JamieDee78

I got a mail flyer this past week from my local regional bank with whom I have a checking account with. It's a River Valley Bank Visa Platinum Bonus Rewards Card. The card offers 1% cashback and a 25% bonus on earned points every month.

However, I really don't care about that since that only amounts to 1.25% cashback. The main attraction is a $150 cashback to my checking account, statement credit, etc after just one single purchase in any amount. After that the card will go in the sock drawer.

I was just wondering if any other FT'ers out there get these kind of promos and would they take advantage of it? I plan to apply for this card the same day as the Barclays Arrival Plus card and take the cash and apply it against travel costs this winter.

pkoo

Do you have a schedule of AoR's? If not, then $150 is $150 so go for it.

If you do have an AoR coming up, you might want to consider how much a hard pull is worth to you. Most sign-up bonuses chased on FT are worth far more than $150 so if you're trying to make room for this $150 bonus in your 6-8 card AoR, I'd say forget it.

JamieDee78

Sorry, but what the heck is AoR?

I recently applied for, and was approved for the Delta 50k promo (August) and United Explorer card 50k (May) this year. Those are the only two cards I've applied for so far in 2014.

StephenW

AOR = App O Rama = Applying to a variety of cards at once.

For me personally, $150 is not enough to take a credit inquiry hit. I would apply for it as part of an AOR though, assuming that the bank doesn't ever offer anything greater. My personal minimum threshold for a signup offer is $400 cash or equivalent value in miles/points.

mnscout

With banks, it's usually a soft pull, although it doesn't hurt to ask.

And OP, why wouldn't you be interested in another checking account (AP?) or/and 1.25% debit card (Serve?)? Are you using a better debit card than 1.25%? Just saying. If there are no monthly fees or an easy way to avoid them, it sounds like a solid deal.

Update: My bad. Just saw "a $150 cashback to my checking account" and thought it was a debit card. Of course, with a CC, that's a hard pull and totally not worth it for $150.

JamieDee78

Thanks for clarifying. For me personally, I will not apply for a variety of cards at once as my month-to-month expenses are unusually low and I get 6% back on groceries with my Amex Preferred card (no other card comes even close to that), so will not defer spending for groceries. and I do not feel I can meet several minimum spends at once on new credit card sign up bonuses so I apply for one at a time every few months.

However, this time, I could apply for two at once as I mentioned in my OP, since this bank credit card requires nothing more than just a purchase to get the $150. All other spending will go on the Barclays card (minus groceries)

pugsley21

Me personally, I wouldn't take the credit hit for $150. There are better offers out there for cards that you may actually want to keep.

Doctor of Credit

That depends, what other cash offers have you already signed up for? I created this resource on my blog to make things easier.

Here are some of the better cash sign up offers:

• Wells Fargo Propel: $400 + $100 airline incidental
• Chase Sapphire Preferred: $450 ($400 + $50 for adding authorized user)
• Citi ThankYou Premier: $125 - $375
• Barclay Arrival: $440 in travel or $200 in non travel
• Capital One Venture Rewards: $400 in travel or $200 in non travel
• Barclay Arrival No Annual Fee: $200 in travel or $100 in non travel
• US Bank Flexperks: $200 in cash

Those are the offers currently higher than the $150 offered by your local credit union (can you link us to the offer please). You also have the option for signing up for offers that can be redeemed for gift cards and then selling those gift cards, bit more work though.

Preacher7

Not worth it for a hard pull, for sure. I don't waste a HP for anything less that $500, hence the reason i don't even have a Barclays arrival card! In Canada, though, the situation is very different. With their bonuses being considerably lower than south of the 49th (except for the MBNA AS, Amex GR & Chase Marriott), I'm now cycling our family through the Amex AM Plat, which is a HP for just over $220 in bonus. South of the 49th, stick to your guns and don't apply for anything less than $500/HP. In Canada, nothing less than $220, in both cases taking account the net after AF.

Mamibear

OP, I get similar homemailer offers that I need to bring to the bank to avail of the offer. A lot of small town local banks do this, the average incentive is $200 for opening an account, do some swipes with DC, maintain a certain amount balance. I always choose the account that has NO maintenance fees even if I have to 'park' as much as $500. Soon as I meet all the requirements, I close the account. They also give $50 bonuses for referring a friend who opens any type of account up to 20 referrals. I pay taxes on these bank incentives at the end of the year.

Since these are invites to open a bank account, no HP but just SP. And as long as I fulfill all terms of the offer and do not incur fees, I can rinse and repeat these offers w/o fear of derogatory Chexsystem reports. I do not accept bank's CC offers since it's not worth HP to me.

mrwilliams

That $150 does sound quite enticing. I personally use usemybenefits.com to keep up with the hidden benefits that my credit cards offer. It can be hard to trust cards that come in the mail some times. Hope this helps..^

Preacher7

What mamibear said. Churn checking account offers for sure, b/c they're only Soft pulls. But not CC offers like this. Just not worth it.

roki

$500 is a pretty high threshold, especially these days. Mine is $300, with the exception of $150 from the Discover It card, if that offer comes back (due to ongoing value of ShopDiscover).

JamieDee78

Thanks all. General consensus seems to be not to do the offer and have the HP on my credit report for only $150. I did apply for the Barclays Arrival Plus card though and got approved.

Contrary to what you said, the Barclays card is actually worth slightly more than $500, when doing all the math.

MDtR-Chicago

It's customary here to not include the points from actual spend in the calculation, because there's often many offers for large bonuses that include differing (relatively) small spend amounts.

However, if you go to that step, you should also figure your opportunity cost of that spend.

Hypothetical situation - you have a card such as JCB which pays 3% cash back. Barclays pays 2.2%.

When you factor in the $3000 in spend, your actual benefit is $444 + ($67-$90) = $421.

You can also use a similar model if you have to manufacture the spend, to capture the cost of that additional spend.