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@msf I did some digging on U.S. Bank website and it looks like you might be able to get away with $50K IRA balance to avoid the $50 annual fee on their upcoming Smartly Visa.
I must be missing something about CapitalOne. None of their 1.5% cash back cards seem to have a higher rate on travel like others offering 4% or 5%. Price match is nice but it only works for 24h, only refunds in travel credits, and you have to go through the hassle of calling them to get it… So, for the unlikely chance that you have overlooked a good deal before booking and then find one within 24h afterwards, you’d have to give up extra 0.5% to 3.5%+ of cash back available at other cash back cards. Does this compute…??
The virtue of the price match is not that something will suddenly go on sale, but that bank travel "portal" prices can regularly be beaten. Getting 5pts/$ at a travel portal is worthless if you can beat their prices by even 5% at the time you make the reservation. This is why I consider travel bonuses with credit cards at other banks as useless if you have to use their "portals".
CapitalOne gives 5x on travel you book through them with their Venture cards, not their Quicksilver cards. Since much of our spending these days has been on travel, I've been willing to look at cards biased toward travel expenses.
I have never bought trip cancellation/interruption insurance, feeling that I don't need the former and I can "self insure" for the latter and come out ahead. These are expensive policies. But I'm beginning to reconsider. I didn't post the cards I'm looking at for travel because they're not coupled with brokerages (i.e. not investment related).
FWIW, Chase Sapphire Reserved seems to give the highest level of coverage for two or more travelers ($10K per traveler up to $20K per trip, up to $40K/year) for $95. I don't mind giving up around 2% in rewards as "payment" for the insurance. Wells Fargo Autograph Journey, also $95, pays 4x-5x on travel and provides up to $15K per traveler. But it limits coverage per trip to $20K, so if you're traveling with someone else, that's no better than Sapphire. And its annual limit is just $20K. And unlike many other cards, it looks like the insurance doesn't cover you if your traveling companion gets sick, unless you are needed as caretaker.
>> already got other cards that give me 5% on groceries I missed it --- which one is that?
I didn't mention it because I was avoiding posting about cards with rotating categories. Citibank's Custom Cash reward pays 5% on the single category you use the most during a monthly billing cycle, up to $500. Not all that useful except I wanted to have a MC in my wallet that I might actually use, at least a little. Groceries seems to be the best category for me to use, so that's all I buy with it, usually.
If one is adept at managing rotating categories on other cards, then any quarter when one of those gives 5% for groceries, the Citibank card can be used for another category.
Ya, and I've heard some bunk at the point of sale about the fee being reverted and charged back to the customer: it's not the merchant charging the CC fee back to me, they said; it's the customer paying the merchant for the privilege of using the new stoopid payment gizmo they just upgraded to. Feces.
I have been using the Fidelity CC for years but switched mostly to Pended CC with 2% cash back https://www.penfed.org/credit-cards Because Pended superior customer service and easier claim filing. The other cards I have used for years are *The Pended 5% at all gas stations, you must pay at the pump. * Amazon CC paying 5% on Amazon purchases. * Schwab world ATM which pays back all fees when you take out cash.
Call your United card customer service to see if they no longer require you to charge at least once a year to extend the expiration of your United miles.
Call your United card customer service to see if they no longer require you to charge at least once a year to extend the expiration of your United miles.
Thanks. Though tbh, it's become force-of-habit at this point to run some niggling purchase. usually some piece of software I want to try, each year.
CapitalOne gives 5x on travel you book through them with their Venture cards, not their Quicksilver cards. Since much of our spending these days has been on travel, I've been willing to look at cards biased toward travel expenses.
Makes more sense now. I thought you were referencing @BenWP and there was a Venture card I'd missed with 1.5% flat cashback rate and not air travel points.
Still with CapitalOne at 1.5% for everything, no fee CapitalOne seems to have an excellent reputation, and as I noted above, price matches on its travel "portal", making its Venture cards more valuable than other banks' for travelers.
Venture cards - particularly, Venture X - do look pretty good if you travel a lot: spend more than ~ $10,400 per year on travel + are willing to go through the hassle of first booking via CapitalOne Travel and then calling in price matches. Else, if I understood the terms correctly, one can only get $0.005 per mile so effective cash back rate drops to 2.5% Air / 5% Hotels & Car Rental / 1% Other.
Alternatively, one could get a BofA Customized Cash Rewards, put $100K into BofA/Merrill - I agree on the latter being "passable" - and have an actual cash back rate of 5.25% Travel / 3.5% Grocery & Club / 1.75% Others up to $2,500 / quarter w no annual fee. No trip cancellation/interruption insurance, though.
Alternatively, one could get a BofA Customized Cash Rewards, put $100K into BofA/Merrill - I agree on the latter being "passable" - and have an actual cash back rate of 5.25% Travel / 3.5% Grocery & Club / 1.75% Others up to $2,500 / quarter w no annual fee. No trip cancellation/interruption insurance, though.
And you get to change your 5.25% category once per calendar month even though the $2500 combined limit (for chosen category + groceries + club) resets just quarterly.
A problem with using a card with a spend cap on bonus cash back (here $2.5K) is that it doesn't work well with "lumpy" categories like travel. In any given quarter one may likely spend much more (esp. for a family) on trips or much less. It's hard to control travel expenses to maximize the card's value.
(On the plus side, at BofA "travel" is very broad and includes "transit" - local commuter stuff like busses and cabs - that Citi excludes from "travel".)
IMHO this card is better suited for the online spending category, for a few reasons. Online spending includes cable/internet/streaming; it's easier to bunch smaller, frequent online purchases to get close to the spending cap; and these days we purchase so much stuff online (but services like taxes and doctors don't count).
If one is limiting travel charges to around $2K, one can find other cards with good travel cash back that cover trip cancellation/interruption. US Bank's Altitude Connect (mentioned above) covers up to $2K per person (though with "just" 4x points unless you book through its "portal" for 5x).
Side note: The old 2% Schwab Visa card gradually(?) evolved into the BofA Customized Cash Rewards card after Schwab got rid of it. So there is another connection between this card and a brokerage.
Interesting piece. Of course to achieve the theoretical maximum benefits possible one could simply get the highest paying card in each category. (What's in your wallet, and your second wallet, and your next wallet ...?) The trick is to optimize subject to the contraints that you want no more than N cards, that you typically spend so many dollars in each category, and that you want to remain sane.
Because we're doing a fair amount of traveling, I started looking at cards with extensive travel protection, no travel spending caps, and a high cash back multiplier (esp. if travel protection is limited). It's a take on greedy bin packing heuristics - filling your wallet with the "biggest" (most useful/valuable) card first, ruling out cards that overlap with it, then putting the next most valuable card, and so on.
As we get older, I find it more likely that one of us could have an “adverse event” before or during a trip, resulting in the need to cancel the whole reservation or part of it. Previously, I never considered insuring our trips. One travel agent convinced me to buy short-term medical coverage for a trip to India by telling me what the out-of-pocket cost would be for a medical evacuation.
In summary, according to their metrics, out of 98 cards top 3 are:
1. Chase Sapphire Reserve - best for Travel Accident Insurance
2. Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite - best for Luggage Insurance
3. Chase Sapphire Preferred - best for Trip Delay / Cancellation Insurance
Best Overall Travel Insurance Coverage: Chase Sapphire Reserve
Sapphire Reserve has a number of perks (such as airport lounge access) above those of Sapphire Preferred. Between that, a higher travel points multiplier (3x vs 2x for travel booked outside of Chase Travel), and a higher point redemption multiplier (1.5x vs 1.25x) for travel purchased through Chase Travel with points, it might be worth the extra $200/year cost (net, after various credits) if you travel extensively.
But ISTM that travel accident insurance, whether $1M with Reserve or $500K with Preferred, has little value. It's like the overpriced flight accident insurance you used to be able to buy through vending machines in airports.
the business model simply depreciated because air travel came to be perceived as so safe and routine, it eliminated any demand for pre-travel life insurance.
IMHO the core value of the Sapphire cards is the cancellation/interruption insurance. That's not cheap. What is cheap and as @BenWP wrote above has real value, is medical insurance and medevac insurance. As one gets older (i.e. reaching Medicare age), one is likely to already be covered for medical services (Medigap Plans C, D, F, G, M, N or many Part C policies). For medical/medevac, try shopping through SquareMouth.
Costs can come in around $100/couple/trip (or higher). Several hundred $$$ more with cancellation/interruption coverage. We've used Trawick via SquareMouth (and filed a claim). Unfortunately, Trawick seems to have dropped their least expensive plan.
Quite frankly, and despite my desire to get bargains wherever feasible, some reward programs are simply too complicated for someone born half-way through WWII. We have traveled far and wide and recently our Delta miles, without my knowing why or planning the outcome, began bestowing free baggage checks on us. I suppose I could pre-pay this benefit with an annual-fee Delta card, but I’ve always used free cards. I like my CapitalOne Quicksilver card, but I am not going to book travel through that company (despite their entreaties). The reward system at our local Meijer is opaque to my eyes, a nuisance which I try to ignore. Menards 11% discount must be used towards future purchases, therefore practically useless unless you are an obsessive saver of receipts. « Clipping » coupons on an app on the phone also strikes me as enabling the merchant while wasting my time. My wife tries to do the clipping at Kroger and often has to get a real person to grant the discount. Age has its benefits, but tolerance may not be one of them.
I charged $2,500 to my BoA credit card on Nov 7 hoping to get this extra $50 back. I just checked my CC account. Interestingly, BoA is showing the transaction date as Nov 8, (notwithstanding I have the credit card purchase receipt of 11/7) and under the Rewards and Bonus column they do not include the $50.
Any of you that tried to avail this extra bonus may want to check your account.
I pulled up a quote for an ETF on Schwab.com (logged in) and wanted to check the indicative value. It showed a loss of 25% with the following notation.
"Intraday indicative value as of 7:00:00 PM ET, 12/31/1969" [Bold added]
With AI, are the computers and their masters becoming stupid or what?
Don't even get me started. My favorite phrase lately, when challenging some automated system's error: "How many other people's jobs do I have to do in order to get this thing accomplished?"
"Intraday indicative value as of 7:00:00 PM ET, 12/31/1969" [Bold added
"The Unix epoch (or Unix time or POSIX time or Unix timestamp) is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970 (midnight UTC/GMT)" https://www.epochconverter.com/
Wall Street is 5 hours behind Big Ben. Schwab's clock got clocked (zeroed out).
I tried paying fed and state estimates on the 7th. BofA shows Fed transaction on the 7th, state transaction on the 8th. At least I got the bonus for the larger one.
Maybe all good card companies are like this, but I just had a huge plumbing emergency (over $35k of work, gah) and the company doing it takes cred cards ...
so while they were jackhammering in the basement and replacing legacy cast iron drainpiping I called Fido for an increase to $50k
They took some financial info (we ain't rich) and said We'll let you know by morning.
At 7a I got text saying yes, increase has been implemented.
There was no time to get any bids, really, as a legacy flange pipe from an old toilet tying to the main output pipe was sprewing whiffy 70yo 'loam' onto the basement floor. Backed up and blocked all of a sudden, actually aerosoling into the basement air. Kind of gross, though not raw, really. So that entire section of the basement and the plumbing above to the working full master bath needed to be redone. Then a lav 12' away also needed attention due to simple seepage / weepage (cast iron to pvc), and that drainpiping all got replaced and the lav toilet reseated and resealed. Original 1950s construction patchworked ever since. Finally, in checking and rooting out the pipe to the septic tank, some sag and near-collapse (all caught on video) was discovered; so round 2 is next week, excavating in yard. Water on-off and lots schlepping / removal of legacy cast iron.
Sure, I did briefly consider halting work midway and having my regular plumber come and assess things and estimate assembling a crew including rooter and jackhammer dig crew and assistant schleppers and parts and all that, then an outdoor excavator ... to what? See how much his total was under $37k?
Sila was onsite simply to do free sump pump inspection, since we're in a drought and the pump has not run in months. The lead master plumber immediately said Whoa, what is that sewage smell? He had me go flush upstairs several times and yelled at me to come down pronto to watch the spew and the burbling overflow around the cap collar on the floor.
Big outfit Sila is, East Coast, lots of tv ads and lowball promos. Staff seemed v smart and expert and clinically experienced. I distrust outfits that do a ton of advertising, but whatever.
Anyway, one never knows exactly what to do when time is of the essence.
I can send you the entire quote of damages plus lots of images, if you would like to see wtf.
It's a rollup of businesses in the areas of HVAC, plumbing, electrical in Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest; the reach of Sila HVAC is more limited. Its online reviews are mixed but on positive side - more expensive, prompt, initial consultation/visit charges, but do good work. In our area, it's a headache to find someone quick to do things.
YBB said, " In our area, it's a headache to find someone quick to do things." So true elsewhere !! davidrmoran, I can certainly understand your sewage problem & wish the best on your repairs. Hopefully the septic tank or field system doesn't need repair or replacement.
@YBB, tyvm for that info --- not surprising, don't know why I didn't think of it or investigate. One of my kids works in that space.
Sila obviously give much attention to service and professionalism and prompt responsiveness and transparency, it is really something. Reassuring confidence. Precision prep and cleanup.
We do have other local plumber groups which somehow have seemed iffier the times I have had to use them, although as I say I rely on my local regular for most things. (He has a boat and a place on the Cape, as well as residence down the road. Everyone knows the joke where the plumber fixes the neurosurgeon's undersink emergency and after 23 hard minutes says 'All set, that'll be $1841.' The neurosurgeon says 'Man, I don't think I can make $1841 in 23 minutes.' And the plumber replies, 'Neither could I when I was a neurosurgeon.')
Sila employees are on staff and the four I have talked to by now, senior and junior, have been with the outfit for many years, 5-9 iirc. Big rigs deployed that they park at home and are fully monitored and insured and so on by the company.
Backbreaking work some plumbing is.
Backyard excavation starts next week.
@Derf, septic tank and cesspool and leachout were and are fine, thanks, and did not even need the $440 inspection and pumping that Sila insisted on.
I feel fortunate as always to be able to afford any of this, though it shoots savings and treat setasides for this and much of next year. Whatever. Not like there was a choice.
Some places may not accept both Visa and MC. Costco is well known for taking only Visa, but this is also important when traveling. My tour company writes of Argentina:
Visa is commonly accepted, but MasterCard and American Express are not. In November 2022, the government of Argentina added a new financial exchange rate (known as “Dólar MEP” or “Mercado Electronico de Pagos”) for all travelers paying with credit cards issued outside of Argentina. This new exchange rate is higher than the official dollar, but is more convenient for travelers. It is essentially a tax on credit card use for travelers. We recommend that instead, you visit an exchange house with your Trip Experience Leader as dollars are appreciated and you will likely get a better exchange rate than paying with card
Comments
CapitalOne gives 5x on travel you book through them with their Venture cards, not their Quicksilver cards. Since much of our spending these days has been on travel, I've been willing to look at cards biased toward travel expenses.
I have never bought trip cancellation/interruption insurance, feeling that I don't need the former and I can "self insure" for the latter and come out ahead. These are expensive policies. But I'm beginning to reconsider. I didn't post the cards I'm looking at for travel because they're not coupled with brokerages (i.e. not investment related).
FWIW, Chase Sapphire Reserved seems to give the highest level of coverage for two or more travelers ($10K per traveler up to $20K per trip, up to $40K/year) for $95. I don't mind giving up around 2% in rewards as "payment" for the insurance. Wells Fargo Autograph Journey, also $95, pays 4x-5x on travel and provides up to $15K per traveler. But it limits coverage per trip to $20K, so if you're traveling with someone else, that's no better than Sapphire. And its annual limit is just $20K. And unlike many other cards, it looks like the insurance doesn't cover you if your traveling companion gets sick, unless you are needed as caretaker.
>> already got other cards that give me 5% on groceries
I missed it --- which one is that?
I didn't mention it because I was avoiding posting about cards with rotating categories. Citibank's Custom Cash reward pays 5% on the single category you use the most during a monthly billing cycle, up to $500. Not all that useful except I wanted to have a MC in my wallet that I might actually use, at least a little. Groceries seems to be the best category for me to use, so that's all I buy with it, usually.
If one is adept at managing rotating categories on other cards, then any quarter when one of those gives 5% for groceries, the Citibank card can be used for another category.
https://www.penfed.org/credit-cards
Because Pended superior customer service and easier claim filing.
The other cards I have used for years are
*The Pended 5% at all gas stations, you must pay at the pump.
* Amazon CC paying 5% on Amazon purchases.
* Schwab world ATM which pays back all fees when you take out cash.
Call your United card customer service to see if they no longer require you to charge at least once a year to extend the expiration of your United miles.
Alternatively, one could get a BofA Customized Cash Rewards, put $100K into BofA/Merrill - I agree on the latter being "passable" - and have an actual cash back rate of 5.25% Travel / 3.5% Grocery & Club / 1.75% Others up to $2,500 / quarter w no annual fee. No trip cancellation/interruption insurance, though.
how-much-cash-back-can-you-earn-from-rotating-category-king-cards/
And you get to change your 5.25% category once per calendar month even though the $2500 combined limit (for chosen category + groceries + club) resets just quarterly.
A problem with using a card with a spend cap on bonus cash back (here $2.5K) is that it doesn't work well with "lumpy" categories like travel. In any given quarter one may likely spend much more (esp. for a family) on trips or much less. It's hard to control travel expenses to maximize the card's value.
(On the plus side, at BofA "travel" is very broad and includes "transit" - local commuter stuff like busses and cabs - that Citi excludes from "travel".)
IMHO this card is better suited for the online spending category, for a few reasons. Online spending includes cable/internet/streaming; it's easier to bunch smaller, frequent online purchases to get close to the spending cap; and these days we purchase so much stuff online (but services like taxes and doctors don't count).
If one is limiting travel charges to around $2K, one can find other cards with good travel cash back that cover trip cancellation/interruption. US Bank's Altitude Connect (mentioned above) covers up to $2K per person (though with "just" 4x points unless you book through its "portal" for 5x).
Side note: The old 2% Schwab Visa card gradually(?) evolved into the BofA Customized Cash Rewards card after Schwab got rid of it. So there is another connection between this card and a brokerage.
Because we're doing a fair amount of traveling, I started looking at cards with extensive travel protection, no travel spending caps, and a high cash back multiplier (esp. if travel protection is limited). It's a take on greedy bin packing heuristics - filling your wallet with the "biggest" (most useful/valuable) card first, ruling out cards that overlap with it, then putting the next most valuable card, and so on.
Credit Card Travel Insurance Study
In summary, according to their metrics, out of 98 cards top 3 are:
1. Chase Sapphire Reserve - best for Travel Accident Insurance
2. Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite - best for Luggage Insurance
3. Chase Sapphire Preferred - best for Trip Delay / Cancellation Insurance
Best Overall Travel Insurance Coverage: Chase Sapphire Reserve
But ISTM that travel accident insurance, whether $1M with Reserve or $500K with Preferred, has little value. It's like the overpriced flight accident insurance you used to be able to buy through vending machines in airports. https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/a-look-back-whatever-happened-to-airport-insurance-vending-machines-22593.aspx
IMHO the core value of the Sapphire cards is the cancellation/interruption insurance. That's not cheap. What is cheap and as @BenWP wrote above has real value, is medical insurance and medevac insurance. As one gets older (i.e. reaching Medicare age), one is likely to already be covered for medical services (Medigap Plans C, D, F, G, M, N or many Part C policies). For medical/medevac, try shopping through SquareMouth.
Costs can come in around $100/couple/trip (or higher). Several hundred $$$ more with cancellation/interruption coverage. We've used Trawick via SquareMouth (and filed a claim). Unfortunately, Trawick seems to have dropped their least expensive plan.
https://promotions.bankofamerica.com/card/morerewardsday"
I charged $2,500 to my BoA credit card on Nov 7 hoping to get this extra $50 back.
I just checked my CC account. Interestingly, BoA is showing the transaction date as Nov 8, (notwithstanding I have the credit card purchase receipt of 11/7) and under the Rewards and Bonus column they do not include the $50.
Any of you that tried to avail this extra bonus may want to check your account.
"Intraday indicative value as of 7:00:00 PM ET, 12/31/1969" [Bold added]
With AI, are the computers and their masters becoming stupid or what?
https://www.epochconverter.com/
Wall Street is 5 hours behind Big Ben. Schwab's clock got clocked (zeroed out).
I tried paying fed and state estimates on the 7th. BofA shows Fed transaction on the 7th, state transaction on the 8th. At least I got the bonus for the larger one.
so while they were jackhammering in the basement and replacing legacy cast iron drainpiping I called Fido for an increase to $50k
They took some financial info (we ain't rich) and said We'll let you know by morning.
At 7a I got text saying yes, increase has been implemented.
Good service.
Xplumber,Derf
Then a lav 12' away also needed attention due to simple seepage / weepage (cast iron to pvc), and that drainpiping all got replaced and the lav toilet reseated and resealed.
Original 1950s construction patchworked ever since.
Finally, in checking and rooting out the pipe to the septic tank, some sag and near-collapse (all caught on video) was discovered; so round 2 is next week, excavating in yard. Water on-off and lots schlepping / removal of legacy cast iron.
Sure, I did briefly consider halting work midway and having my regular plumber come and assess things and estimate assembling a crew including rooter and jackhammer dig crew and assistant schleppers and parts and all that, then an outdoor excavator ... to what? See how much his total was under $37k?
Sila was onsite simply to do free sump pump inspection, since we're in a drought and the pump has not run in months. The lead master plumber immediately said Whoa, what is that sewage smell? He had me go flush upstairs several times and yelled at me to come down pronto to watch the spew and the burbling overflow around the cap collar on the floor.
Big outfit Sila is, East Coast, lots of tv ads and lowball promos. Staff seemed v smart and expert and clinically experienced. I distrust outfits that do a ton of advertising, but whatever.
Anyway, one never knows exactly what to do when time is of the essence.
I can send you the entire quote of damages plus lots of images, if you would like to see wtf.
It's a rollup of businesses in the areas of HVAC, plumbing, electrical in Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest; the reach of Sila HVAC is more limited. Its online reviews are mixed but on positive side - more expensive, prompt, initial consultation/visit charges, but do good work. In our area, it's a headache to find someone quick to do things.
It's owned by Morgan Stanley Capital (private-equity arm of MS) and MS
is trying to sell it now.sold a majority stake to GS.https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/goldman-sachs-acquires-majority-stake-in-sila-services-marking-strategic-expansion/ar-AA1upFAu
davidrmoran, I can certainly understand your sewage problem & wish the best on your repairs. Hopefully the septic tank or field system doesn't need repair or replacement.
Sila obviously give much attention to service and professionalism and prompt responsiveness and transparency, it is really something. Reassuring confidence. Precision prep and cleanup.
We do have other local plumber groups which somehow have seemed iffier the times I have had to use them, although as I say I rely on my local regular for most things. (He has a boat and a place on the Cape, as well as residence down the road. Everyone knows the joke where the plumber fixes the neurosurgeon's undersink emergency and after 23 hard minutes says 'All set, that'll be $1841.' The neurosurgeon says 'Man, I don't think I can make $1841 in 23 minutes.' And the plumber replies, 'Neither could I when I was a neurosurgeon.')
Sila employees are on staff and the four I have talked to by now, senior and junior, have been with the outfit for many years, 5-9 iirc. Big rigs deployed that they park at home and are fully monitored and insured and so on by the company.
Backbreaking work some plumbing is.
Backyard excavation starts next week.
@Derf, septic tank and cesspool and leachout were and are fine, thanks, and did not even need the $440 inspection and pumping that Sila insisted on.
I feel fortunate as always to be able to afford any of this, though it shoots savings and treat setasides for this and much of next year. Whatever. Not like there was a choice.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/travel/choosing-the-best-travel-credit-card.html:
https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/439grp?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share
Some places may not accept both Visa and MC. Costco is well known for taking only Visa, but this is also important when traveling. My tour company writes of Argentina: (I'm still trying to figure out Argentina pesos exchanges and rates:
https://solsalute.com/blog/money-in-argentina-currency-exchange/)