SubscribeFree Round Trip Airline Ticket + $100 Gift Card to Apply for a Credit Card
As of last month, I have $55,000 in credit card arbitrage. I started to get worried that I am getting addicted to this game and getting too greedy. So I resolved not to apply for any more cards until the offers on the current cards expire and I need to move the money. But then I came across the offer mentioned below and could not resist the temptation. I fought hard for a week and finally gave in. Now I put the ball in your court :)
Details of the deal -
The card: AMEX Gold Business Card. (Don’t shy away from the term “business” just yet).
The offer: 25,000 Membership Rewards bonus points (redeemable for one round-trip airline ticket or $250 Home depot gift card or $125 Amex gift card etc.) + $100 tigerdirect.com gift card. Annual fee waived for first year.
The icing on the cake: Easy online application process with instant approval.
The URL: Apply here (not an affiliate link)
Acknowledgments: The credit for this deal goes to Leeskey711 at Fatwallet who posted this offer in this thread. There is tons of information in that thread to answer most of your questions.
The FAQ: Questions below summarize some of concerns related to this particular offer.
I do not own a business. Can I apply for a business card?
If you have a blog, sold something online or offered any paid services (eg. lawn mowing) that can be verified, then legally you qualify to be a sole proprietorship. When you apply for the business card, use your full name as the business name and the SSN as the tax id.
What about the annual fee?
With this offer, the annual fee for the first year is waived. From the second year, the fee will be $125. I think Amex will offer you another 10,000 points for continuing to use the card beyond the first year of fee-free service. So it is up to you whether you want to continue to use the card beyond the first year or to cancel it.
How will this affect my credit score?
From my understanding of this thread, (and someone please correct me if I am wrong), the business credit is kept separate from personal credit. Your personal credit history will still be pulled (hard pull) before you are approved for the offer. However, the criteria used for personal credit such as utilization do not come into play while being approved for business credit. I have read in the above FWF threads that for the particular AMEX offer mentioned above, approval is fairly easy. I am not sure how the credit score will get affected if you cancel the card before the one year of fee-free service is up though. Frankly, in our case, we don’t plan to apply for any major loans in the near future and so if we don’t use our good credit scores to take advantage of offers like these, I don’t know what good a high credit score is for. If you have a different situation (eg. plan to buy a house or a car in the next year or so), I would highly recommend that you do more research into this and see if it is still worth it for you.
Do you believe everything that you read in the Fatwallet Finance forums?
Honestly? Yes :) But that’s just me. If you don’t, then you should look around of more information until you come around too :) Initially, I didn’t believe much of what I read, and spent hours browsing on the web to verify anything that I read on FWF. Now I am not so suspicious. And ever since I switched to the “finance” forums from the “hot deals” forums, I have managed to make quite a bit of money (mainly from CC arbitrage), instead of blowing it on junk just because it was on sale. There are a few guys out there whose opinions I really respect. And the community as such is obsessed with these games, and makes sure that they point out when someone makes a mistake. Overall, I think it’s a more reliable source for information (especially for credit related stuff) than random browsing on Google.
OK. I am done gushing now :)
Coming back to the offer, both the better half and I have applied for a card each and received the instant approval. We have also received an acknowledgment mail from tigerdirect.com to verify our email address. Now I am off to dream about what to do with 50,000 reward points and $200 gift cards :)
PS: If you are curious to find out more about the “business card” related issues, I highly recommend reading this thread the credit for which goes to MikeR397 at Fatwallet.
3 Comments:
I COULD be wrong, but in terms of credit score, if you apply for credit as a business, it shouldn't affect your credit score. But if you apply as a blogger, it will.
For instance, I'm a blogger and would apply as me with my social security number -- that would affect my personal score.
On the other hand, my husband owns a small corporation, he applies for the card AS THE CORPORATION, using its tax ID number, and lists himself as the user of the card -- this does not affect his personal credit score.
Not that I'm saying the card is a bad idea, but if your credit score is an issue to you, be careful with your assumption.
Staci: Hmmm that's interesting. So you are saying that if I am an SCorp then my business credit doesn't affect my personal score, but not if I am a sole proprietor? I thought the benefits extended even to sole proprietors. At this point, the credit score is not that big a deal for us since we don't anticipate taking out any big loans. That said, I would still like to maintain a good score for those juicy 0% balance transfer offers :) I will certainly look this into more detail - thanks for your comment.
If you want to take the time to go through the application process, becoming an LLC (limited liability company) will protect you from your business credit card debt too. Additionally, if you have student credit card debt, you can transfer the balance and be way ahead of the game!
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