restaurants and Movies!
The usual terms apply, up to $1500 in purchases per credit card earn 5% reward, with a maximum bonus for the quarter of $75 in rewards. The fineprint of the promotion describes the eligible places as follows:
For the whole of 2015, Discover may be offering you 5% cashback at Six Flags. This offer is shown when you login to your Discover account, on the right side of the page, under “5% Cashback Bonus”. You have to manually opt-in for this offer, which runs until 12/31/15. The starting date is after you manually opt-in. I don’t know if this offer is targeted or available to all Discover members. The best way to find out is to look for it in your account.
The terms say:
“Activate to earn 5% Cashback Bonus® on all purchases made at Six Flags® from 1/1/15 (or the date on which you sign up, whichever is later) through 12/31/15. Only purchases made at Six Flags parks and www.SixFlags.com will qualify. Purchases made using Near Field Communication (NFC), virtual wallets, or similar technology may not be eligible. Rewards are added to your Cashback Bonus account within 2 billing periods. See Cashback Bonus Program Terms and Conditions for more information about your rewards.”
Great news for credit card cashback fans! Chase has published a sneak preview of their 2015 5% rotating quarterly categories and there’s an exciting change! The first quarter is Grocery Stores! This is huge since we all need food! It has the usual quarterly limit of $1500, and some stores are not eligible (eg Walmart, Target, and other warehouse stores) as usual. But still, this is a great cashback opportunity. The maxout on this is $75 in Cashback Rewards for the first quarter (5% of $1500). Also included in Q1 are Starbucks and Movie Theatres. This increases the chances of more people maxing out the first quarter.
The second quarter is headlined by Restaurants, while the third is gas stations. Both have “and more” so more options may be added. The last quarter, as usual, it is holiday shopping time, headlined by Amazon.com. For each quarter, the activation (sign-up/opt-in) for promotion is the 15th of the previous month. So for Q1, you can sign up starting December 15, for Q2 you can sign up March 15, and so forth. Another consumer-friendly thing that Chases does (I know, shocking!), you can sign up deep into the quarter and still qualify.
Tip: you can also buy gift cards at the various participating stores, so you can pre-buy your future purchases. For example, if you are a regular Starbucksaholic, you can load up your gift card for future purchases. Or buy other store gift cards through the grocery stores. Or gift certificates at your favorite restaurants or gas stations. And so forth.
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