Hah, yesterday I got an offer in the mail for the Chase Freedom card. Usually I would just throw all that stuff in the garbage, but they were offering me $200 bonus after $500 in purchases. It seems like that is $100 more than they offer on the website. So I looked up if opening more credit cards would hurt my credit score and I came to the conclusion that the people who write the articles know about as much as I do.
This reminds me of the time I got $200 from Chase for 2 hours work.
They mailed me a promo for a $200 bonus if you opened an account and deposited $100 into it. I read the fine print, and you had to keep the account open for 6 months, but that was it. So I went over to a Chase branch with $100 cash, opened the account, and a few days later it had $300 in it. I then took out the cash and deposited it to my credit union account (I left enough in there to cover the then $6/mo fee on the account for 6 months).
6 months and 1 day later, I show up at a Chase branch to close my account. They sit me down with a banker who starts giving me a hard sell on why I should keep the account open, and move them all my business from my CU.
I go point for point with him, that the CU offers better rates on deposits, lower fees, lower international transaction costs, and with the credit union network they're a part of, more national coverage than Chase. His boss/branch manager eventually walks over and says to the guy (within earshot of me) "Let me show you how it's done."
I got the same rope a dope from him, but since Chase was in every measurable way inferior to my CU, it didn't go very well for him. Eventually I got back the $10 and change left in the account and was on my way.
About 4 months after that, I got another offer in the mail. They had added that you now needed to set up direct deposit to them to get the bonus. Guess the first promo didn't go too well.