Let me say this before I begin – I want to caution everyone to treat this type of offer with care. I am not encouraging readers to start spending beyond your means because of this special offer. You obviously still need to pay, it is not free money! 🙂 However, there is a way to use this promotional offer to your advantage, which is the purpose of this post. But, I wanted to start with this caution!
Disclosure: I do NOT receive a commission for this card.
How To Take Advantage of the Chase Slate Card Offer
One of the cards in the Chase credit card family is the Chase Slate card. It is different from the other cards for a couple of reasons. One is that the card actually looks different. The orientation of the card is actually portrait rather than the usual landscape orientation of all other cards. Another thing that sets it apart is that it is not a point earning card but has promotional offers for spending and balance transfers. That is the part I want to talk about.
Application Link – Chase Slate Card – 15 months interest free and no balance transfer fee
Interest and Fee Free
This card’s current offer is for 15 months interest free on purchases and balance transfers. This is not special for just this card – many cards offer something similar to that. But, what this card has in its offer that other cards do not is that it is also balance transfer fee free.
Cards that offer 0% balance transfers almost always have a fee that comes with that. That fee ranges from 3 – 5% of the amount being transferred and is added to the amount on the card. That means, if you initiate a balance transfer for $10,000, you are going to be paying an additional $300 – $500 in balance transfer fees on that card. If it is a 15 month term (like this card), you are looking at paying between $20 and $33 per month towards that fee.
The Chase Slate offer does not have that fee. That means that any balance transfer you initiate will only be charging you the amount that you transferred – that’s it!
Making This Work For You
Minimum Spending
So, how does this help us with miles and points? The answer is simple – minimum spends. Some of the highest bonus cards out this year come with some pretty steep minimum spending thresholds to get the miles. The Citi Executive AAdvantage card, for example, had an incredible 100,000 AA mile offer but it required you to spend $10,000 in three months to get it. Another card is the American Express Business Platinum that had targeted people with 150,000 point offers but required spending $20,000 to get it all. For most people, that kind of spending goes outside of the normal spending habits 🙂 so it requires creative ways to get there. Bluebird/Vanilla used to be the best way to reach those limits, but since these methods have changed and require additional steps to perform now, many people find it to be more of a difficulty than they are comfortable dealing with.
With a card offer like this Chase Slate deal, here is a potential way to use it to help you to earn more miles and points:
- Apply for the Chase Slate and another credit card that has a high minimum spending amount
- Use the card with the high minimum spending threshold to purchase gift cards for future purchases – like gas gift cards, grocery store gift cards, hardware store gift cards, Amazon gift cards, Wal-mart gift cards, etc. Plan it in such a way that you are buying for about 12 months out (or however long – up until 15 months – that it takes to reach the spending threshold). Some other suggestions are to pay for your insurance many months in advance or any car payments/etc. that take credit card.
- Once you get your first bill with that amount on there, transfer that amount to the Chase Slate
- Important: Now, pay your Chase Slate bill each month with the same amount you would have normally spent on the items that you purchased the gift cards for.
Spending Thresholds
This can also work for cards with spending thresholds like the United MileagePlus Explorer card (10,000 miles for spending $25,000 in a calendar year) or the American Express Delta Reserve (15,000 bonus miles and 15,000 elite miles for spending $30,000 in a calendar year). If you do the same as above (purchase gift cards for your spending a year ahead of time), you can take advantage of those nice threshold bonuses without going overboard on your normal spending habits.
Words of Caution
Back to the caution – it is important to treat this type of plan as your everyday spending and not go wild with spending. For example, if you spend a total of $1,000 a month on gas and groceries/dining, buy $1,000 worth of gift cards to cover that (for however many months you need to reach the minimum spending). Now, after you have transferred that amount to the Chase Slate, as you use the gift cards, keep track of your spending on them and pay that amount each month on the Chase Slate. This way, you are not spending anymore than you normally would and you are paying it just like you normally would, but you have prepaid all of that spend to get your bonus miles.
Another point of caution is this – what happens if you do not get approved for the card or that your credit line is too low to take advantage of this? Here is a suggestion – if you already have a card that has some type of spending threshold (like the United MileagePlus Explorer card), go ahead and apply for the Chase Slate first before you apply for the card with the high minimum spending. This way, if you do not get approved for the Chase Slate, you can put off applying for the other card. If you do get approved for the Chase Slate and do not get approved for the other card, you can still use the Chase Slate to supplement your current card that rewards bonuses on hitting certain thresholds.
Summary
As I mentioned in the first part, I had hesitated writing this because I do not want to encourage people to just start spending and to get in debt trouble as a result. I have warned you! 🙂 I ended up writing this because I feel it can be helpful to those of you who would like to get one of these high bonus cards but have been unsure how to handle the high minimum spending that comes with it. This is one way to do it without having to manufacture your spend. You are just prepaying your bills for the next year and paying your Chase Slate instead of the cards you would normally use. I hope this helps!
