You are worrying over nothing.


2% is 60 bucks.....................saying that you made the entire spend

I have had dozens of business cards and sold my bar ( I still use the name on my card) 17 years ago........never a problem

Chase cancels and bans for more than that. Depositing MOs to your account, or using them to pay your CC bill in person, in any kind of weird volume (for you) can cause them to wipe all your points, and cancel your CCs and blacklist you. And there seems to be no appeal.

I manage my relationship with Chase with extreme care. Nothing even close to funny. I do not even transfer points to/from my wife. Belt-and-suspenders. Keep eyes off your Chase accounts.

I know guys who have been banned from Chase and Amex for life and are now reduced to playing with the likes of Discover and BOA. Sad!

MO are part of MS, no ? Same with odd spending , I'm guessing that is MS related.

I have used HYvee and Costco gift cards to make ~ 75% of my spend on a lot of Chase cards, never a problem.

What is an MO ?

Wipe your points ? Certainly they can't access your RR account. You mean on a Sapphire card ?

I researched MS a little, and the safest and easiest way seems to be paying (or overpaying) taxes. About a 2% fee, but what do I care ? That works out to $60 for $3000 of MS towards RR points (not that I'd do my whole bonus spending that way). And income taxes are clearly a legitimate business expense (for a sole proprietorship).


Your experience seems pretty different than flyer4512's. Have you had a Chase business card, and did you use it for things that are clearly not business, such as groceries, liquor, etc ? Gasoline and dining aren't quite as bad I suppose.

I told you in an earlier reply that MS can be bad news.


Paying taxes is not MS. I pay my taxes ( and every other bill that takes a credit card) via credit card also.

Traditional MS involves getting the cash you spent back into an account to pay the bill. People are buying MO ( money orders) at the post office on the card and then depositing the MO into a bank account ( or as too many stated, trying to pay their Credit card bill in person with a MO) to pay the CC bill.

For the AA mailers some people are doing this for the entire 3 or 4K spend over and over as fast as they can get the cards.

Gift cards , paying bills, etc are not "MS".

Since I don't have a business I have not made a single business charge on any of my business credit cards.

Have had 2 Chase Inks for years, the old ones that give 5x at office supply stores. Have bought tens of thousands in gift cards at those places. $200 Visa/MC/Amex (5x UR worth approx. 8%, 3.5% fee, net 4.5% “everywhere”). Disney (legit business expense but they cannot know that). Ebay. Albertson’s (supermarket). Gasoline cards. Subway. Southwest. Chipotle. On and on.

Also buy a ton of “ free after rebate” stuff. Sitting on a couple hundred reams of paper.

On occasion I will buy a meal or some gas or groceries or dry cleaning with an Ink, just to have some non-5x spend. Not sure if Chase cares about that.

No problem yet.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to start a pissing contest about what is and isn't MS. I googled it and found a page at "frequentmiler", and they talk about taxes (for some reason they specify federal taxes).

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.co...omplete-guide/

The thing I like about using taxes is that it's really simple, and if Chase DID look at charges, taxes couldn't be a more legitimate business expense (for a sole proprietor). There's the ~2% fee of course, but that's pretty minimal compared to the reward.

Of course you have to owe taxes for that to work............as I said most here don't actually have a business and most who work a regular job don't owe taxes. Of course I guess you could overpay and wait and hope they give you the cash back.

Since you are so concerned this is no doubt the way you should go, pay taxes of $2k on 12/31 and be done with it then file for a refund.

Yep. And no need to do it by year's end - you can make an estimated tax payment in January; in fact, Jan 15 is the due date for the fourth and final payment for those who need to make estimated tax payments. I'm not sure why that site specifies "federal" taxes, notwithstanding, of course, that some states don't have income tax and possibly some aren't set up to accept credit card payments.

It's a nice ace in the hole if I feel I'm in danger of not qualifying for the bonus, likely only if I try to meet the bonus thresholds for both cards simulatneously. Probably no need, since I usually stay put til early spring.

I said 12/31 as I was assuming from your past posts that you wanted CP ASAP and 12/31 makes sure the points won't post in 2017.

If you have until early spring I would wait and see in a 50K card pops up as a 40K card still involves getting 9k more CPQP unless you plan on getting two 40K cards............assuming you are 4/24 or under and will get approved.

Don't forget 24 months has to have passed since the last SW bonus POSTED to your SW account for that specific personal card ( Plus, premier) before you will be approved again for that card.

Now let's hope SW doesn't have any CP related surprises come 1/1/18 like they did last year.

These can easily be business expenses. Gas and dining are extremely common business expenses...heck, dining has its own line on tax forms (meals and entertainment). And that also refers to liquor as well, because businesses have parties. And parties are certainly expense items. Groceries? Businesses have kitchens that they can stock for their employees.

And Chase isn't going to nitpick about your purchasing - they're not looking thru your grocery bill and will want to question why you purchased a head of lettuce.

Damn, it's complicated flying for free :-) My Southwest RR online acc't is not showing anything before April 2016, but they seem to have a choice that shows all of 2016. I guess they only show the previous year. Hopefully that means I had no bonus at all post in 2016, but who knows how late in 2015 one posted. I'm not sure how else to find out. Guess I'll wait til January to apply for the personal card.
Remind me ? Some other bonus types became ineligible for CP status ?

On 1/1/2017 Southwest made it so that hotel point transfers no longer count towards CP. They extended the date until 3/31/17 after people complained.

Did you have CP for 2016 and 2017 ? If you did and earned it via credit cards you had to earn those points at some point in 2016

If you are going to do this you need to create a spreadsheet

I never had a CP before. I have earned big bonuses on Chase RR cards, but too clueless, before now, to do 'em in the same year. But it appears clear (from online SW acc't) that I earned none in 2016. I did have some big transfers from Chase Sapphire in 2016, but those don't apply towards CP, nor should they affect eligibility to get bonuses on Chase RR cards from now on (according to what you said earlier).

You know, I knew there was a reason (besides OCD) I download all my various credit-card transactions to an Excel spreadsheet, one per year ... I had two personal Chase RR cards, one closed in early 2015 (after stupidly letting the bonus points post in late-2014, and the other closed in July 2015 (after the bonus presumably posting in early-2015). So I'm clear on the "24 month since last bonus" issue.

I did have a Chase Sapphire card in 2016, earned a big bonus, and transferred the points to my (and my GFs, holder of a SW CP) accounts. Shouldn't be an issue.