Costco Visa Card Rewards

[Roadrunner53]

I try to us my Costco Visa to pay for most everything I buy. The most money I have gotten so far is $440 as my year end cash bonus. I want to rack up more money. I want to pay my real estate taxes but they charge a 2.5% fee. Do you think I could pay my taxes by buying money orders? If I were to spend $2,600 to buy money orders, would that count towards my cash back reward? Any other suggestions to beef up my rewards?

[ducky19]

If you read the fine print on the Visa card, it tells you that buying money orders isn't considered a purchase.

"What doesn’t qualify as a purchase?: The following types of transactions don’t qualify as purchases that earn Costco Cash Rewards:
o Use of checks that access your Card Account
o Balance transfers
o Cash advances
o Travelers checks, foreign currency purchases, money orders, wire transfers and similar cash-like transactions
o Lottery tickets, gaming chips and similar betting transactions
o Interest and account fees
o Unauthorized charges
o Items returned for credit"

[chasesfish]

Its a solid card.  You usually have to be within a signup bonus to make paying taxes with a card make sense.  Most places have at least a 2.5% transaction fee.

I've not taken the plunge for the Costco Visa yet, still enjoying churning signup bonuses and keep a fee-free 1% cash back card from my bank

[Indexer]

Getting a money order = a cash advance, not a purchase.


There use to be a way around this using a Target Redcard. You could load the card at Target, which would count it as a purchase, and then their card had a billpay feature you could use to mail a check. I used it to pay my mortgage a few times. Sadly, Target figured out what was going on and now treats loading the card as a cash advance. There might be a similar trick now, but I don't know it.

[moof]

Sadly you only get paid out annually, And you have to be a member through the following February.  I am waffling on dropping our Costco due to low usage.

I use it for travel where you get 4%, but for everyday stuff I use a Fidelity 2% back card that can be redeemed monthly (whenever you have over $50 built up).  It goes into the taxable account automagically.  I could certainly do more to milk the system, but it does not really interest me enough.

[DarkandStormy]

Travel hacking is better, even if you do it simply for the cash back.

[TomTX]

Sadly you only get paid out annually, And you have to be a member through the following February.  I am waffling on dropping our Costco due to low usage.

I use it for travel where you get 4%, but for everyday stuff I use a Fidelity 2% back card that can be redeemed monthly (whenever you have over $50 built up).  It goes into the taxable account automagically.  I could certainly do more to milk the system, but it does not really interest me enough.

I switched to the BoA Cash Rewards card. It's 2.1% back at Costco (or Sam's or grocery stores) when deposited to a BoA checking account (which they paid me $300 to open...) and I get the payout every month.

Even better, since they are paying me $600 to move my IRAs over to Merrill Edge (in-kind transfer of VTI) - I'm getting a boost to that payout for free. As of early December, it will be 3.5% back at Costco, etc and  5.25% back on gas.

One thing the Costco card is really good for is the extended warranty on electronics. You are covered for 4 years on most stuff.

[kpd905]

Grab a new card and hit the sign up bonus with your taxes.  I am going to prepay my state taxes in a couple weeks with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.  I'll profit about $450-500 after paying the 2.5% fee.