Originally Posted by
avogadro
Any points earning or utilization tips that you wish you had known earlier? For example...
Paying taxes with the WOH credit card.
For a 1.87% fee, I can charge tens of thousands of dollars of taxes on my credit card.
$25K at 1.87% is $467.50. So for $467.50 I can get 25,467 points plus 10 nights. Assuming I'll be over 60 nights by the end of the year, the extra 10 nights will give me an extra 10K milestone points. So that's 13.2 cents per point ( $467.50/(10,000+25,467) ). Not bad given that I regularly redeem points for 30+ cents
Even better is to do just enough at the end of the year to get to that 70, 80, 90, or 100 night level
And even if you don't actually owe tens of thousands of dollars, you can pay the money and get it back when you file your taxes.
Yeah that’s just all bad information definitely wouldn’t have made a whole thread to write it as there are many others dedicated to this information.
First - A lot of people value them at 1.5 cents per point. Yes you
can redeem that at higher values but often the stay doesn’t justify it. You look at the property and say would I really spend that much (if it were the points value converted to cash) to stay a night? And the answer being No.
Second - A lot of people have a $5,000-$10,000 limit on the WOH card, not 25k+. In addition to that let’s say you have a 28k limit if you utilize 25.5k to pay your taxes or even worse to pay them then expect a refund Chase can and will take that as a negative sign they can and have shut people down by closing all their accounts with no recourse. It’s not a matter of paying it back it’s a matter of utilization in their eyes. I’ve seen friends and family do similar things and Chase closed all their accounts even though they paid off the card in full. Another thing is paying it in full so you suggested if you don’t owe the 25k just to pay them and they’ll refund you, what about the interim? That’s just loads of issues there.
Third - At a 1.5 cent per point valuation you’d get $525 total and that’s assuming you’re at 60 nights exactly and it boosts you to 70. That’s a big assumption, especially considering most pay their taxes by April. Not sure where you came up with that coming out to earning 13.2 cents per dollar spent in fees or where you’re redeeming for 30 cents per point.
To put it into perspective 30 cents per point at a Category 4 property would mean the nightly cost would otherwise be $4,500 Per Night. Let’s say you stayed at Ventana which I believe is the highest costing property. Being at Category 8 you could regularly get 5 to 6 cents per point at the $2,000 to $2,400 a night cost which is wildly overpriced.
If you really wanted to do this you could MS the 25k and overall you’d pay less than 1% (under $250) and still earn the same. It would also give you the chance to purchase 10k pay it off then redo another 10k without jumping your utilization to 90% or more.
I wouldn’t recommend either method, but if you’re dead set on it MS is less headaches if you’re just doing 25k.