thexfactor

This was my offer:

Congratulations! You have successfully enrolled in the $25 statement credit offer. Now simply use your credit card for purchases at these types of merchants totaling $199 or more by September 30, 2011 and earn a $25 statement credit:

Movie Theaters• Amusement Parks • Aquariums/Zoo• Sports Arenas/Stadiums

We appreciate your business and invite you to continue to experience all your account has to offer.

This offer was described in a communication that was sent to you on 6/23/2011. Please refer to the communication you received from FIA Card Services for additional offer details.

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Note: Did not get any such communication on 6/23/2011.

Happy

Exactly. ^

Happy

This $25 bonus is a joke particularly in the random offers they hand out.

The quarterly offer Chase has, is $75 and the categories make far more sense to the majority cardholders.

josephstern

OK - but if you just always register for these, every now and then you get a $25 statement credit, which is fine with me.

Daggett76

It was a bit different for me. Logged in to my account and saw that it was suspended. Called them right away. Before I could even say why I was calling, the agent said she had an associate that wants to talk to me. Oh-kay...
He started by asking me if I knew someone named "Christie McDaniels" (or something like that) and when I said no, he asked me some questions, e.g. what gym I go to and what the two major cross streets were for the address I lived at three years ago. Presumably to verify my identity, because he said they had gotten a "suspicious call" about my account, and two suspicious charges, one of them for freecreditreport.com. Felt a bit like in a James Bond movie, or rather the Bourne Identity?

Happy

I have not been lucky to ever get an offer that I would actually use. I dont remember what was the last offer but I knew it was like ?! when I found out. The current offer is for SPA spending which I dont do. No idea why it would give me such an offer because there is 0 spend on SPA services ever on this card.

The quarterly offers that Chase has are standard to everyone and are announced at the beginning of each year - so you could actually plan for your spending such as that if you have some major spending planned for home improvements, then you could time it to spend in the quarter that earns 5%...

The FIA offers are so random and so "personalized" that I honestly think it is very low value.

themicah

That's probably why they gave you that promo. In most cases it seems they give you promos for things you don't normally use your card for. My friend who almost never uses his card in the US got the 5% cash back on everything. I use mine only sporadically and I got 3% cash back on "everyday" spending. Others probably use their cards for more everyday stuff and got offers for things like recurring cable bills or amusement parks that they probably don't use their cards for. The goal of these promos is presumably to get you to pull out your card more often.

The Chase offers are capped, too, so it's hard to justify changing the schedule of a home improvement project just to earn $75 cash back. And while Chase Freedom is more predictable, Chase also runs random promos on other cards. I had a promo recently on my seldom-used Chase Sapphire that gave me 5% cash back on a whole slew of categories for a couple months.

Agreed, but my ex-Schwab card is still a great card. These offers are just icing on the cake so it's hard to complain about them.

ajnaro

I virtually never use mine in the US and only got the recurring charge offer I posted earlier.

Happy

It is not that hard to time home improvement to fully utilize the $75 rebate - say if one already plans on updating one's kitchen appliances - is it that difficult to put the purchase in Q2 when Chase has the 5% or one must buy it in Q1?

In my book $75 is 3 times of $25 and it is therefore a 3 times better offer than the ex-Schwab card.

We used the Schwab card for pretty much everything up till we got our C1 Venture card. Now that card takes over because the cash rebate is sooooo easy to redeem - you dont have to wait for statement closes and then a few days before you see your cash back - you see it pretty much the day after the charge is posted and you can immediately use it.

Of course you would need to have some travel activities charged on that card in order to redeem it for a de facto 2% value... but I surmise that anyone ever posted on FT would have travel-related charges once at least every other month if not every month.

It is to the eyes of the beholder. To me the ex-Schwab card promo of $25 per quarter is a total joke.

ajnaro

The main problem with Venture is what they classify as a travel expense. For example, a hotel is, but a restaurant isn't; an airport taxi charged at the airport is, but charged with the driver it isn't. I was able to use up the initial bonus, but I had to try various combinations of the allowable charges until reaching a sum near the allowable total. I found the whole exercise a waste of time. Furthermore, in the past I have found CapitalOne service very unreliable, even when I can understand what their phone representatives are saying. They also have the habit of blocking non-US charges, even after notification, when they're supposed to be a travel card. As long as the 2% rebate on ex-Schwab lasts, I will prefer it. I find it very convenient to have the rebate deposited in my account without having to think about it, and I don't mind waiting until it shows up a month later.

I certainly agree that the $25 promotions are a joke, but I never pay any attention to that sort of thing anyway because I find that the effort it requires in time spent planning small everyday purchases is just too much trouble. My classification is: ex-Schwab for non-US; AMEX Starwood for US (or US dollar purchases outside of the US such as hotels in Chile or Israel). Only something relatively large, such as triple points for air tickets, would make me veer from this simple scheme. Just the same, I do not necessarily recommend my way of doing things to others; to each his or her own, as they say.

Happy

All you need is ONE Travel Activity charge on the C1 card. Just redeem the same travel expenses again and again within the 90 days period. C1 apparently knows such loophole exists but it does not bother to fix it.

The only nuance is you have to take the 2 to 3 minutes time every other day to log in and do your redemption. It even posted on weekend.

Our cards did not arrive before our long trip so the only Travel Activity charge I have put on was the taxes of 2 AA award tickets. Yet, I have been using this one and the only Travel Related Expense for redemption and may empty out the initial bonus before the 90 days up.

I have no experiences in using the cards overseas. Currently we have 4 0% forex cards to choose from - the ex-Schwab card, Citi Premier card, Chase PC card, and the C1 Venture Card. Had it arrived before our long trip we would have brought it with us and we could then test it aboard.

The ex-Schwab card is for anything other than the 3% EDS that one of our Freedom cards still enjoy. Then we go with the quarterly 5% Chase UR has such as this quarter gas is 5%, and this translates to 8% on that one Freedom as it seems the quarterly bonus is on top of the existing earning - we discovered this in Q1's 5% bonus on grocery, that the 5% is on top of the existing 3% earning.

Mountain Trader

But only the Schwab card (or ex-Schwab as you say) gets you no forex plus 2% cash back automatically.

Happy

C1 gets 2% de facto via the travel activity related charge redemption. So it is still 2%.

Citi Premier gets 2% via flight point match, and actually more than 2% if you use the TYP to redeem flights and get 25% off the fare, making it a 2.6% rebate card. That is better than 2%. Plus occasionally Citi throws in 20% bonus or a stacking 20% and 20% bonus that one of our cards is enjoying.

Only PC card sucks in the earning rate because 1 PC pt only worth 0.005 by my book except being redeemed in places like Paris, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome ... where the pt would worth 0.01 to 0.02. HOWEVER, PC card offers a 10% rebate on award redemption, and an annual free night cert. Oh, the 10% rebate on the redemption also counts as the earning for re-qualify Plat each year. Therefore it is a equal match to ex-Schwab.

So, they all have something equal to, or slightly better than the ex-Schwab card which the only good thing about it is the 2% is a no brainer straight cash. That is pretty much about it.

rove312

E-mail of the FIA bonus offer (everyday purchases for me) came today, July 7.

themicah

Mine too. And my sister's.