Interest rates having risen, there are opportunities to play the float that are becoming very compelling.

If you set your statement closing ("drop") date right, you get a lot of time to pay. Ask your CC provider and tell them it has to do with the day you get paid; mine changed it for me. Have your statement drop on the 14th, use the card on the 15th, and you get one month plus the grace period of about 15-25 days to get your payment in. Pay electronically on the last day or the day before.

Since home equity lines of credit (a likely source for the funds) are now charging about 6.5% annually, you are pushing 1% in float (albeit tax-deductible). That gets these deals, obviously especially the double-miles one, close to excellent.

I assume this also helps your credit score somehow; it certainly gets them to increase your CC line of credit nicely over time.

Yeah, at this moment, the Starwood AMEX is the best loyalty program for tax payments because a point is CONSERVATIVELY worth at least 2 cents. It's hard to make a case that an airline point is conservatively worth more than a penny (except perhaps to the few among us who would happily pay thousands of dollars of their own money for int'l biz class).

Given the recent inflation in hotel prices, I wish I could buy more than 10,000 Starwood points for $125. And unlike with the airlines, you generally don't have to worry about capacity controls with Starwood.

Of course this likely means that the program is "too good to be true," so I fear future reward inflation, too.

another twist when paying taxes with Chase card?
 

I am interested in various ways to game this and don't want to rule out any before knowing and understanding the details. It's certainly reasonable to time the posting of charges and later payment of them, taking into account when the statement cuts and the last day to pay so as to avoid interest, late fees, and the like, which could turn a "good" deal into a "bad" one quickly. (I don't know that the cost of home equity lines is the right benchmark here. I suppose, though, if you can get 4+% out of some bank or money mark account, 45+ days use of the money might provide sufficient interest income to produce an after tax subsidy of around .3%, bringing the finance charge on the credit card transaction down to under 2.2%, and in turn the cpm down to less than 1.1.)

Now, how about this for another wrinkle: Chase has some offer meant to protect against death, disability, job loss, etc. Just the sort of thing I immediately turn away from because I think it is one of the more exploitative schemes the credit card companies offer after they have encouraged us to pay their usurious interest charges. But there is something to this offer about payment "holidays." I haven't scrutinized it yet, but I wonder if it might be worthwhile to sign up, carry no balance for them to charge their low (yeah, right, 10% added vigorish) additional fees, and then pop in with a big charge for tax payment, getting the added deferral from one of those "holidays," then cancel the plan. (I don't have an ethical concerns when it comes to dealing with credit card companies, my only concern vis-a-vis them to be sure that they don't take advantage of me, which they would if I allowed them to.) So would be interest in "fisking" this:
https://www.chasepaymentprotector.com/learnmore.cfm

How about this offer:

http://www.gmcard.com/taxes/

Is 5% return on tax payment really true? That makes it 2.51% after convenience fee deduction.

The GM Card offers 5% "back" on everything. The catch is you can only spend it on GM cars and the amount you can redeem per car is capped.

Here's a NY Times article which discusses paying taxes by credit card to get points.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/04/bu...=1&oref=slogin

Yesterday's Citibank bill included a flyer about an offer to reduce the convenience fee from 2.49% to 1.99%. That may be enough of a cut to make using it worthwhile for some people.

- Must pay your bill with a MasterCard card
- Must pay online via www.officialpayments.com/caoffer.jsp
- Federal taxes only, not state
- Tax return must be in the name of the cardholder or an authorized user

Where did you see that it's as UNrestricted as that?

If I go to the site you named, it says it must specifically be the Citi/AAdvantage card, not just "a" Mastercard (or even another Citi Mastercard!).

But of course, there's no link I can find from the Official Payments main promo site, so it's hard to tell if any other Citi MCs have similar offers...

Svo?
 

Who/what is "SVO"? What is the sign up bonus on that deal in terms of SPG or whatever else it is that they offer?

"Starwood Vacations Owners." There are extra SPG deals available for owners of Starwood Timeshares.

The flyer came in my Citi AA Visa bill. The fine print on the offer, which I read carefully before posting, says only MasterCard - not a specific type. Since the offer doesn't interest me, I didn't go to the site itself. I'm glad you read the T&C there, and thanks for posting the clarification!

Citi PremierPass card offers a similar discount to 1.99%. It was a different URL (which I don't remember). Citi PremierPass/PremierPass Elite cards are both MasterCard World cards (as is the Citi AA Plat) which is equivalent to Visa Signature. So they may offer this on all MC or just on MC World cards.

...hard to make a case that an airline point is conservatively worth more than a penny (except perhaps to the few among us who would happily pay thousands of dollars of their own money for int'l biz class).
QUOTE]


HMMM.... considering i just used 240k miles for 2 tickets BOS-AMS-JNB-CDG-BOS in D on NW/KL and O on AF, i made your case. You are looking at around 5cents / mile... its very doable...

Not to derail this too far, there are many threads on this subject, but this reflects confusion between what an award tickets would cost and what miles are worth. It is, and this gives one example, easy to find ways to redeem miles which offer "values" approaching 10¢ per mile - if you calculate "value" by dividing the cost of a ticket into the miles needed for an award. However, unless you would (absent an award) have paid that much of your own money for the ticket, which is hardly ever the case, the true value of the miles is far less. In this example, ask what fare would leave you on the fence between purchasing it and redeemding miles for the award. That will give you the real value of the miles you used.

It's not that hard to make the case that most miles are worth more than a penny -- even if one is unwilling to pay thousands for premium cabins. In recent years, I have thrice redeemed Delta miles for Virgin Atlantic Upper Class awards. They used to be 80k miles, then it went up to 100k. How much would I be willing to pay for a VS Upper Class award (SFO-LHR) in the summer? Certainly $1,800, at least.

With double mile tax deals, I effectively paid a little under 1.3 cpm; thus, I paid 1.3 cpm for miles that were worth at least 1.8 cpm in the way I used them. Heck, if you've enjoyed VS UC Suites, you'd probably be willing to pay a good deal more than $1,800 for SFO-LHR.

Likewise, I effectively paid $1,820 for Singapore F, SFO-HKG (140k DL miles times 1.3 cpm). Many FTers would agree that sitting in 1B on SQ is the very best commercial air experience.

Still another example for me was a F award on NZ (back when they had an F cabin) for United miles.