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What makes this new bonus on the Sapphire Preferred card so special is that you don’t have to pay a large annual fee or spend tens of thousands of dollars to get the bonus. The Sapphire Preferred has a modest $95 annual fee and the minimum spending requirement is quite reasonable. Spending $4,000 to reach the bonus may feel more achievable if you spread it out over three months, averaging to roughly $1,333 a month. (It’s important to remember that rewards points are only worthwhile if you’re able to pay your card off on time and in full each month, so you’re not paying interest charges on your balance.)
We’ve never seen this high of a bonus, with a reasonable minimum spend, on a $95 card that offers valuable and flexible points.
That "modest" $95 annual fee is far more than the Discover Card points I earn each year. My concern with such offers is that they encourage people to spend far more additional money than the reward points they are earning.
There's a good reason Dave Ramsey says that no one became a millionaire from Discover Card points. At 1%, you would have to spend $100 million in order to earn $1 million in points.
Last edited by mshultz; 06-20-2021 at 05:26 AM..
Reason: Missing quote
That "modest" $95 annual fee is far more than the Discover Card points I earn each year. My concern with such offers is that they encourage people to spend far more additional money than the reward points they are earning.
There's a good reason Dave Ramsey says that no one became a millionaire from Discover Card points. At 1%, you would have to spend $100 million in order to earn $1 million in points.
The article isn’t about a Discover card and if you are spending 1400 a month or more already this offer even if you only keep the card a single year is worth 900+ in your pocket. You won’t become a millionaire with these 1000.00 offers but most millionaires would stop and pickup a Benjamin if it was laying on the sidewalk.
The article isn’t about a Discover card and if you are spending 1400 a month or more already this offer even if you only keep the card a single year is worth 900+ in your pocket. You won’t become a millionaire with these 1000.00 offers but most millionaires would stop and pickup a Benjamin if it was laying on the sidewalk.
Is this like others where one may cancel before the yearly fee is charged/due?
Even if not, as you say, it's still $900 for doing nothing more than one's regular spending, for people who regularly do their spending on credit cards for the regular cash back or travel points.
I don't even see the problem for people who are excellent at budgeting to pre pay things like their insurance for a year or even electricity bill (things The Points guy suggests).
Hopefully, no one is buying random stuff to meet the spending requirement.
If really pressed, Kiva loans have a 96% payback rate and Kiva loans are cool, a nice way to help someone with a microloan for their business of whatever.
I'm not doing the Visa gift card route.
But if anyone wants to, Amex is the card to do it on. The 6% at grocery stores pays for the cost of the gift card plus an extra $1.
Anywho, only 4K in 3 months is the least chase (or anyone, I think) has ever required to spend to get the very rare 100K point bonus, according to the article I read.
That "modest" $95 annual fee is far more than the Discover Card points I earn each year. My concern with such offers is that they encourage people to spend far more additional money than the reward points they are earning.
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The problem with Discover is that they have something like a 2% acceptance rate outside the USA and that requires a merchant that can figure out how to run them as a Diner's Club card. (At least AmEx overseas works at hotels and large chain stores and you can also get some additional merchant use by using ApplePay as an intermediary)
Everyone has different spending patterns and for some folks, annual fee cards do end up making financial sense. Never would have thought I'd end up with a card with a $250 annual fee, but when we mapped out previous travel patterns and anticipated travel patterns and it makes sense .(Annual fee covers bag fees, a buy one get one free coupon I used to save $500 on a round trip for two earlier this year, and helps me get the status that give me free exit row and economy comfort seats on trips. Also great 'please don't cancels this card' promos in 2020-21 where I get $150 in rebates for restaurant meals in 2021 and assorted other useful things that will largely cover the Berlin trip in summer 2022)
Quote:
Originally Posted by jencam
But if anyone wants to, Amex is the card to do it on. The 6% at grocery stores pays for the cost of the gift card plus an extra $1.
Manufactured spending is generally a bad idea with AmEx because they explicitly disallow VISA/Mastercard gift card purchases and the like from earning bonuses and such and do the high level data mining to know when you're doing that.
The problem with Discover is that they have something like a 2% acceptance rate outside the USA and that requires a merchant that can figure out how to run them as a Diner's Club card. (At least AmEx overseas works at hotels and large chain stores and you can also get some additional merchant use by using ApplePay as an intermediary)
Everyone has different spending patterns and for some folks, annual fee cards do end up making financial sense. Never would have thought I'd end up with a card with a $250 annual fee, but when we mapped out previous travel patterns and anticipated travel patterns and it makes sense .(Annual fee covers bag fees, a buy one get one free coupon I used to save $500 on a round trip for two earlier this year, and helps me get the status that give me free exit row and economy comfort seats on trips. Also great 'please don't cancels this card' promos in 2020-21 where I get $150 in rebates for restaurant meals in 2021 and assorted other useful things that will largely cover the Berlin trip in summer 2022)
Manufactured spending is generally a bad idea with AmEx because they explicitly disallow VISA/Mastercard gift card purchases and the like from earning bonuses and such and do the high level data mining to know when you're doing that.
This. I have a Sapphire Preferred card and am willing to pay $95 a year for the simple fact that they don't charge overseas processing fees. That alone saves me more than the annual fee.
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