$700 in Credit Card Bonuses (Anyone Can Apply)
Since AmEx has revived (and sweetened) the Business Gold Rewards signup deal with a $250 bonus offer, I thought I’d put together a summary of the most profitable business card bonus offers that are floating around right now. If you think you don’t qualify if you don’t have a business, think again!
Anyone can apply for these cards. If the application asks for a federal tax ID, just use your SSN. As for the business name, you can use you name, or you can just make something up. With that being said, here are five offers that will net you a total of $700 in signup bonuses.
» AmEx Business Gold Rewards Card
Signup bonus: 25,000 points
Redeem for: $250 in store gift cards or free domestic flight
When: After first purchase
Annual fee: None for first year, $125 thereafter
» AmEx Starwood Preferred Guest Card
Signup bonus: 10,000 points
Redeem for: $100 store gift card or use for travel rewards
When: After first purchase
Annual fee: None for first year, $30 thereafter
» CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network
Signup bonus: 10,000 points
Redeem for: $100 in store gift cards
When: After $250 purchase
Annual fee: None
So there you have it… Five business cards that will give you up to $700 in bonuses.
*Note: Two of these offers (worth a total of $250) has been cancelled and removed.
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Do you get a referral from these credit card links? If so, I think you should disclose that in every post.
Also, how come you do not mention sites similar to cardoffers.com that pay a bonus to the applicant if you apply for a card through their site?
Comment by Delirious in Delaware — Jul 2nd 2007 @ 9:39 amFor some credit cards, yes, I receive a referral fee. I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I run ads and also participate in select affiliate programs. Those sorts of things make this site possible.
As for the amount of the referral fees, they are (unfortuantely) substantially less than the bonuses that you’ll receive for signing up for these cards.
Also note that cardoffers is no longer offering cash signup bonuses for applying through their site.
You should also disclose how harmful signing up for many credit cards (and then closing them) can be to your credit.
Articles:
Comment by Chris Jones — Jul 2nd 2007 @ 11:15 amWhen to close credit accounts
Closing credit card account may do more harm than good
Chris, you’re right that opening and closing accounts can have an effect on your credit score. However, it’s not particularly harmful in the long run, as the effects are generally small and short-lived. Thus, if you don’t expect to be applying for a loan in the near future, you can make a good bit of funny money at the expense of credit card issuers.
Before we go any further, I’ll say this… While applying for business credit cards triggers a “hard pull” of your credit report, the prevailing wisdom is that business credit cards such as these don’t show up on your personal credit report. Thus, such accounts may have no effect beyond the initial credit check. But let’s just talk about rewards credit cards in general, as not everyone is applying for business cards when chasing credit card signup bonuses.
As for how credit scores are calculated, I’ve written previously talked about the components of your credit score.
As it turns out, the length of your credit history only accounts for about 15% of your credit score. A relatively minor hit to what is already a rather small component of your score won’t have a major impact. In some cases, it’ll be enough to tip the scales from a good-enough credit score to one that’s no-so-good, but if you have good credit to start with there’s probably not a lot to worry about.
As for credit utilization, higher % utilization does indeed reduce your credit score. In this case, however, there is no real effect from before you apply for the cards to after you close them. The reason for this is that you’ll still have the same credit lines with the same limits/balances (more or less) after you’re done as you did before you started. In fact, you’ll actually see a short-term benefit (at least in theory) by having more available credit without correspondingly higher balances while the additional card(s) is/are open. If you decide to cancel the cards, you’ll return to the pre-application utilization level.
As for the applications themselves, a flurry of heavy application activity can have a negative effect on your apparent credit-worthiness and is viewed as a warning flag by credit issuers. However, the prevailing wisdom is that these sorts of effects fall off quickly (i.e., within months).
The bottom line here is that a lot of people make a decent amount of money by chasing credit card bonuses. It’s not for everyone, but for those that are interested, $100-$250 in bonuses for a single card is a pretty solid deal.
This is a good topic, though. Probably worthy of an article of its own. I’ll try to pull something together shortly.
SSN != EIN for sole proprietor. If you are a sole proprietor and employ anyone, you must have an EIN.
Comment by Compounding — Jul 2nd 2007 @ 9:21 pmwhat are the effects on your taxes for this? I’m assuming none since these are all reward point bonuses.
Also, my understanding was that business cards don’t show up/effect your personal credit score.
Comment by thomas — Jul 3rd 2007 @ 12:04 amCompounding: Correct, SSN and EIN aren’t strictly interchangeable. However, Sole Proprietorships *can* be run using your SSN (assuming no employees), so you can just use your SSN in this instance.
thomas: As far as I know, there are no tax consequences.
Just wanted to add that the last two Citi cards actually give you 15,000 bonus points if you open an application and close the application window. You have to disable pop-up blocker but Citi gives you a bonus of 5,000 points as a last chance offer.
Great Post. Thanks.
Comment by Sunil — Jul 3rd 2007 @ 1:41 amI must admit that I find these offers verrrry tempting! I’m trying to follow Dave Ramsey’s plan to get out of debt and he definitely would not approve. But I’m still considering it . . .
Comment by Jennifer — Jul 3rd 2007 @ 11:07 pmSurely there must be some catch to getting the free money for the sign up fee as in do you have to spend so much per month to qualify. Also will a credit card company allow you to have 3 different types of credit card with them at the same time?
Comment by Vans Girl — Jul 4th 2007 @ 7:12 amVans Girl: There is no catch - make a purchase, get the bonues. Credit card companies spend a substantial amount of money to acquire each customer, and this is just a part of that cost. Their hope is that you’ll become a long-term customer. The average customer generates enough revenue to make these sorts of expenditures worthwhile, even if the actual retention rate isn’t very high.
this is a very nice list. thanks
Comment by Hustler — Jul 4th 2007 @ 2:57 pmThanks Nickel…I applied for the AMEX Gold card through your link and was approved. Thanks for the great list!
Comment by David — Jul 6th 2007 @ 12:10 pmsweet deal I will have to mention this on my site
Comment by creditnine.com — Jul 8th 2007 @ 2:05 pmJust wanted to point out to Delirious in Delaware and everybody else that CardOffers.com no longer offers cash rewards for applying for cards through their site.
Comment by Max Messner — Jul 11th 2007 @ 4:16 pmWell, I’m very disappointed. I was just about to apply for the American Express Business Gold Rewards Card and it turns out that you DO NOT get $250 in gift cards.
You get 25,000 points that you can redeem for an airline ticket, but if you want to use the points for gift cards, you only get 5,000 (which is the equivalent of only $50 in gift cards).
Big difference. So Buyer Beware!!!
Comment by Jennifer — Jul 23rd 2007 @ 2:28 pmJennifer: You are mistaken. You get 25,000 reward points, although they note that you may receive them in two deposits: one for 5000 points and one for 20,000 points. You can then use these points for ANY reward that Amex offers. It could be a plane ticket, but it could also be store gift cards (up to $250), or a $125 statement credit.
Nickel, you were right! I called back and two different AmX reps told me that I could definitely use the 25,000 points to get $250 in gift cards. So - I did it. (And I went through your link.)
Thank you!
Comment by Jennifer — Jul 27th 2007 @ 1:33 pmHi , I call the first card on the list ,and they dont offer such a program. They said 15,000 points was the max. bob
Comment by bob c — Oct 11th 2007 @ 6:19 pmBob, they *do* offer this, although it’s supposed to expire soon. I believe that it’s an online only offer. Click through the link, the information (”Free Domestic Round-Trip Ticket”) is listed right there in red print near the top left. Free roundtrip ticket = 25,000 points. Often times the online and phone departments don’t know what the other is doing.
Nickel, the American Express card worked out so great (got my free $250 in store gift cards!) that I signed up for the CitiBusiness PremeirPass and got the approval in the mail today! This $400 is going to buy a lot of Christmas gifts on my list, and I’ll use the $400 cash to go towards paying off debts! Thanks again for posting about these great offers!
Comment by Jennifer — Oct 23rd 2007 @ 9:01 pm