Stars left a comment and asked how I earned so much money. I think it’s necessary to write a post about how much I earned during the last 5 months or so. Here I list the bonuses:
BOA MyAccess Checking: $100+$100 (I don’t know why they give me twice? Don’t ask me.) ;
BOA Rewards American Express Card: $50 ($50 appeared as credit in two weeks);
Chase Free Checking: $100 (I use ING to make direct deposit);
ING:$25+$10*3 ($25 is sign-up bonus and $10 for 3 referrals. If you need a referral email, please let me know.);
Chase Amazon.com Platinum Visa Card: $30;
Chase Sony Card: $100 (expired now);
American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Card:10,000 bonus points (assume I can get $100 gift card);
CapitalOne: $25 (MoneyMarket Account);
Chase Freedom: $10 (I requested CLI and got rejected. Then I called them up to ask why. The credit analyst gave me $10 bonus.);
I’m also playing balance transfer ($8,000). However, I will neglect the profit from those money because I have to pay $100 balance transfer fee.
Citi Dividend Select card: $54 (This is a cashback check.);
Household Bank Platinum MasterCard: $25 (This is also a cashback check.);
Total amount is $670+$54+$25.
I monitored my credit score daily by using NationalCity Identity Protect. The FAKO score from TransUnion dropped from 718 to 640. I have more than 10 hard inquiries in my credit report. Credit inquiries lowered my credit score from 718 to 670. Balance transfer amount appeared on my credit report lowered my credit score from 670 to 640. If you have an American Express card, you can use Credit Secure from American Express, the cost is $11.95 per month plus the first 30 days free. You can get 3 FAKO scores from 3 credit bureaus compared to only one FAKO score from TransUnion in NationalCity Identity Protect. Personally, I prefer Credit Secure from American Express.
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November 13th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
hehe, you didn’t jump fidelity?
November 13th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
yes. I also missed the $250 from BOA Iowa card.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Cardoffer:
Thanks a lot for your detailed report. $670 of free money is really nice. For the credit monitor thing, do you buy that month after month or you only buy when you need it? Personally, I did not find a lot a lot of value there.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Oh, one more question. I have about 20 active credit card accounts in my credit report, and it may be too many. I am trying to figure out whether I can/want to open more accounts for those bonus. How many do you have? For those you opened for bonus, do you leave them there after you harvested the the bonus? I have a couple of accounts opened for bonus, and I am wondering whether to close those or not. Again, thanks a lot.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Hi Stars. I use the credit monitor service all the time since this July. It costs me about $8.75/mon. This price is OK for me. And I can cancel the service at any time. Currently, I have 11 accounts.I will keep them for a while because I am playing BT. I have to keep high credit limit to reduce the useage of my credit.I will close some accounts in the near future. I suggest you close/consolidate some accounts. Maybe you will be interested in AOR.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Cardoffer:
Thanks for the response. What is AOR?
November 14th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
AOR=App-O-Rama. You can find a post here about it.