Free $10 from Bank of America Credit Card Holders aka Alaska Airlines Credit Card

The is an easy $10 from Bank of America. If you have a Bank of America credit or debit card you are eligible to enroll. The $10 is mailed to you in the form of a gift card. The offer is valid through December 4, 2014. Anyone who has the Alaska Airlines Visa Credit Card can get in on this deal. It only takes about 2 minutes to register with Visa Checkout.

Loyal3 Ending Stock Purchases with a Credit Card

Got an email today from Loyal3. Bad news! The website will be terminating credit card purchases of stocks on Loyal3. The email states that as of 11/18/2014 you will no longer be able to use a credit card to purchase stocks. The email continues to say that monthly purchase plans using a credit card will be available until 12/11/2014.

I found it very interesting the wording in the email from Loyal3  "In order to put an end to the "gaming" of LOYAL3, and to maintain fee-free investing, on Tuesday, 11/18/2014, we will be removing credit and debit cards from the LOYAL3 platform. Automatic Monthly Plans (monthly recurring investments) using credit and debit cards will continue to be active until Thursday, 12/11/2014, to allow time to switch over to ACH (checking account transfers)."  Apparently, I'm one of those people "gaming"  Loyal3.

This is a big disappointment for me as I have been doing a significant amount of manufactured spending with Loyal3 over the past 4 months. So far I have purchased and sold more than $40,000 worth of stocks on Loyal3. All of the purchases were made using my Barclays Arrival Plus Mastercard which gives 2.22% back in points to be redeemed for travel related purchases. All together I have earned more than $888 in points from Loyal3 as well as very modest amount of capital gains totaling $177.

Through the process I had the Loyal3 account in my name shutdown because of my selling off the stocks too frequently. I am currently using an account under my partners name with a Barclays Arrival Plus Mastercard authorized user card.

Although the email from Loyal3 says that credit and debit cards will be removed from the Loyal3 platform on 11/18/2014, my understanding is that you will still be able to use a credit card to purchase stocks on Loyal3 until 12/11/2014 when automatic investment plans are also unable to use credit cards. You can do this by simply setting up an automatic investment plan to buy $50 worth of stock for today. Then go in a few days later and change the automatic investment plan to that day which will initiate another purchase. You can continue doing this with as many stocks as you want. 

The limitation is that you will only be able to make one $50 purchase of a single stock per day. That means only $50 of Google, $50 of Amazon, $50 of Walmart… I frequently purchase $200 of an individual stock per day by doing 4 different $50 purchases. I guess I will just have to branch out from the 10 stocks that I am currently purchasing.

I have found Loyal3 to be the easiest method of manufactured spending that is currently available. This method also comes with a certain amount of risk, but also reward. In my case I have made $177 in capital gains. I also could have lost $177. Last month when the stock market was experiencing a lot of volatility my portfolio dropped by about 4%. I was forced to hold onto stocks longer that I normally do at the same time I was purchasing more stocks. At one points I had more than $13,000 tide up in Loyal3. This is a lot of money to float. I held of selling any stocks until the values climbed back up.

The only stock that I have that is still down significantly is Discovery. My original $800 investment in Discovery is down more than $100. My total capital gains of $177 includes the cost basis loss of $100 in discovery. If it wasn’t for the Discovery stock my capital gains would be $277.

Deals come and go. The use of credit cards on Loyal3 is coming to an end in a little more than a month. If you need to make some minimum spending with Loyal3, get started soon!

[DEAD] Not to worry: Befrugal now offering $14 Cashback with Booking.com

[Update good offers for booking.com have been shutdown by shopping portals. At time of writing 4% cashback was the best available portal offer.] After my post several days ago: $14 Cashback with Booking,com through the Topcashback portal is DEAD I was disappointed that my favorite hotel deal while traveling in SE Asia was now gone and the best deal that I could find was $10 cashback at the time. Now Befrugal another reputable cashback portal is offer the same $14 cashback on every booking that topcashback was offering. The is great news! I have been consistently booking $20 USD per night hotels and guesthouses. After the $14 cashback I am really only paying $6 USD per night! If you use my referral link you will also get $10 just for signing up with Befrugal.

If you want to learn more about cashback portals checkout my earlier post!

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. Happy travels!

Great Deals on Hotels in Vancouver as low as $25 per night with AMEX Be Vancouver

By chance I needed to make a one night booking in Vancouver for a long overnight layover on my way home to from a trip to Thailand. I am in Thailand now and I came upon the Amex Be Vancouver link. The program is offering up to a $125 Amex gift card for every booking. The best deal I could find was Executive Hotel Vintage Park with a regular rate of $99.83 before a $75 Amex Gift card was offered bring the total cost down to $24.83 for a stay in a solid 3 Star hotel. On top of all of this, 1 out of every 10 bookings is free. You find out after you make the booking if your hotel stay will be free!  I am definitely going to take advantage of this deal!

The terms of the offer are as follows:

Make a booking at any of our hotels before November 16th 2014

Check-in must be before or on February 28th 2015

This Promotional rate is Pre-Paid, Non-Cancellable and Non-Transferable

The full amount of your booking will be charged by the hotel at the time the booking is made

If your booking is the 1 of 10 that is free, you will be alerted via email confirmation

Bookings can be made using VISA, MasterCard, or American Express

Guests will receive their AMEX Prepaid Gift Card per booking, not per night

Separate consecutive night bookings at the same hotel will not result in the guest receiving more than one AMEX gift card

A Maximum of 3 bookings per person is enforced - all subsequent bookings will be converted into normal Best Available Rate bookings (and will apply the corresponding Terms and Conditions) and the guest will not receive an AMEX Prepaid Gift Card

beVancouver Terms and Conditions Apply

$14 Cashback with Booking,com through the Topcashback portal is DEAD

I am currently traveling in Southeast Asia and I have been using this deal where I login in to my Topcashback account then link through to booking.com. I have received $14 cashback for every booking that I have made since I have been in Southeast Asia for the last 12 days. I wrote about this in an earlier post. Check it out here. I have been able to get the discount for every night because I have made a different booking for each night. If I want to stay in the same hotel for a second night I use my partners Topcashback account to make a second booking for the following night.

This morning I went to Topcashback to link to Booking.com to make another reservation when to my surprise I could not find Booking.com as partner with Topcashback anymore. Apparently, this deal is dead. It was working great for us as we were staying in many hotel and guest houses that cost only $25 USD or less per night. After the $14 cashback we were really only paying $11 or less.

Good deals come and go. Fortunately, I was able to take advantage of this one for a while before it ended. Did anyone else use this deal?

After I found that the offer through Topcashback had been shut down, I found a similar offer with Mr. Rebates offering $10 back per booking with Booking.com. So this deal is $4 less per booking that it was through Topcashback, but it is still a great deal for areas with budget hotels.

If you haven't already sign up for Topcashback and Mr. Rebates. There are some really great cashback deals out there. You can check out the post I did on cashback portals to learn why you should sign up for cashback portals here.