It's been getting some use - the 5% rotating categories (Last quarter: Restaurants when my employer is paying during travel. This quarter: Amazon) - and they did bump it over 80% when I called. Online, it seems that people are getting recommended to request a 10-25% bump.
Cool, the usage should help. I think smaller bumps are good when you already have a large limit and are trying to keep "pushing" it--when it's a small limit, you can do bigger ones. IIRC, my wife bumped her Discover from like 4k to 10k in June to use this.
ARS, thoughts on starting a "referral train" for this? I guess the setup time might be a limiting factor.
I thought about that, but didn't for a few reasons:
1) There's no simple "referral" link people could post--you have to give personal information (first/last name and email). Not a huge deal, but not something you generally want to post online (especially on a forum focused on money, in a thread around specific credit card use that violates TOS). So implementation (logistics) becomes more difficult because of this.
2) There's a lot of bad actors in this area--shady companies, people only trying to earn money on referrals, etc. With a "Ting" or "Uber" referral, the product is a known quantity from a major company. With a recommendation like this, it's not, and so having them come from random people adds a risk element that worries me. That adds another level of implementation/logistics.
3) "Policing" it--the referral threads are already a hassle moderating. People saying their code didn't get used, people coming into the forum JUST to post their referral, scroll back a few pages in this Ting
referral thread to see how many users have just one post (i.e. the one with their referral code). That adds a lot more work/logistics.
For now, mainly due to the fact that there's so much potential for bad information, and I don't want Mustachians getting into something unwittingly, I decided against trying to implement something like that, but I'll keep thinking about how it could be implemented (safely, especially).
All in all, the referral fees aren't that much--they're nice, obviously, but I'm still (after referring a bunch of Mustachians) expecting to make far more (like multiple times more) selling my own trade lines. And, of course, I'm happy to provide the information to anyone--there's no obligation to 'mention" me as a referral, if you want to just sign up, that's cool. But I'd rather have the information a bit more "secure," if that makes sense.
Anyone feel free to PM me about this to discuss, I'm open to ideas. :)
I too signed up after hearing about it at Camp Mustache, and I have 7 cards in the program now. I've added 4 AUs so far, 2 in June and 2 in July.
Glad to hear you signed up, I was wondering about that after how exited we were after. I literally started my research within an hour or two of getting home from CMIII. :D
A lot of times people just don't follow through, though, which is why I was wondering... I think maybe 10-15% of people who have PM'd me for details about the company to use actually signed up? And that's of already pre-interested Mustachians. I'm sure a lot are just gathering information, and then decide it's not for them, or forget, or get lazy, or whatever.
Actually, that adds another huge logistical problem to the above list for a referral chain--people who get a "referral" but then don't sign up. How do you police that? Without a reliable way to track it it's quite difficult (and do you, what, wait for someone to join to have the next person refer? You limit the referral chain to only those who have signed up themselves, but what if a bunch of people want the info at once, before the previous batch is done signing up?). Referral links are easier, but this isn't really set up for that. So logistical and potential shadiness has detered me on this for now, but again, open to PMs and ideas about it. :)
Posting to follow.
Has A Rebel Spy received any payments yet?
Just curious.
From earlier in the thread:
Not yet; I should in about two weeks. I heard about it at a breakout session at Camp Mustache III over Memorial Day. I signed up in early June, got my first tradeline sales in mid-June and the second half of June (we got 8 tradeline sales in that half month, have 7 so far this month, and probably more coming in the next two weeks from cards closing towards the end of the month). So I should get payment for those June trade lines here at the end of July. The last pay date was June 30 for May orders, but we hadn't started at that point.
The company I use has been around for a few years though; the Mustachian who led the breakout session has been using them for sometime between a year and a year and 1/2, IIRC, and I chatted with other people who have been using them for awhile as well. I have no doubt I'll get payment here in two weeks, but if you're worried about that, wait a few weeks and ask me again August 1, and I'll report. ;)
I did just get an email (as did the wife) with a breakdown of my commission for June, paystub, and it says it takes a few days and should be in my bank account Aug 2-4. I'll report back in a few days with details of exact amount, # of sales, etc.
Spoiler alert: I'm in the 20k annual range posted in the thread title, and that's with only a half month for June, and with the tradelines at 2--I did just raise some to 5 (others stayed at 2, since that's the most you'd want to use to help avoid closure of the account). :)