Question
I'm aware of the savings bond method, but I don't really want to hold on to them for a year. And online casinos have stopped working with credit cards, so those are out.
Any ideas?
Traveler
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Take a Royal Caribbean cruise and take cash out at the Casino and pay for it all at the end of the cruise with any credit card.
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www.citicashcard.com (http://www.citicashcard.com)
I get 1,000 miles every 2 weeks from this card!
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Originally posted by MeLike2Travel:
www.citicashcard.com (http://www.citicashcard.com)
I get 1,000 miles every 2 weeks from this card!
Well, while you can LOAD $1000 every 2 weeks, you can't turn it into CASH that fast. There's something like a $338/week limit on ATM withdrawals (and $112/day), and that's the only one-step way of getting "cash" if you've loaded it with a credit card. (It clearly states that you can't "unload" a CitiCashCard that was loaded with a credit card to a bank account, only that you can "unload" if you funded from a bank account in the first place).
Also, they don't mention whether your credit card funding is a purchase or a cash advance, and they also don't mention fees, except they mention in passing that you have to pay for ATM fees if they apply (but there's nothing explicit about it, so it's not clear whether they ever don't apply).
(If you have actually used this card for a couple billing cycles, perhaps you can answer some of these questions. But the website you listed doesn't seem to.)
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I'm interested in hearing more about this too. Cash advance or purchase? If it's a purchase, I don't mind running more stuff through this, even with the limited amount of cash availability..
Anyone have any experience with this product?
Seems like it may still be a good deal even with some ATM fees.
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I'm happy to post add't details, as I've been doing this for about 6 months now.
First off, the credit card funding posts as a purchase, and not as a cash advance (on my Citi Aadvantage card).
Second, although the citicashcard site states that there is a $338/week and $112/day limit, they don't enforce the weekly limit. Thus, I can withdraw from an ATM $100 per day ($110 from ATMs that have $10 bills in them). The restriction of loading $1,000 every two weeks is enforced too. So I load $1,000 on the card, then go to a Citi ATM every day for 10 days to withdraw the money. Then two weeks later I start the cycle over.
As far as the ATM fees go, there are no fees if you go to a Citibank ATM. There's a Citibank near my house, so it's very convenient for me. If there isn't a Citibank near you, then it's not a good deal.
You can also have multiple cards in your name. I have two cards in my name, and two cards in my wifes name. So every two weeks I get 4,000 miles, or 104,000 miles a year. That's a pretty darn good deal for the $25/card membership fee and the small amount of time it takes to go to the ATM every day.
I'm young, don't have much money, and don't travel for work. This is a phenomenol way for me to get airlines miles. Besides that, I deposit the money I withdraw from the ATM into an interest-bearing account. So I get a little bit of interest out of it as well.
Although some people would say that I'm not using this card for the intended purpose, it doesn't violate the users agreement. I told the customer service person what I was going to do with the card when I signed up for it to make sure I wasn't breaking any of their rules. She actually commended me on the idea, and agreed that it was a great way to earn airline miles.
I hope that answers your questions. I apologize for the length of this post. If anyone else has any questions, I'm happy to answer them. I'd suggest that you email me the question, and then I can post the answer on FT for all to see, as I don't know if I'll be looking at this thread again soon.
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This sounds like an interesting idea.
Does anyone know if this card requires a credit check or shows up on a credit report? I don't think so, as far as I can tell.
d
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Originally posted by MeLike2Travel:
As far as the ATM fees go, there are no fees if you go to a Citibank ATM. There's a Citibank near my house, so it's very convenient for me. If there isn't a Citibank near you, then it's not a good deal.
Good point. Also, if there's no such thing as "near you" period (because you already travel often or because time is money for you on weekdays because even 15 minutes out of the way costs you $$ you could have earned using that time), then it's not that good a deal either, because of the fact that you have to go to an ATM just about every single day of your life to make this work.
I would think that could be good news for you specifically: If the requirement of an Citi ATM very near you and a physical trip to it on a daily basis puts off most people, then the "mileage loopholers" will presumably be a minor blip for Citi and they'll take longer to close the loopholes (like not enforcing the $338/week limit, for example).
If it were easier (like the early days of their C2It where all the work could be done online), there'd be more "mileage loopholers" going for it, and Citi would be more likely to bring the game to a screeching halt faster.
[This message has been edited by Stefan Daystrom (edited 08-18-2003).]
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Well, so much for this scam...
www.citicashcard.com
The Citi® Cash Card website is no longer available. Please call 1-866-511-5979 for more information about your account. If you would like to apply for a credit card, please visit us at www.citicards.com. (http://www.citicards.com.)
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Well that sucks!
I guess I've milked it for quite a bit though, so I can't complain.
I just called customer service. It plays a recording saying that Citi has decided to discontinue the product, effective September 30th.
I guess I have no right to complain. Oh well.
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If you did this every two weeks wouldnt you have know that the stopped this program on July 31 ? SOunds like 2 weeks ago was 8.1.03 and you would have tried to move $1,000 right ?
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Originally posted by Ken in Phx:
If you did this every two weeks wouldnt you have know that the stopped this program on July 31 ? SOunds like 2 weeks ago was 8.1.03 and you would have tried to move $1,000 right ?
Well, I don't know about his particular case, but up until yesterday the citicashcard.com Web site made no mention about the program ending two weeks prior.
I was about to sign up for it and they were still taking applications without any notice of the end.
d
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I loaded money onto my cards last Friday. There was no mention at any point during that process that the card was no longer being offered and the program was being shut down.
Originally posted by Doppy:
Well, I don't know about his particular case, but up until yesterday the citicashcard.com Web site made no mention about the program ending two weeks prior.
I was about to sign up for it and they were still taking applications without any notice of the end.
d
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I'd glady pay for the miles, and actually would prefer to do so rather than ripping off merchants for the credit card fees.
Problem is, it's hard to find a straightforward way to turn charges into cash at the rock-bottom negotiated rate of 1.5% or so that high-volume merchants get.
It would probably be a nice sideline business to sell cash at a slight discount and let customers charge on a credit card. Get a great discount rate of 1.5% or so and charge the customers 2% or so. As long as you were insulated from chargebacks it would be free money.
There's just a limit to how much people would be willing to pay, and it's against MC/VISA regs to do that anyway.
Traveler
[This message has been edited by Travelergcp (edited 08-22-2003).]