I just received my Ultimate Rewards bonus points from CSR card and am looking to book a hotel in NYC. The price through the Ultimate Rewards site is more than double the price of if I book directly through the hotel. What the F is this all about? What are good deals to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points for?

From my limited knowledge, your best bet is exchanging them for miles with eligible partners and using for flights. I'm sure other posters can be of more help.

And this is still worth it after the Visa fee and the money order fee?

What hotel? Can you give me your hotel + dates and I'll look for you? PM if you want

$500+5.95

$25.30 in rewards (2529 UR, could be worth more) at a cost of $5.95 + MO fee. If UR are worth 1c each you're spending $7 and earning $25 in rewards. So yes, worth it. Especially as you scale. Or if you have a source of $4.95 fee cards.

wow, i thought the fees were a lot higher on the Visa cards. I got a $25 one as a gift a few years back and that had a $5.95 fee, I just assumed the fee increased accordingly..

$6.95 is generally the highest fee you see on prepaids. Check out this link and hit "view fees" http://www.giftcards.com/virtualgift.../merchant/visa

JL pretty much covered it. I'm lucky in that I am in a medium sized market that has plenty of MS opportunities, but not a ton (so big MS hitters don't ruin them), so it's not weird for cashiers to sell multiple $500 gift cards at a time.

The key takeaway here is that I'm using CCs that have 5% cashback this quarter. If I were using a 1% card, I would be losing money. If I were using a 2% CB card I could squeeze out a small profit, but it wouldn't be worth it (to me) most of the time. There's also a cap on these cards, which I've already hit, so they aren't scalable past the usual $1500 in purchases. BTW, I bought Visas from 3 different places today and they were all right under $5. Usually $4.94 or $4.95, but sometimes $5.95 at other places, or if they're sold out of the usuals. MOs run just under $1.

So you're spending anywhere between 1% and 2% on the purchase price of the cards. If you can get 3%+ cashback on them, you can find a nice profit.

Is there a good beginners guide to manufacturing spend somewhere? I'd imagine that unless you're spending a decent amount of money each month you have to be using MS to make going through all of these cards worth it, right?

no, your average signup bonuses are easy to complete and worth it.

for instance, i am currently working off a $3k spend in 1st three billing cycles bonus. I will not manufacture spend any. after i complete that bonus, it's on to the next card. in the above example, i am going to net 11.6666% off my next 3k in purchases because i get a $350 statement credit once i spend the 3k

Depends on your average spending profile. The first step is always switching all your spend to the card in question. There are quite a few ways without manufacturing to meet spends - you can always prepay multiple months of phone bills, insurance, etc. You can shift future spend forward by buying gas gift cards or visa gift cards that you will use naturally.

For me, minimum spending was always easy since I could pay my (astronomical) SF rent, and pretty easily meet any 3 month spend requirement with just that if I had to.

If your spending is low and you'll never hit minimums otherwise then do some googling. It really helps if you can float the spend - if you can then it opens up cool opportunities like Kiva or Kickfurther.

350 for 3k is also one of the worst bonuses I've heard of.There is plenty to be made from whoring these cards.

Anyone ever used Avios to book Aer Lingus?

A credit repair story for anyone interested (x-post from BFI per JL's recommendation):

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30...story-1633825/

There are lots of decent beginners guides. I just googled "beginners guide to manufactured spending" and all of the top 10 links are decent. It's best to read a few and then delve into some forums/blogs because what used to work a year ago might not work now. It's a lot of trial and error as well, especially if you want to try and find your own methods or locations. For example, I typically try and buy money orders at lots of different places like gas stations (almost always cash only), local grocery stores (a great option), and check cashing places that advertise free money orders. These are in addition to some of the main places that sell a lot of money orders like walmart.

Sometimes I get denied by the cashier, sometimes I get denied by the computer, and sometimes it works! You never know until you try.

Something else to keep in mind is that if you plan to manufacture spend, make sure you can float money if needed. It rarely happens, but you never know when you're going to have an issue with a prepaid debit card, or something else and it might take anywhere from a week to 3 months to get your funds. For example, I had a prepaid debit card the other day that was not working at any of my usual places, so I ended up loading it to my amazon gift card balance. Not ideal, but I know I will eventually spend the money on amazon purchases, so it's no big deal, but I don't have that money to pay bills or anything else I might have needed it for.

Such a punch in dick from "The Man" with not enough restitution.

Did it about a year ago. At that time (and I think it's still the case), you couldn't book online, so I had to call in. BA call centers are notorious for having long wait times, so that was a bit annoying, but, once I got through, the booking process was easy.

If you want to get a general sense of availability before calling, you can search for Aer Lingus partner availability through United.com. Some people say that the availability isn't the same, but, at least when I booked, Aer Lingus made the same seats available to BA that they had opened up to United.

I have had the chase sapphire preferred for a couple years and recently got the chase sapphire reserve. I'll probably keep the Reserve for a while, so the preferred is redundant. Will my credit score be affected if I close the preferred and roll the credit limit over to the reserve? If so, should I try to downgrade the preferred to something else (e.g. Freedom Unlimited) to keep that on my credit history?

I would call (or SM) and convert the CSP to a Freedom or Freedom Unlimited. You should get a pro-rated refund of the annual fee you paid on the CSP since you have had it for > 1 year.

I converted my CSP to FU and got the pro-rated refund even though the rep I talked to said that I wouldn't. Note that if you already have a Freedom, you can get an additional Freedom in this manner if you so desire--or so it has been reported.

If I can roll the credit limit for my CSP over to the reserve without losing that history on my report I'd prefer that - then I plan to apply for the FU for a signup bonus (or can I not sign up for the FU if I've already got the regular Freedom? That seems to be what you're implying)

you should downgrade that card regardless of the credit history which is a nice bonus.

You should downgrade to freedom, or freedom unlimited, whichever complements your spending the best. Do not downgrade to sapphire regular as it's redundant category-wise to the reserve.

For simplicity you can get the unlimited which paired with the 1.5c reserve travel redemption is a minimum 2.25% on everything cashback card. Or if you can make use of the freedom categories and don't mind chasing those thats 7.5%

Edit to respond to the above:

If you are under 5/24 and can get freedom/freedom unlimited (you can get both, no issue) you can do that. But if you have a 5/24 slot open I would probably consider some of the other chase cards with more attractive bonuses than the $200 the FU comes w/.

Downgrading won't count to 5/24 correct

My past 3 applications were CSP (~22 months ago) and then freedom and reserve this year, so I've got 2-3 slots open. My only other card is an Amex bcp that's a few years old, making the CSP my second oldest which is why I want to keep that line open (assuming I understand credit history calcs correctly).
I didn't mean to get this detailed but really appreciate the feedback.
It sounds like between these options:
A) downgrade CSP to FU
B) roll CSP line into reserve, open new FU
Option (b) strictly dominates option (a) because both keep my credit history intact and (b) gets the signup bonus. Your comment on finding more worthwhile signup bonuses is noted

I'm not sure what you mean with B - if you transfer the credit limit and close the card it does not keep the history intact. The positive account will continue to report for 10 years but it will stop aging.

@Duck - consensus is right now that downgrading does not look like a new account for 5/24 purposes.

Oh for some reason I thought you could transfer it and keep the history intact. I must have misread. Thanks

when using discover deals do i have to use the discover it card to get the deal? im guessing u most certainly do. Which if thats the case, physical gift cards will probably not work with discover deals. or am i wrong?