Jay's Tips: A Credit Card That Pays Four Points on Shipping
21hats.substack.com
We’re going to start crowdsourcing business tips in this space, everything from credit card deals to tax strategies to CRM software.
This credit card tip comes from Jay Goltz:
I recently joined a new business peer group. About 30 minutes into the first meeting, I was questioning whether I was wasting my time. But here’s why it always pays to belong to a smart group: It turned out one nugget of information alone, from one of the owners, will have a real impact on my business. The owner happened to mention that he pays for his shipping with an American Express Gold card, which rewards him with four points for every dollar spent on freight. I spend over $600,000 a year with UPS — and I’d previously been getting just one point. That tip is going to make me about $20,000 a year.
Have you found a credit card deal that works best for you? If so, tell us in comments. If you’d like to share a tip on a different topic, you can send it to me by replying to this email. We’ll publish it another day. Thanks!
There are several corporate-sponsored cards that are available from the bigs (BOA, Chase and Citibank, as well as AMEX) for various business services. MCS uses a Chase card for Marriott and a BOA card for "general points" (usually redeemable for Amazon gift cards) that has worked well for over 15 years. We started using a Citibank card for American air in 2019, but that idea went bust when March 2020 came around and effectively grounded travel. The take-away here is get the best deal for your company. If you're looking at travel/hotel, you really must stay loyal to a single brand if you want it to pay off for you in the end.
Also...there is a new IOS app available from The Points Guy (TPG) that allows you to enter in your credit card information - albeit not actual cc numbers...but the rather the type (Amex Gold...Citi Aadvange...Chase Sapphire Preferred etc.) and they will tell you which card you should use before making a purchase to maximize credit card points (based on their own point valuation...since points are not created equal). It's new and very glitchy so far...but a great concept.
I may be totally wrong...but I believe that the 4-point deal is on UPS "retail" rates only...for years I've been trying to pay my freight bills (UPS / FedEx / DHL etc) using a credit card only to be told that commercial rates don't apply because of the extreme discounts already applied to my rates...
I'm very much hoping that I am wrong and can begin paying my freight bills (upwards of $100K / mo.) by credit card (even at 1X points)
There are several corporate-sponsored cards that are available from the bigs (BOA, Chase and Citibank, as well as AMEX) for various business services. MCS uses a Chase card for Marriott and a BOA card for "general points" (usually redeemable for Amazon gift cards) that has worked well for over 15 years. We started using a Citibank card for American air in 2019, but that idea went bust when March 2020 came around and effectively grounded travel. The take-away here is get the best deal for your company. If you're looking at travel/hotel, you really must stay loyal to a single brand if you want it to pay off for you in the end.
Also...there is a new IOS app available from The Points Guy (TPG) that allows you to enter in your credit card information - albeit not actual cc numbers...but the rather the type (Amex Gold...Citi Aadvange...Chase Sapphire Preferred etc.) and they will tell you which card you should use before making a purchase to maximize credit card points (based on their own point valuation...since points are not created equal). It's new and very glitchy so far...but a great concept.
I may be totally wrong...but I believe that the 4-point deal is on UPS "retail" rates only...for years I've been trying to pay my freight bills (UPS / FedEx / DHL etc) using a credit card only to be told that commercial rates don't apply because of the extreme discounts already applied to my rates...
I'm very much hoping that I am wrong and can begin paying my freight bills (upwards of $100K / mo.) by credit card (even at 1X points)