Points on sending wire overseas?
 

Hello fellow FT's! Semi-new lurker, first time poster.

I have a question that has been bugging me, and I've been trying to find an answer .. or at least an answer favorable for me. :p

First for a mini-background:

My main cc the past 9 yrs has been Southwest's, where I was earning an average of 30 free flights/year (2-3/month). My workload and family responsibilities do not allow me to travel as often as I like, so I give them away to friends and family, and even sold a few to them for 50% of what they would have paid (a win-win, I say) :D

Naturally I've become the favorite "Cous" in the family :D

Now that Southwest's program changed in March, I googled around to see what programs were out there, and somehow found FT. I've been addicted to this site ever since. I must say I sincerely appreciate all the advice, wisdom, expertise, and humor from everyone here, so THANK YOU! I hope to someday reciprocate to all you as well!

So far, I have applied and received the Cap1 Venture card for both personal & biz, and have applied today for the SPG AMEX biz card. I'm hoping to stagger it over a few months and add both my parents, and brother for both personal and biz, to get the 25k bonus for each of the cards, and get a combination of 200k (if it is do-able).

For now, I've been eager to maximize my points and was thinking that my biggest biz expense is wiring about $1.75 million/yr to China for the products they manufacture for us.

Our bank does not charge us any wiring fees, which is a big 'plus'. I've asked my supplier if they accept cc pmts, and they said they do not.

I checked, and going thru paypal would be expensive. I called Citibank last week (have AA MC thru them since 1995) to ask if it would work if I prepaid them XX amount of $$ in advance to avoid any cash advance fees and use one of the checks they send with the statement to make deposit back into my biz account (thinking this way it would go thru the credit card), and proceed with the wire as usual. I was told no, since points aren't given on those checks - darn! :rolleyes:

Soooo ... my question is ... IS there a way for me to get points on my credit card by sending a wire pmt? If there were a flat fee of say $200/month +/-, I'll surely do it, as I think the benefits certainly outweight the fees.

It sure would be nice to get those points! :p

note: I wire 2-3x/month

Many thanks in advance for everyone's advice!

sure just use westrn union or any similar service but the cost is around 5% of the total. But yes you will earn points. : )

there a thread on citi checking account that might be worth reading if you haven't....its on pg 2 of this forum...good luck...

it costs 1%-3% to accept payment thru credit card companies , so thats why the chinese do not want it that way ,

But it would be interesting if there is a way to do it , but whats in it for the USA bank ?

if it costs 1 cent a mile wholesale thats a large cost these days for the bank with interest rates so low.....

Anyway love to hear what you find .

RB

American Express has a foreign wire service which gives out MR points on money transferred in foreign (ie, non-dollar) currencies. Don't remember the exact number of points given out but you can check www.americanexpress.com/fxip for details. They normally charge a $35 fee per wire but will waive it if you have a plat card.

Of cousre the big question for any wire transfer service is how they calculate the exchange rate. When you're sending over $1MM/year, the $25 or $30 fee to send a wire is a very minor factor.

You can PM me for a contact name/number at AMEX FXIP.

I have no association with AMEX or any of its divisions other than being a customer.

Which bank do you use that doesn't charge for international wire transfers?

1 AMEX MR point for each $30 wired, $10 fee after intro period. Get 30K AMEX MR points for signing up and completing 3 transactions: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-payments.html

It takes a couple of weeks to get this up and running and the agents are borderline incompetent. You need to have a business AMEX card that is enrolled in Membership Rewards in order to earn points, though the money is wired from your business bank account. I opened an account a month ago and received 15K after my first transaction, but am still waiting for the second 15K that was supposed to post after my 3rd transaction. Sent an email a week ago; no response.

I agree that the setup procedures could be better but I will say that my account exec was very helpful and informative. Definitely NOT incompetent, borderline or otherwise.

I got my miles (15K+15K) within about a week of completing the necessary transactions without any prodding on my part.

Schwab and Chase, amongst others. The key may be having enough money in the institution to be extended that courtesy.