You cannot cash either in 3 months - the minimum is 6 months. For a 6 month horizon, I would go with the EE Bonds - they have a higher current interest rate, and probably will the next adjustment period.

So if you need it in 3 months, don't do it - but otherwise the EE should be better short term.

Probably just pick the one offering the higher interest rate (although rates change every six months). But the way inflation is, the EE bond rates should be exceeding the I bond rates for the immediate future.
Only other consideration is your credit limit and how much you wish to buy. EE bonds are limited to $15,000 of purchases per individual per year, and I bonds you're limited to $30,000.
Also, you have to hold them for six months until you can cash them. But buying them near the end of the month (but don't wait until the last few days), should get you an issue date for that month with interest starting from the first of the same month. So buying near month-end, theoretically you could hold the bonds for five months and a couple of days before you're allowed to cash them in.
One other bit of advice. Make sure you're not carrying a balance on your credit card from the previous month. The way Citibank computes interest (probably similar to AMEX), if you have a continuing balance, some large purchase (like $5,000 worth of bonds), will immediately increase your average balance, and could result in large finance charges you didn't expect. So make sure the account is paid in full for the previous billing period and the billing period you're purchasing your bond in.

Great advice. Thanks everyone!

I was trying to purchase savings bond using my corporate AMEX card from the website. I got a message that the card could not be authorized. I tried other (personal) card and it worked fine. When I called the customer service rep, they mentioned that the purchase is coming thru as "retail purchase". I also tried for the lowest denomination of savings bond but the amount of the bond did not make any difference. Also, the available credit limit on the corporate card was enough for the purchase of bond(s). So credit limit was also not the problem.

I have used corporate card for some other personal purchases and have never defaulted on my payments. This was the only time I had trouble using the corporate card for personal expense. I'm using corporate card becoz my personal card does not have enough credit line and plus I would like to get Membership Rewards.

Did anyone of you had the same experience? Any thoughts on how can I get around this problem. Is there any way I can purchase these bonds over the phone and have AMEX CSR on the second phone line.

Thanks in advance.

Using a corporate AMEX to buy personal US savings bonds sounds like a fool-proof recipe to get fired. Hope that won't be the case here, but the miles are not worth risking your job.

Not necessarily. Depends on the policy of the individual company. At some places, the employee gets REIMBURSED for business expenses and pays the Amex bill him/herself (rather than the company paying the Amex bill). There isn't anything wrong with using the card for personal expenses, as long as the company isn't billed for them!!! The bottom line is, you must familiarize yourself with your company policy and follow it. (I don't at present have a corporate cc of any type, but did have one several years ago and this is how it worked.)

Kathy

Even if your corporate AmEx is set up with the bill going to the employee, you should still be very careful to read the fine print regarding non-business purchases on the card; I've had corporate AmEx cards with many different employers, and in every case non-business purchases were prohibited; as corporate budgets get tighter, it's more and more likely personal purchases will get flagged. My two cents...

What's the point of having a corporate AMEX if you have to pay the bill yourself first?
(show of hands everyone, who has a corporate AMEX, not discover, visa or mc, but an AMEX, that does not get paid directly from your company?) Sounds more like a personal card at that point. Sure, if you have bad credit and/or are a foreign worker, you may not qualify for a personal CC and your company has to "sponsor" your credit card, but this is probably an extreme example.

"What's the point of having a corporate Amex if you have to pay the bill yourself?" Well, for one thing, the annual fee is paid by the company and not by the employee. Believe it or not, there are still apparently corporate Amexes where the employee (not the company) pays the bill!

Kathy

I work for a rather large fortune 10 company. We get the bill sent to us but they pay the bill when we fill out our expense reports. We used to have to pay the Corp AMEX charges ourselves. They want us to justify the charages and it has to be approved before the bill is paid.

Christian

Christian

I've had problems with purchases over the internet not being authorized because the address I'm trying send the purchase to, and the address on my credit card account is different, even slighlty. Sometimes I have to check my bank statement to make sure I'm entering it in exactly as they have it, or the purchase may not get approved.

Not unless you own the whole corporation. One must then fire themselves for using their card not correctly.
But, seriously, I have a corporate travel card (issued by Citibank). The bank sends me the bill, which I must pay myself. I must submit documentation for reimbursement. My employer won't get bent out of shape if there is some small purchase there that they don't understand in which I paid it immediately. Buying $10,000 in U.S. Savings Bonds on the card is another story. I don't think I'm going to try that.

As someone responsible for the Corp Card program at our company let me clear up the AMEX issue:

1. AMEX has a T&E program and a CPC (Corporate Purchasing Card) program

2. T&E can by Individual or Corp Liability cards. Most companies choose Individual. Employess pay for travel expenses etc. Submit expense reports and pay their own bill. The advantage to the company is they get a rebate from AMEX each year on the total volume of charges while not being on the hook for the bill itself.

3. CPC cards are always corporate liability and are used to lower the cost of procurement for companies. These are not travel cards. Most companies use these to purchase everyhting from copier paper, office supplies to computers and software.

4. So when someone refers to their Corporate card they most likely have a T&E card.

Sohu,

What's happening is that the merchant (in the case the US Treasury I suppose) is being asked to phone AmEx and verify your identity, by asking you for a driver's license or the like. Obviously that can't happen for an online transaction, so it's treated as a failed authorization. AmEx customer service reps will insist till blue in the face that the charge was not "denied", but if you can't use the card it's a distinction without a difference.

They *can* do something about it, but there's a good chance the first rep you speak with will either insist that there isn't, or more likely insist that there's no problem. What they need to do is have an authorizer in (I think) the credit department enter an override in the system so that the authorization will be approved automatically without an ID check.

Get to the screen where you've entered your card number, then call AmEx and square things away. When they tell you it's taken care of, click "pay" and ask them to hold on just a few seconds until the charge goes through.

Keep at it until your problem is resolved. Sometimes, it seems, they only begin to help in earnest once they see that helping is going to take less time and effort than convincing you that they can't.

--ss

SS,

Thanks for your suggestion. I'll try doing that next time.

Fellow FTers,

I do get billed for my Corp card every month. And my company has no problem if I use the card for personal expenses as long as I do not default on my payments to AMEX. I just submit my T&E with travel and other work related charges to the company (with merchant receipts, etc.) which gets paid after verification. Obviously I don't enter my personal charges on my T&E.

Regards,
Sohu