I wanted follow up on a few of the offers I started a while back since the points have now posted and give you my feedback on the experience. This will also show you how easy it can be to get the points and miles rolling in.
The Thank You Points (the points program used by Citibank bank accounts and some of their credit cards) were from an offer I read about on Flyertalk back in December where they were giving you 50,000 points for opening a Citigold checking account and performing a direct deposit and a bill pay each month. 50,000 points have a cash in value of $500 so this certainly got my attention. If you are a Citibank ThankYou Premier cardholder you can sweeten the deal and get $666 in value towards travel related expenses for those points.
Meeting the requirements was easy by setting a $1 monthly payment to my electric company and doing a $1 transfer from my paypal account to my new citigold account. The account does have a $30 fee if you don’t have a $50K balance but the fee is waived for the first 3 months. The way the T&C are worded you had to meet the DD and Payment requirements for 2 months then the bonus would be awarded 90 days after that. Most people (me included) had to send them a message to manually have the bonus be awarded and I waited a little longer than I should have so I ended up paying four $30 monthly fees, but I will trade $500 for $120 all day long. There isn’t currently an offer like this available, but it comes and goes so I wanted to get this information out for when it comes back.
The Suntrust Delta checking deal I previously wrote about was really some easy miles and they have already posted. I opened a checking account, did a $101 transfer from paypal to my Suntrust account, and made a $9 Checkcard purchase. Bing, Bam, Boom, 30,000 miles. I did have to pay a $75 check card fee and will have to keep $1500 in the account for 6 months to avoid the early account closure fee, but this one worked out to be even easier than expected. The current offer is only 5K miles, but it might be good for someone who wants to get miles but doesn’t have good credit.
The final 5000 SPG points was from my 30,000 SPG Business Amex card that I got back in November. For some reason, only 25,000 of my SPG points had posted and I had to contact them for the final 5K. You need to make sure to always check and make sure you get all the miles that are due to you from the offers you apply for. It is easy to get carried away with earning miles and not double check things. 🙂 This 30,000 SPG point offer is available until September 6 for both the SPG Amex and the SPG Business Amex so apply for one or both before then to get one of the best hotel earning cards. You can view my post on this card here.
So I hope this post helps you see some of the potential of the things I talk about and shows you that it is worth your time! Enjoy!