With my Chase Ink Business Preferred spend completed, I shifted a few April bill payments over to the American Express Gold (referral link) card to finish up the retention offer which was 15,000 Membership Rewards for $1,500 in spend. Within a few days, I had that wrapped up for 114 regular points plus the bonus.
It was perfect timing as the Chase Sapphire Preferred (referral link) with the 100,000 Ultimate Rewards bonus became available (it’s back down to 60,000). I quickly submitted the application and am now working on the $5,000 spend requirement. I was eager to get started (and while I waited for the card to arrive, earned 428 American Airlines miles to keep my Citi MileUp card active) but it turns out if I’d waited a bit longer I could’ve nabbed an even better deal as Rakuten (referral link) offered a $300 bonus at the beginning of May that was in addition to the Chase points. The annual fee for this card is $95 so I’ll need to evaluate if I want to keep it after the first year. Last time I canceled, but an option this time might be to upgrade to the Reserve since my home airport now has a Chase lounge. If I do that, I’ll likely cancel one of my American Express Platinum cards. For April, I earned 872 Ultimate Rewards.
Last month I found it very easy to add a new direct deposit via my employer’s website when I did the American Express checking bonus (I’ve received an email stating that my $250 bonus is pending, so that should post soon). In April I went looking for some more checking account offers. With another bit of great timing, Chime (referral link) had an elevated offer via InboxDollars. Signing up for an account netted $40 and another $500 came from having two direct deposits of at least $300. These amounts will end up in my May recap, but I did have enough from other InboxDollars (referral link) deals to redeem $25 to PayPal (referral link).
As I typically do, I used the Swagbucks (referral link) discounted MasterCard option and then turned that into $25 for Uber (referral link) since I have some May travel to San Diego and Portland. After I made that redemption, Swagbucks sent me a 300 point discount for any reward; I went with $5 to PayPal. I had a few other PayPal redemptions in April–$15 with ReceiptHog (referral link) and then $11.22 from PayPal shopping. My other non-credit card rewards for April were an $11 Chewy gift card from Microsoft Rewards, (referral link) $8 in MasterCard debit cards from beer rebates (no alcohol purchase is required), and a $3 Amazon gift card from their Shopper Panel.
