American Express has a few “no lifetime language” (NLL) card offers kicking around. The great news is that if you got the Unicorn Platinum card around when it came out in November, your 90 days is up and you’re eligible for another American Express charge card. As a reminder, if you apply for an NLL card and American Express doesn’t give you a popup saying you’re ineligible to receive a bonus, you should get it after meeting the spend requirements.
The best wisdom out there is to avoid obvious manufactured spend on American Express welcome bonus spending, though you can ignore that advice and probably be fine if you can’t gin up spend in any other way (just like you can drive without a seatbelt and probably be fine, but you may also die.)
There are at least three really good credit card offers to fly you into the weekend:
1. The American Express Personal Gold Card
Why to consider it: The offer kicking around right now is the no lifetime language version, which means you should be eligible for the 75k MR sign-up bonus after spending $5,000 in three months regardless of whether or not you’ve already had a bonus from a Personal Gold. The 75k bonus is historically high too.
Why to skip it: You no longer get the $100 airline credit as of last week. It could throw you over 5/24, You’ve already been approved for another American Express charge card in the last 90 days. The offer didn’t appear for you (like me). You don’t have a way to gin up $5,000 in spend.
Why to consider it: It’s offering $500 for $3,000 in spend in 90 days, which is a historically low spend requirement. It won’t affect Chase’s 5/24 rule because it’s a business card that won’t show as a new account on your credit report. It has no annual fee and great categories for earning unlimited 3% on spend (gas, office supply, telecom). It gives a 25% bonus on earned rewards every year, up to $250.
Why to skip it: US Bank sometimes doesn’t like approving credit cards if you don’t have a banking relationship with them (YMMV). You don’t have any sort of actual or made up business, such as selling goods on ebay twice a year.
Why to consider it: It earns +3 Membership Rewards points on your MR earning Rakuten account when you purchase items through the Rakuten shopping portal. It’s the original MilesEarnAndBurn Unsung Hero. It has no annual fee. You get $10 after your first purchase. Synchrony doesn’t have many interesting cards, so you can hit this one hard and if you get shut down, 🤷♀️. There are opportunities to manufacture spend online through the Rakuten portal.
Why to skip it: You haven’t converted your Rakuten account to a Membership Rewards earning account yet. You don’t ever shop online. Synchrony is known for giving small credit lines. It could mess up your 5/24 plans.
How: Apply directly here, after you’ve converted your account to a Membership Rewards earning account.
Is My Advice Good Advice?
Of course! I’m some rando on the internet that you’ve never met, so what could possibly go wrong? Let’s fly into the weekend together.
Monday morning after flying into the weekend together.
Happy Wednesday! There are a couple of items worthy of your attention today:
1. You can score 7,500 American Express Membership Rewards points with the Rakuten portal by opening a Betterment Checking or Cash Reserve account and funding it with $1.00 or $10.00, respectively. In the grand scheme of things, this is a great offer for just transferring a buck and not worrying about it ever again. Or you can hang on to the account and use it for it’s world-wide ATM fee reimbursements.
2. Do you want a Southwest Companion pass with a single credit card? The 100,000 point Southwest Performance Business card is still kicking around, and that sign up bonus by itself will earn you a companion pass. Now that Southwest flies to Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica, and all over the Caribbean, I’m actually interested in it even though I don’t like flying Southwest (call me old fashioned because I like seat assignments and potential first class upgrades. I also like when we used to wear an onion around our belts, which was the style at the time). Combine this with yesterday’s green or black star Chase offers to bypass 5/24 if needed.
Illustrated: Why I don’t like flying Southwest very much.
Are you way above the Chase 5/24 rule *? There is a new round of widely targeted offers that bypass 5/24. To see if you’re targeted, log in to your Chase online account, click the hamburger menu icon (☰) in the upper left, click on “Just for you”, and look for offers that have a green star or black star icon. Those offers should bypass the usual 5/24 restrictions.
*In case you’re not familiar with it, the 5/24 rule says that you won’t be approved for a Chase credit card if you have five or more new personal credit card accounts from any issuing bank in the last 24 months.
The Chase credit card drinking game’s official mascot.
