Rainbow of Credit (photo credit, badumtss)
Advertiser Disclosure: This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers.
In the last year or so we’ve opened 9 new credit card accounts, 7 in my name and 2 in Winnie’s. We have plans to add several more in short order.
Many of these cards have great benefits in their own right, but the primary appeal is the generous signup bonuses which saved us nearly $10,000 on our recent trip to Europe.
Normally the signup bonus is dependent on spending a minimum amount within a specific time period, e.g. “Spend $4,000 on the new card in 3 months.” Our 9 new accounts came with a minimum spend requirement of $23,500, no small amount.
How does one meet these minimum spending requirements without breaking the bank? Inquiring minds want to know.
We never apply for a new card without a plan for how to meet the minimum spend requirement. No plan = No application.
With few exceptions, our goal is to meet these requirements without spending more. I’ll outline our strategies for doing so and share two examples with our own spending.
Credit Card Minimum Spend Strategies
Lifestyle design
Over the past 4 years we’ve spent about $137/day or approximately $4k/month, and we strive to put 100% of this on credit cards.
While we have yet to get all of our spending on new cards, our lifestyle design makes it possible. Instead of a mortgage we pay for hotels and Airbnb. Instead of car payments we pay for Uber and airplanes.
Plan for Big Purchases
Anytime we have a big purchase planned you can bet there is a credit card application that goes with it. Usually this is airplane tickets or a hotel reservation, or maybe a new laptop or camera gear. But sometimes it is childbirth.
Spending $3000 on a cash back card that returns 1.5% might put $45 in our pocket, but we can get 10x or more with a signup bonus. This is a great way to get incredible return on these large purchases.
New purchases on the new card
This is obvious, but I include it for the sake of completeness. As soon as a new card arrives it typically becomes our default spender. All purchases go on the new card until the minimum spend requirements are met.
Ideally all of this spending will be in bonus categories. If a card pays bonuses for spending on travel or dining out, we can try to meet minimum spend solely through those categories.
If minimum spend requirements can’t be met in this way, we need to get more creative…
Splitting the Bill
A lot of our friends are also big fans of credit card rewards, so it isn’t rare for at least one person at dinner to be working on minimum spend for a new card.
In this case we’ll defer to that person to charge the whole meal on their card and pay for our portion with cash or PayPal. Maybe next time it will be our turn.
This concept can be extended to…
Communal Purchases
We recently spent a week with my whole family on a lake in Northern Minnesota, which required a deposit upon booking.
My Mom, sister, and nephews live in California and required 5 airplane tickets to get to Minnesota.
I offered to pay all of these expenses and get reimbursed at the lake.
Bring Spending Forward
Have any expenses scheduled months from now? Pay them now.
Insurance is one typical expense that can be paid annually rather than monthly, possibly even for a discount. The quarterly Costco run is another good example. Perhaps other regular expenses can be lumped into one large bill?
My favorite way to bring spending forward is to…
Buy Gift Cards
Gift Cards are a great way to pay for future expenses today.
My defaults are Airbnb Gift Cards and Hotels.com Gift Cards, although I’ve also Reloaded an Amazon.com GC when it offered a $5 bonus. All of these GCs have no fees and no expiration dates.
I’ll limit GC purchases to a sum that we’ll definitely spend in the near future. It can even be possible to buy gift cards at a discount or get a reload bonus.
Fund New Bank Accounts
Many banks will accept credit cards for initial deposit when opening a new account. Even better, many banks have signup bonuses of their own.
Earlier this year I opened a new bank account and used a credit card to deposit $1,000. This was treated as a purchase (not a cash advance.) I then used the bank’s online billpay to return $1,000 to the same credit card.
For helping me spend $1k on a new card, the bank also paid me $150.
Doctor of Credit maintains a list of bank signup bonuses and bank accounts that can be funded with a credit card. Thanks DoC!
Pay Taxes
All previous examples had zero fees. This one is different.
If you have a bill due on Tax Day or owe Estimated Taxes, these can be paid with a credit card. The IRS doesn’t charge a fee but uses 3rd party payment services that do. I’ve exclusively used Pay1040 as their fees are the lowest (1.87%.) (See full list of IRS authorized payment processors here.)
It would be a mathematically poor choice to pay such a fee in order to get a standard 1-2% cash back or the points equivalent. But with a new credit card signup bonus…
Paying $3k in taxes with a 1.87% fee of $56.1 could satisfy the minimum spend requirement for the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card with a signup bonus of 25k SPG points. This is enough for 5 nights at The Westin Resort & Spa, Cancun, Mexico. Not bad for $56.
Examples
Example 1: Potpourri
Months before our European Tour I was already building up our portfolio of points while we were still hanging out in SE Asia. With lower spending and a big cash economy I had to use a wide variety of spending methods.
Here is an example of how we met min spend of 4k on two cards ($8k total):
– fund a new bank account ($150 cash back) (see example) – $1k
– pay hotel and Airbnb for Malaysia – $1.5k
– pay hotel in Singapore – $0.6k
– pay Airbnb in Lisbon – $0.35k
– book flight from Iceland to the US for Aug 2016 – $0.8k
– book flights for my sister & nephews – $2k (paid back with cash)
– pay deposit for lake cabin in Minnesota for Aug 2016 – $1k
– various restaurants over last few months – $0.75k
Total: $8k
Example 2: Taxes
Due to some blog income last year I had to pay some Self Employment Taxes. I paid part of this on a new card with $3k min spend. I never even removed the “To Activate this Card” sticker.
– Taxes via Pay1040.com – $2,946
– Payment fee (1.87%) – $55.09
Total: $3,001
As an added bonus, the payment fee is a deductible business expense for our 2016 taxes. This reduces the effective fee to ~1.3% or $38.40.
Summary
Signup bonuses for new credit cards can provide an incredible amount of free and nearly free travel. Our recent trip to Europe included $10k worth of savings.
To maximize value the highest possible percentage of normal spending should be placed on credit cards, ideally towards minimum spend on new cards. Any large planned purchase should coincide with a new credit card application.
With a little planning, there are a wide variety of flexible options to meet the minimum spending requirements.
Editorial Note – Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
I’ve always been a proponent of cash-back cards, but I’m starting to see the allure of all these travel points. I’ve never wanted to deal with a bunch of cards and their associated points systems, but it seems like the benefits may be worth it.
I’m thinking once I quit working and have more time to dedicate to keeping track of everything, I will probably jump on the travel points bandwagon. Thanks for showing me the ropes.
Come to think of it, I just wrote a post about how I use my credit card cash-back. You can check that out here: http://www.fiscallyfree.com/2016/10/how-i-limit-but-dont-eliminate-my.html
A rough guess on time we spend… 15 minutes per card application.
I’m definitely not worried about the application time. I was more turned off by the prospect of keeping track of a bunch of different cards and their associated point/mileage system.
Like I said though, I think I’ve seen the light and will jump in soon.
Just put all the important info in a Google doc spreadsheet for tracking:
– Name of credit card
– Issuer (i.e. Bank)
– Application date
– Spend due (usually 90 days after App date)
– Spend amount (mininum $$ spend to qualify for bonus)
– Cancel by date (if annual fee applies)
– Last four digits of card number
I don’t usually struggle too much to meet those $3-5k minimum spends within 3 months. That’s usually about what we spend anyway, and almost all our spending goes on credit cards. No mortgage to worry about, and the utilities, taxes, and insurance all take credit cards. Food, gas, and auto repair bills all go on credit cards.
One of the tricks I use is to pay utilities ahead by several hundred dollars if I need to make some last minute min. spending. This is possible for electricity, natural gas, water, and internet for me at least.
You can also purchase yourself a few hundred dollars of gift cards from your local grocery store, if you’re close to the 3-month minimum spend limit.
good point. I’ve done that too. Even better, but them through ebay or a gift card reseller for big % off too.
Hey, big spender. We don’t have too much problem for similar reasons.
The only time it can be a fun challenge is when we are in really low cost of living countries with a primarily cash economy.
#firstworldproblems Oh wait, #thirdworldproblems
Nice! I have been getting more into travel hacking. Our next few trips should be mostly funded by sign up bonuses.
Beyond meeting the signup bonus, do you maintain some marginal spending on the card to keep the banks happy? So far I have only run into the 5/24 rule with one Chase card I applied for.
I don’t do any marginal spending. We’ve fulfilled our mutual contractual obligations.
If we aren’t currently working on min spend for a new card, I’ll use whatever card provides the best ROI for that specific purchase.
I’m trying to get into the credit card free travel plan as well. Haven’t applied nearly as much cards as you guys. I agree, you need to have a spending plan to meet the minimum spending requirement before applying for a card. It’s silly to have to buy unnecessary extra stuff just to meet the requirement. Interesting thing about able to use credit card to fund bank deposits…. something to investigate for Canadian banks.
How are the signup bonuses on credit cards in Canada?
This was great. I’ve been looking for a Chase coupon to get the $500 reward. Thanks for the info!!
Don’t spend it all in one place ;)
I started using credit cards intelligently in August. Obviously, the first thing we started to build was our Chase portfolio. So far we’ve got one CSP and 2 CSRs (I applied for 1 CSP and 1 CSR, Mr. BITA got the second CSR). Minimum spend on all 3 done and we’re sitting on about 270000 points. Wheeeeee. I was a bit worried about minimum spend until we discovered that we could put our daycare expenses on a card. Our daycare gives you a 5% discount for paying using direct deposit. But we get a 15% discount via Mr. BITA’s employer. You can’t combine the 15% and the 5% discounts, so we take the 15% and put the whole thing on a card. Boom. 4k in three months? Trivial. It is so satisfying to feel that we’re getting _something_ out of our ginormous daycare costs.
When life gives you lemons… Nicely done.
It’s a lot easier to sign up for a lot of cards with two people. (and of course spending is higher with your family traveling than one single person not traveling). I’ve been dabbling with cards, and will be funding future travel hopefully exclusively with credit card bonuses and rewards.
We work as a team. I apply for ALL THE CARDS! When I don’t get approved, Winnie applies. This helps with limits certain companies place on credit card approvals.
#relationshipgoals
Great blog by the way. Changed my life.
My expenses are pretty low right now so I’m struggling to hit the minimum spend on the Chase Reserve. My strategy right now is to just spend like I normally do but also ask my GF to use it when she needs to spend money (we true up expenses monthly). I’m pretty lazy when it comes to the credit card game so my next option is buying prepaid cards from Staples or OfficeMax. I think I’ll need to do it this time around or else I’d fall short. I’m too lazy for the funding new bank accounts or other workarounds.
Also try GCs at places you shop regularly, e.g. the grocery store, Amazon… My default is Airbnb because I know we’ll use them, and just this morning got a targeted email from them for a free $50 when purchasing a $250 GC.
Do the Airbnb gift card purchases count towards a travel category? For example, would it trigger the 3 points/$ on the Chase Reserve?
Yes, they count as travel if purchased directly from Airbnb. 3x points.
I just purchased a $250 Airbnb GC because of a targeted 20% back offer ($50 Airbnb credit with purchase of $250 GC) and got 750 UR points.
Me and my husband just started travel hacking this year. I went to FinCon this year because of it, and my husband’s leaving today for another side hustle conference!
We’re planning on getting the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We’ll get a $300 travel credit we can use this year. We’re going to prepay for a very nice hotel for our anniversary, just after New Year’s. The $300 travel credit will cover the cost of the hotel – otherwise we wouldn’t be spending our money on this!
Nice, it is great to get free trips.
A couple thoughts:
The $300 travel credit on the Reserve is still your money. You pay the $450 fee to get it. If you wouldn’t spend $300 of your own money on a hotel, I personally wouldn’t use the travel credit for this purpose.
Since you have side hustles, if they are profitable I wouldn’t use rewards points for attending related conferences. Those are fully tax deductible expenditures. At the 15% tax bracket and with SE tax, you get an effective 30.3% discount on that travel (plus any State taxes.)
You get no tax benefit for personal travel / vacation, so those are the ideal choice for using rewards.
I’m surprised the bank account funded by credit card trick still works. Basically that’s just a bug. Most of the big banks have already caught on and are categorizing those as cash advances. It might only be a matter of time before this option is no longer possible (although small local banks often take a really long time to catch on).
The more I think about it, the more the whole practice of credit card use feels like a bug. It seems like only a matter of time before everyone cracks down on this.
It would be pretty easy for the issuers to stop giving cards to people who had the same card in the recent past or have another card in the same household.
Why hasn’t this happened? Is it just such a small minority of customers doing this that they don’t notice it, or do the issuers somehow not see much of the cost?
I suppose when we save $10,000 like was described in this post, it obviously doesn’t actually cost the airlines and hotels that much, so maybe this is a rare win-win situation where everyone feels like they are getting a good deal.
It’s not a bug, it’s capitalism. You are always at the mercy of your dumbest competitor.
“JPMorgan saw a 35 percent jump in new card accounts, which was driven in part by its Sapphire Reserve Visa”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-19/credit-card-rewards-war-crimps-bank-profits-as-eyes-turn-to-amex
Amex has recently boosted their signup bonuses on some cards to try to compete. It’s a great time to be getting new cards.
There are limits… Chase has their 5/24 limit and Amex only awards a signup bonus once per lifetime. And definitely this doesn’t cost the companies as much as we benefit. The original purpose of frequent flier and hotel loyalty program was to sell excess inventory.
Fewer and fewer of Banks are allowing funding via credit card. Gone are the days I could open a couple of Citibank accounts (checking/savings) for $20K each.
If you do find bank accounts which allow credit card funding, it’s a good idea to first set your CC cash advance to $0 (or $100, if the bank won’t allow zero) to eliminate the possibility of having the transaction coded as a cash advance.
Yes, all of this. The links I shared to Doctor of Credit provide a great guide.
I learned travel hacking from a generous pair of bloggers that have a 101 style travel miles course. My family traveled to Florida for a week free vacay last summer by using SW miles combined with accommodations with friends and family. For US readers I would strongly encourage working to get the SW companion pass. Strategy is pretty straight forward , but you should be planning it for start of the new year since it is based on calendar year accumulations.
We have no special way of earning points except what you already mentioned. If we need to achieve a number, we load grocery store cash cards. Thanks for the fun article
I love this – No plan = No application. When people get started with credit cards for miles/points, this can be such a huge problem! Our easiest way to meet minimum spend is to pay for college tuition. My daughter’s college doesn’t charge a fee – so that’s an easy $7500-8000 a semester and we always get new cards about a month before tuition is due.
That’s the way to do it!
There’s always the fallback of using Venmo or Square Cash to send money to a trusted individual for a 3% fee (and obviously, getting the money back later).
Is it the cheapest method? Absolutely not. Is it convenient to do from anywhere with an internet connection? Yes. Will it work in a pinch? Yes.
Yes, that is a good addition. It’s better to pay 3% on some amount than to fail at to meet the min spend requirement.
While I am gainfully employed, I can put all business expenses on a credit card e.g hotels, meals and car rentals. My company only stipulates that I use the company assigned card for flights reservation. Sweet!
And of course while we pay large estimated quarterly tax payments, that can be powerful also to leverage. Might as well milk it before we beat the system in retirement with much lower taxes.
I used to do this too, and there were times when I spent an insane amount of $ on biz travel. I never followed the corporate guidelines though and just used my own cards. Bad employee!
Help! I’m almost of out of credit card companies to kill (LOL)…seriously…I’m at my limit for Amex, Chase and Barclay…still might be able to take advantage of bank of america and citi…anyhoo
Here’s how I’ve been killing my min spends…
1) Go to grocery store…buy prepaid visa/mc with another credit card…my local store takes every credit card…shout out to QFC
2) Go to local post office purchase a money order for $1.20
3) Deposit money order in bank
4) Pay off bill using bill pay online as soon as you get home so you don’t forget
$500 spend cost you $7.20…well and a lot of time
Would recommend only buying one, maybe 2 money orders a week if going to the same post office. One of the post offices I went to gave me a some crap thinking I was laundering money……so I just went to another one…I’m blessed with having 3 post offices within a 10 mile range…needless to say, it takes me a week of some running around to get to $3000….better than working.
Havent payed for a flight in over 5 years…but running low on opportunities…any help would be appreciated.
I’m not sure what options you have if you already have all the cards. At some point you just have to cancel cards and then reapply.
Money Metagame mentioned some ideas for Gift Card arbitrage at FinCon.
Thanks for the shout-out Jeremy!
Retail gift card arbitrage got hit pretty hard with the recent ebay changes, but there’s still some opportunity out there. Amex offers are also good opportunities, but that won’t help meet the minimum spend in most cases as the amount per card are low. If you have a ton of Amex cards though, there’s often profit to be made.
I imagine arbitrage opportunities anywhere become increasingly difficult.
btw, do you know if any of the big GC marketplace sites are 5X categories with Chase Ink? Raise codes as online services on my Sapphire.
Very true.
Right now, GiftCardMart and PayPal digital gifts (via ebay) both code as 5x on the Ink and have discount cards. Gyft also codes as 5x the last I checked, but they mostly just have full price cards which are good for personal use if you can’t get 5x there normally.
Raise does not work for 5x last I checked.
When we met in Penang I was working through the spend on a new CC.. while on work travel and getting it all reimbursed! Problem is, after 2-3 years of this I’ve gone through the easy ones, most of the common airlines and hotel groups. I’m having to start going for more fringe stuff; I just picked up 20,000 Amtrak points from their co-branded card. Now to figure out a coast-to-coast Amtrak trip..
Hope you all are doing well; Jr’s getting huge! Having kids in their 20s now I forget those days of rapid change.
Hi Kendall! Hope all is well with you too.
Cancel the old cards and go through the whole series again! :-D
Jr is already 1 1/2, it is hard to believe. Everyday brings something new
So when you start getting a lot of cards and have gotten the perks that you want… do you cancel them?? Thanks
It depends. If there is an annual fee involved, I may cancel just before the fee comes due unless the benefits are greater than the cost. But if there is no cost I’ll just keep them.
You can also product change your account to a card with no annual fee. For example, earlier this year I downgraded my Citi AA World Elite to a no-fee Citi DoubleCash card.
I’ve been hearing that if you DON’T cancel a card but carry a 0 balance for a year or 2 and then call them up when they’re offering a bonus, they’ll enroll you in the bonus as if you were a new customer to get you back, but you’ll skip the credit check (unless trying to change your limit). So I’ve stopped closing cards and am hoping to do that in the future.
Great list of minimum spend strategies GCC! I’ve seen many of these on other blogs, but it’s nice to see them all compiled in one place like this.
We don’t travel nearly as much as you guys do, but I really need to get more into the CC hacking scene. It could make traveling with two kids reasonably affordable!
Thanks!
Another way to buy gift cards is to buy from sites like giftcardpool.com or others. you can use your card, and get a discount to buy gift cards.
Sorry I meant cardpool.com.. I have no affiliation to this site, just sharing what I’ve used.
I paid for my dad’s funeral with my credit card. He had the traveling jones his whole life & I’m sure he heartily approved of my method of payment that scored me a trip to Mexico!!
Very sorry for your loss :( But that does sounds like something a travel lover would approve of.
Seems very complicated to “earn” a discount on completely discretionary expenditure. A program / spreadsheet driven by possible / preferred discretionary expenditure to automate decision making of which credit card account to apply for / use? Actual expenditure being downloaded and recorded in a set of accounts and used by said program / spreadsheet.
Now THAT sounds complicated.
We just pick a destination (e.g. Europe) and then get some points. Easy.
Would be less complicated either way if there were comprehensive uniform data on current credit card account offers to optimize account selection. Does such data exist or does each credit card account applicant have to find, parse, analyse, compare the various offers? Any useful comparison website(s)?
Accounting is required to determine compliance with terms and conditions to ensure that the required effort is profitable.
The travel rewards card bulleted list above leads to creditcards.com which aggregates such data.
Missed that – seems my eye is trained to not see advertising content.
Still to low level process to adequately reward the effort for me.
I have good knowledge of my likely future expenditure.
A process which optimized the automated selection of credit card account based on estimated future expenditure could reduce the selection effort And increase the reward making the process more worthwhile.
I concur; have a Plan, and that Plan may require a tiny bit of research. My “idea” was to pay $~6k of property taxes (homeowner in IL) via credit card, eating a 2.1% processing fee. Not the greatest return in the world of hacks (50,000 member points for $125) but WTH – property taxes are my biggest annual expense.
Applied and received AmEx Gold Biz card – logged onto county website – only to realize that county’s processor doesn’t accept AmEx. Whoops! I’ll get ‘r next year. Never did spend a nickle on that AmEx card… Upside? Credit score improved.
Aww, that is a real bummer.
I have a crazy idea for next year. If the min spend to get the bonus is less than $6k, split the bill across 2 cards. You could get cards each with a 3k min spend, for example. That way you get even more for your $125.
Not crazy at all. Even syncs up with the payment schedule – two partial payments of $3k, due in June and Sept – though I’d imagine you can also make one full payment (there’s that research part again!)
Where do you get the cards sent to? We typically have been sending them to my parents in U.S., and then they either mail forward to us, or we pick them up when we go home. They’ve decided to go retire in Taiwan soon, so I’m trying to figure out my next plan. I remember your post about a mail service instead of relying on friends and family – does that work also for cards?
Hi Wendy
Yes, the cards get sent to our online mailbox. They can then be forwarded to anywhere in the world. In the past few months I’ve had cards forwarded to a hotel in Europe and to a friend’s house in the US where we were staying.
Here is my review of the online mail service Traveling Mailbox
https://gocurrycracker.com/snail-mail-paper-checks-21st-century/
Cheers
Jeremy
Receiving the cards was my question too. As someone who wants to get into travel hacking but is a slow full-time traveler with no home base (albeit a US-based mail service that forwards), I always worry about the cards getting to me. Lately, I have been traveling around SE Asia. The expats here tell me that mail services are unreliable or will make you pay exorbitant fees to pick packages up. I am told packages get opened and valuable items get “lost” in the mail. Do you think it’s possible to travel hack and travel/live in the less developed areas of the world (SE Asia, Eastern Europe, South America)? Have you had cards sent to developing countries? Thank you!
I have 2 possible solutions:
– have TM ship to your hotel with UPS with tracking rather than USPS. The cost is higher but it will get to you in just a few days anywhere in the world.
– forward to a trusted friend or family member in the US and have them send you a photo of the back of the card, then book everything online. This way it is only a minor inconvenience for a friend, rather than a constant barrage of mail.
I’ve done both of these things, and I know others using TM who’ve shipped stuff to SE Asia.
Note also that there is nothing valuable about a credit card. Until you activate it, the theoretical mail thief just has a worthless piece of plastic.
I found this fascinating, the credit card market seems to be much more competitive and rewarding in the US than the UK. Cashback over here has dropped or reduced signficantly on some cards due to EU legislation capping costs that Credit Card providers can charge, thereby reducing profits available to be paid to encourage spending. I currently have 2 the give good, ongoing value, though I keep a look out for new deals, especially when there are big, upcoming purchases!
Rewards travel is the way to go! Over the past 2 years I was able to go on some amazing trips using miles and points. Some people may look at credit card use as something unorthodox or sketchy. I look at it as a benefit/reward of being a responsible credit user. I heart CC’s (i pay every single one of them off each month).
I usually try to align a new credit card to an upcoming expense (e.g. 6 mos insurance premium, airfare that I plan to purchase out of pocket, etc). I also use my own CC to pay for medical expenses instead of using the FSA debit card, and just submit a reimbursement claim for. But still, meeting the minimum spending requirement remains to be a challenge for me. I may resort to asking family members if i could pay their bills using my CC, and get reimbursed by them. Last option will be GC’s if i’m at the home stretch.
One technique that used to exist for getting to the minimum spending was buying coins off the US mint site. They were trying to get coins into circulation so they would offer free shipping on orders. People would get a new card, buy the coins, deposit them at the bank. They put a stop to that.
Those were the days.
Nice post! Well explained the minimal spend strategies of credit cards with examples. Thank you so much.
We’re planning on moving overseas before we retire. Since you live overseas we have a few questions:
1) What are you using for a permanent address, family in CA
2) How are you retrieving all your new cards?
3) Do you use a VPN to apply for cards so you can use a US internet connection?
4) Who is activating all of these cards for you since that usually needs to be done from your phone?
1. We use Traveling Mailbox for our mailing address which is sufficient in many cases. For cc companies that want a physical address, we use a friend’s house in Seattle as our permanent address.
2. TM will forward all mail to our location anywhere in the world. But sometimes I’ll just enter the card in Apple Pay and never actually get the physical card.
3. Yes
4. We use Google Voice for phone, so we have a US number, but most cards are just activated online.
Thanks! So TM will open your mail so you can get the new card number, expiration, and the CVV on the reverse?
It has been a mixed bag. They’ve scanned both sides on a couple cards, and other times said they don’t scan both sides for security reasons. Ymmv
In the case where I don’t have a scan of both sides, if I need the card itself I forward it to our current location. If I don’t need the physical card, I forward it to my brother who sends me a pic of the front/back.
Good idea. I’m surprised banks and CC companies don’t have a problem sending stuff to a big mail consolidator like that. But good to know. Great article BTW. What’s the most convenient way for you to get in touch? FB, email, here? Usually we’ll just have a quick question. And where are you these days? Going back to Taiwan?
We just got back to Taiwan, so I’ll be more responsive on all of the communication options you listed (I think.)
I think the cc companies are becoming more adamant about having a physical address. Things change all the time, so we’ll adjust if we need to.
Gotcha. Have fun enjoying all the food in Taiwan. Have you been to an 85C yet? They have one in Dallas and it’s an hour drive for us, but we love that place.
85C the coffee/cake store? I don’t think I’ve ever been to one, thanks for the tip