Bank Accounts that earn rewards

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I will be keep adding to this list as I do more research.
BankDirect AAdvantage Mileage Program

2 types of Mileage Checking Accounts
1- Mileage Checking Account- Fee free for balances over $2,500, otherwise $15/month.
2- Mileage Money Market Account (for savings) - Fee free for balances over $10,000, otherwise $15/month.

Before opening one of these account, first open an American Airlines Aadvantage Account. You will use this account number to receive your free miles.

How to Earn Miles:
1- Earn miles by referring friends, you get 1,000 miles and they get 1,000 miles. For both of you to receive miles, you must go to your Manage Account Section and request mileage for your friend by filling out the Referral Template.
2- Earn 1,000 miles when you open a Mileage Checking Account and fund it.
3- Earn a one time 10,000 miles credit by depositing ALL sources of income for 3 consecutive month by using direct deposit.
4- Earn 100 balance miles for every monthly average balance of $1,000 you have in your Mileage Checking Account, up until $200,000 and then 25 miles for every $1,000 after that. Earn 50 balance miles for every monthly average balance of $1,000 you have in your Mileage Money Market Account, up until $200,000 and then 25 miles for every $1,000 after that.
5- Earn Bill Pay Miles by paying 3 bills per month, for every month for the first year you have the account and earn a one time 5,000 miles credit.
Bill Pay is free but you have to pay a fee for charitable donations and gift checks.
6- Earn 3,000 Visa Check Card miles by using your Visa Check card for 12 transactions per month for 3 consecutive months.

Any time you have met any of the above requirements, you must contact bankdirect to let them know, so that you receive your mileage credit. It takes about 6-8 weeks for the miles to post to your Aadvantage Account.

BankDirect Mileage CD - deposit $65,000 for a 6 months CD and receive 16,250 Aadvantage Miles, takes 6-8 weeks for miles to post.

Capital One Rewards Money Market Account

How to Earn Miles:
1- Deposit $500 or more into your account the first month and earn 2,500 miles.
2- Every month you earn 1 mile per $20 you have in the account.

Pluses:
* Rewards miles get automatically posted 60 days after the end of each month.
* You are not limited to one frequent flyer program. You can redeem miles for cash, travel or more and you can transfer miles to others of certain US rewards accounts.
* There are no monthly fees or balance minimum, open account with $1.
* Access your money with free checks, ATM card and online transfers (limited to 6 per month).
* You can set up free automatic recurring deposits into your account.

Why I like these Rewards Checking Accounts:
Pelican State Credit Unions Extra Bonus Checking - 4.01%APY up to $20,000, free foreign ATM fee up to $12
Consumers Credit Union 4.09%APY up until $10,000 no minimum balance, no ATM fees
Home Federal Bank's Smart Rewards Checking (MUST OPEN ACCOUNT IN PERSON) - 4.00%APY up until $25,000

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Ultimate Rewards Offer Special Holiday Deals

If you have a Chase Sapphire or Ink Card you are in luck! There are three ways you can earn extra points.

1- November 28th is Cyber Monday and you can redeem points and receive get 25% off all merchandise.

2- Shop and earn extra points when you buy through:
a) Groupon- 20 extra points per dollar, on November 1st

b) Kohls- 10 extra points per dollar, on November 21st

c) Best Buy- 10 extra points per dollar, on November 25th

d) Apple Store- 10 extra points per dollar, on November 28th

e) Target- 10 extra points per dollar, on December 5th

f) Overstock- 10 extra points per dollar, on December 12th

3- From November 1st through November 25th you can bid on different electronics using your Chase points. Some of the items include, a Nintendo Wii, Amazon Kindle and a Sony Playstation 3. Each day there will be another item up for bid. Bidding starts at one point.

Credit Card Hacking - How I earned 515,000+ free miles

My family of 5 need to travel between the US and Middle East this upcoming summer. So, how was I going to afford this? Since I love bargains and have always been on the lookout for them I thought, why not try to get some deals with travel? Boy, was I excited when I started reading the amazing deals that were out there. I started reading up on certain blogs and the most helpful ones were  http://thepointsguy.com & http://millionmilesecrets.com, and www.Flyertalk.com, which is an online frequent flyer community; thank you TPG & Daraius! 

Now, you only want to do this if you are very responsible at paying your bills on time. What I did was pay all the credit card bills with automatic payments so I wouldn’t have any issues with bills being paid late. I also created a spreadsheet to keep track of all the details of all the credit cards. I will be reviewing all these cards, so please follow my blog and you will get all the information you need soon.

Here are the cards I got and the bonus miles I earned with them:

Penfed Premium Travels Reward American Express- 20,000 Me

Chase Sapphire Preferred- 50,000 Husband

Continental- 30,000 Me (matched to 50,000), 30,000 Husband (not matched)

United- 30,000 Me (just requested a match to 50,000 Feb 10,2012)

Capital One Venture (Visa)- 25,000 Me (now the bonus is only 10,000)

Citi Select® / AAdvantage® American Express® card- 75,000 me, 75,000 Husband

Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card- 75,000 me, 75,000 Husband

Some information about these credit cards:

Penfed Premium Travels Reward American Express Card- Some experts don’t think that this is a good credit card since you need to purchase the airline/travel purchases through their booking tool. But I think it’s a great deal, if you are willing to buy tickets through them when it’s not high season and only are interested in economy seats. When it’s high season the miles you need are astronomical! But more about this card and its benefits in a future post. I charge this card for all my airline tickets since I get 5 miles per dollar spent. See my post here about the special offer going on now.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card- 50,000 bonus points is quite a good deal, I applied for this card for my husband, but I didn’t apply for for myself, because I realized that since this is a Chase card, I need to wait a bit before applying for another one. I got 2 Chase cards recently (Continental & United). See my review here.

Continental OnePass Plus/United MileagePlus Explorer Credit Cards- These 2 airlines are in the process of merging, so when you get your miles for both airlines, you can merge them. Instead of getting 30,000-40,000 miles for the Star Alliance Network you will be getting 60,000-80,000 miles. The latest buzz is that in November, United will be increasing their bonus miles from 40,000 to 60,000. I applied for both these cards at the same time and got approved for the Continental Card, but not for the United Card, the same goes for my dear husband . So, I just called up and got approved over the phone for myself. Now, I needed my husband to call to ask for the approval on the United Card, but he was out of the country. By the time he came back, I heard about the possible 60,000 mile offer so I haven’t called Chase, because I would like to go for the extra miles.

Capital One Venture Rewards Card- This is a great credit card and I would recommend everyone getting it when the bonus miles increase because one gets 2 miles per dollar on EVERYTHING! This is good for people that are only interested in Economy class tickets. Since a $1,000 ticket uses up 100,000 miles, and a business/first class ticket would use up thousands of miles. You can purchase a ticket in anyones name and also transfer miles between Capital One accounts. A couple of months ago the bonus miles were 25,000 and unfortunately they have reduced it to 10,000. When it goes up, I would recommend getting it right away; this is my everyday spend card.

Citi Select® AAdvantage® American Express® card -
Citi® Platinum Select® AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card –

If you haven’t already, please first sign up for the American Airlines Advantage Program here before applying for these credit cards.

You can only apply for these cards if you don’t have them already. I received 75,000 bonus miles with $1,500 and $4,000 spend with the instructions Dariaus gave here, but people have reported that this deal is dead and one can only get 50,000 bonus miles with it. Without the link the current offer is for 40,000 miles. I hope you can all get 50,000 bonus miles instead of 40,000. Please post comments and let me know if you have been successful.

Please read the following post here using the 2 click browser rule to learn how to apply to both cards and receive both bonuses:

Terms and Conditions for the 40,000 bonus miles offer for the
Citi Select® / AAdvantage® American Express® card taken from Citi’s website:
·     Annual Fee: $85.00 (Fee waived for first 12 months)
·     Purchase APR: 15.24% Variable
·     Balance Transfer APR: N/A

30,000 AAdvantage^® bonus miles after $750 in purchases in the first 4 months of cardmembership Additional 10,000 AAdvantage^® bonus miles after $5,000 in purchases in the first 12 months of cardmembership^.
One time $100 statement credit for the 1st eligible AA  purchase made in the first 12 months of cardmembership


Note: I do NOT make any money from these links.

Amex Holiday Bonus Points Promotion with the Penfed American Express Credit Card

From October 1^st through December 31^st you will receive an extra 25% bonus points on every purchase you make, including travel, which currently receives 5 miles for every dollar spent. I recently made a purchase for an airline ticket that cost $1,164 and I received  5,825 miles, plus 1,456 bonus points!! I think that is pretty amazing. And not only that, during low season one can get reward tickets from the Middle East to the States for 62,500 miles!! (which is normally 80,000 miles with airline points). All in all, I think this is a great card to have. I use this card primarily for purchasing airline tickets and whenever else they have 5x the points for certain purchases.

Earn up to 150K bonus miles on travel between London and the U.S.

From Continentals website:

Register now and earn up to 150,000 miles for round-trip travel between the U.S. and London Heathrow (LHR) booked in F, J, C or D class of service. The more you fly, the more bonus miles you earn.

• 1st round-trip = 25,000 bonus miles
• 2nd round-trip = 35,000 bonus miles
• 3rd round-trip = 45,000 bonus miles
• 4th round-trip = 45,000 bonus miles
• TOTAL: 150,000 bonus miles

Offer may be earned once for a maximum of 150,000 bonus miles. Register now.
Valid Sun., Oct. 9, 2011 - Sat., Dec. 31, 2011 (Time Remaining: 84 days)
Posted Sat., Oct. 1, 2011

Terms and Conditions

Registration is required. To qualify for this offer, members must purchase and travel on a qualifying round-trip ticket for travel between the U.S. and London Heathrow (LHR) booked in F, J, C or D class on United, United Express®, Continental® or Continental Express® operated flights between 10/1/2011 and 12/31/2011.
Offer valid on qualifying paid, published fares in F, J, C or D class, purchased and flown between 10/1/2011 and 12/31/2011. Not valid on government fares. E-Ticket purchase required. Not combinable with other bonus mile offers.
Bonus may be earned for a maximum of 150,000 bonus miles. Registration is required prior to travel and travel must be completed on or by December 31, 2011 to qualify for the promotion.
Valid on United, United Express, Continental, Continental Express. This offer is not valid on United or Continental marketed codeshare flights operated by other carriers. Bonus applies to base flight miles only and does not count towards Elite status. Bonus is in addition to flight miles and any applicable Elite Qualification Miles.
Bonus miles will post to your OnePass account 4 - 6 weeks after travel has been completed.
All terms and conditions of the OnePass program apply, including Continental's right to modify or terminate the OnePass program.

Where To Buy Airline Tickets

1-  Cheapoair.com is a great website that has some amazing prices.
2-  Chase Sapphire Preffered offers 3X the miles if using their traveling tool.
3-  Bigcrumbs gives you $3.20 cash back for airline tickets. In my opinion
     this is not a great value, but certainly better than nothing.

I have searched tons of travel websites to find out where I can buy my airline tickets for the best prices. I first check out kayak.com, just to see what the prices are and what's out there. Then I go to the cheapoair.com website and see what kind of deals they have. Sometimes they have better deals than Travelocity, expedia and kayak. They have a lot more options than lots of travel websites. I’ve gotten $200-$300 off a ticket that I couldn’t find anywhere else! So it definitely is worth checking with them first. With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card you can use Chases traveling tool which is a good option since they offer 3 miles per dollar; the only catch is, is that you have to use one of their credit cards.  Then you can transfer your miles to British Airways, Continental, Hyatt, Marriort, Priority Club or Amtrak. I usually pay for the ticket using my Penfed Amex Credit Card since I get 5 miles per dollar spent on travel with this card. They are running a special from October 1, 2011 until December 1, 2011 where you receive an additional 25% bonus miles on all purchases including travel.

Top 10 airlines for reward redemptions

Flier Crier published survey results for attempts to make award travel on the top airlines. Southwest came in first AGAIN at 99%

“The results, showing the percentage of successful award bookings for U.S./Canadian programs and the change from last year’s results:

1. Southwest – 99.3 percent (No change)
2. Air Canada – 82.1 percent (-11.5 points)
3. JetBlue – 79.3 percent (New for 2011)
4. United – 71.4 percent (+2.8 points)
5. Continental – 71.4 percent (No change)
6. Alaska – 64.3 percent (-10.7 points)
7. American – 62.9 percent (+5 points)
8. AirTran – 47.1 percent (-20.8 points)
9. Delta – 27.1 percent (+14.2 points)
10. US Airways – 25.7 percent (+15 points)”