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Over-committing to Minimum Spend Requirements?

ByDW
A man in a white dress shirt and blue tie is eating a powdered donut. He has some powdered sugar on his face, and there is a noticeable stain on his tie, likely from the donut filling.

Credit card spending requirements – a necessary evil! There ain’t no way to earn hundreds of thousands of points and miles without making a few spending commitments to those credit card issuers!

Spend $1,000 here, another $3,000 there, oh and how about $10,000 here?!

A man in a white dress shirt and blue tie is eating a powdered donut. There is a noticeable stain on his tie, likely from the donut. The background is plain and light-colored.
Take it easy! Don’t bite off more than you can chew!

Spending money is easy. The challenge is spending money without breaking your budget.

My AYP Starter Guide advises you to never spend outside of your budget and to always pay your balance in full each month.

Well, I may have overcommitted myself.

While I haven’t had any sizable application rounds recently, it seems I have found myself committed to more than I may have bargained for…

Here are the spending requirements that I’m currently working with:

CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum Select – 7,500 retention offer following $1,000 spending in 3 months.

AYP Tip – Never cancel a card without talking to an agent and prodding them for for potential retention offers!

The image is an advertisement for the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express. It highlights the following features: - Earn up to 35,000 bonus Starpoints®. - Earn 25,000 bonus Starpoints® after using the new card to make $5,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. - Earn an additional 10,000 bonus Starpoints® after making an additional $5,000 in purchases within the first 6 months. - Enjoy access to the Sheraton® Club Lounge (terms and conditions apply). - Introductory annual fee is $0 for the first year, then $95. - Offer ends 4/5/2017. The right side of the image shows a picture of the credit card and a button labeled "APPLY NOW."

The wife’s American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Business – 25,000 bonus Starpoints $5,000 in purchases within the first 3 months and an extra 10,000 bonus Starpoints after you make an additional $3,000.

American Express Hilton Surpass – 100,000 Hilton Honors points following $3,000 spending in 3 months –  via upgrade offer as covered by Doctor of Credit! 

That’s $12,000 in spending commitments before I even realized it!

So, What’s my Plan?

While this past January I was able to employ each and every spending strategy I had in my bag o’ tricks to achieve a $15,000 goal to earn the 100k Business Platinum Bonus – I am not sure I am quite prepared for another spending blitz.

With $12k in spending requirements, I should probably cool off in regards to additional credit card applications… I will hold back as long as I can allow myself!

Final Thought

NEVER bite off more spending than you can chew.

I am lucky that I have a few means of meeting such high spending without breaking the budget, but I really should have been more diligent in keeping up with the spends I committed to.

Any other over-committers out there!? Where you able to salvage the situation, meet the spending requirement and earn the bonus points?

Happy Travels!

DW

The image shows a simple white line drawing of a paper airplane inside a blue circle.

2 Comments

  1. This post is timely for me, too. I had the $15k spend for Biz Plat in Jan and then anther $10k for an upgrade on a different card, which I’m working on now. Also Ink Pref $5k spend. After doing $25k Oct-Dec for various apps and incentives, I really should’ve cooled my jets and taken a break. But too many good offers. I’ve just applied for another cc with a $5k spend (waiting on approval) and have another one cued for later this month w/ a $3k spend. I’m ultimately going to have to use them to pay kids’ tuition and suck up the 3% fee. But I’ll meet spend. I’m very big on offering to pay family and friends’ big bills, too. Oy.

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