Chase 5x Grocery BONUS on THESE Cards + Citi Transfer Bonus, Smartly Visa Finished

in this video I want to talk about a transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic from City how to get five points per dollar on grocery gas or restaurant spending if you have a Chase card and the end of what may have been the best new credit card of last year The card still exists but for most people it has been thoroughly nerfed Hey credit warriors welcome to the show My name is Ben Hedges aka the credit shu and on this channel I cover US credit cards and personal finance If you like the sound of that do subscribe And this video is brought to you by Silo who's offering up to $5,000 in cash back on your brokerage account But more on that later All right so let's start with this transfer bonus to Virgin So right now City are offering a 30% bonus when you transfer City thank you points over to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Thus every,000 City points transferred over will become 1,300 Virgin points This will apply to people who hold the city strata premiere or are grandfathered into the city prestige That was city's old premium card that was closed to new applicants in 2021 I did a search for it just now on Google and I actually found a landing page for the prestige with an apply button and I almost choked on my coffee I thought I'd be the first person to report on the return of the Prestige but then I realized that it was actually the landing page for the Singaporean version But anyway let's actually look at the terms I don't have any city cards personally so I'm going to use an article from Frequent Miler who have a screenshot and the bonus runs from April 13th to May 17th In the article they actually have some recommended uses of Virgin Points as well So I'm going to paste that article in a pin comment down below so that you can go through and see if there'd actually be any use uh for you to take advantage of this transfer bonus And do remember only transfer points if you've already found award availability You don't want to get your points stuck in a certain airline with no way to use them And speaking of Virgin actually the airline is one of several travel providers that currently have MX offers where you can save quite a bit of money Let me show you a few that I found on my Platinum card So Virgin Atlantic currently has an MX offer where if you spend $1,800 you get $250 back that runs until June 30th You have to purchase the flight on Virgin's website and the flight has to originate in the US Then there are two more travel related MX offers that are pretty good We have one for Hilton for properties in Mexico and the Caribbean With this offer you have to spend $1,000 to get $100 back And this one also runs until June 30th Then lastly we have an offer from Delta This one is for $100 back when you spend $500 with Delta through MX Travel So not directly through Delta's website It has to be through Amx Travel And also with this one you have to enroll by April 25th i.e you need to add it to your card before then but you then have until July 31st to meet the qualifying spend I often see these travel offers popping up on MX cards in the spring I guess it's because of spring break but they normally last until the summer as well So basically it's the spring and summer vacation season I found these ones on my platinum card but whatever AMX card you have you can do a search and see if you've got them too Remember you must add them to your card for them to be active All right let's now move on to how to get five points per dollar on grocery gas and some other categories on your Chase card But first if you want to earn up to $5,000 in cash back just for holding your stocks and ETFs on silo listen up Modern brokerages have become commissionfree but they're actually still extremely lucrative thanks to payment for order flow and interestbased revenue Our partner Silo is pushing the industry to the next level by offering you cash back just for holding your stocks and ETFs with them This translates to 0.5% cash back on your entire brokerage account balance including money already invested every year up to a maximum of $5,000 Your investments on silo are stored with interactive brokers where they are protected by $500,000 in SIPC insurance and $2.5 million in FDIC insurance There is a monthly fee for this program which starts at $10 but if you use my special link you can get a 3month free trial today Members receive personalized assistance with account transfers deposits and any other questions Use the links below to lock in a free trial and up to $5,000 in cash back every year All right so let's talk about how you can get five points per dollar on your Chase card on grocery and some other categories You may get this offer on different Chase cards so you can check whichever ones you have Now Chase has this website chase.com/mybonus where you can enter your last name the last four digits of your card number and your zip code and hit activate now And you may and I stress may be targeted for a bonus category These targeted offers change each quarter And so the ones that are around now are for the second quarter of 2025 I tried both my Freedom cards and my ink business cards but I got nothing My editor also tried his Sapphire Preferred and got nothing But then I remembered I have the Amazon card So let's try that Boom I got the offer But actually where is it isn't it supposed to say something here in this big empty space oh all right It's down here in the small print You will earn 5% back total for each $1 spent in the grocery stores gas stations and dining at restaurants categories on up to $1,000 in total combined purchases from April 1st 2025 to June 30th 2025 On Doctor of Credit they say that they are seeing the offer on the United Marriott Ritz and Amazon Prime cards So if you do have one of those cards definitely do try it But it also doesn't hurt to try any other Chase card just on the off chance that you are targeted Obviously with the Amazon Prime card it is cash back but on other cards that earn points it may be even more exciting For example if you get it on the United card and if you value the points at 1.4 cents per point like the points guy does then that's going to be 7% back on your spend All right let's now move on to our last story of the day the death of the US Bank Smartly Visa card Now this card was basically the best new card of 2024 due to the fact that if you deposited $100,000 in any account with US Bank and had a Smartly Savings account open you would earn 4% cash back on all your spending on the card That is an amazing deal Well it proved I assume not profitable for US Bank And we did a couple of videos about rumored changes coming to the card in the past few weeks but now the changes are live and they are the exact changes that were rumored Let's take a look So it's 2% on everything and you can earn up to an additional 2% on up to $10,000 in spending per month That is one of the new changes Okay it used to be unlimited but now it's limited to $10,000 in spending each month Not a big issue for most people since that's going to be $120,000 in spending per year That's more than the average household income here in the US Then we have this change The amount that you have to deposit with US Bank to get 2.5% cash back has risen from $5,000 up to $10,000 with the other two levels 3% and 4% having the same deposit requirements as before But now the next change is really what kills the card If you have a US Bank Smartly savings account and qualifying balance in US Bank Smartly checking account and/or Safe Debit accounts you can earn more on your first $10,000 in eligible net purchases each billing cycle And when it says you can earn more it's talking about those bonuses You can get 2.5% 3% or 4% cash back Now it used to be that you could put that money that $100,000 to get 4% in a Smartly savings account or even a brokerage account with US Bank and that counted towards the money you need to increase the card rewards But now you have to put that money in a Smartly checking account Who keeps a h 100red grand in a checking account let's do some math Suppose that under the old system I put $100,000 in the Smartly savings account US Bank is currently quoting me an APY of 3.5% That means that I would earn $3,500 in interest per year and then get my 4% credit card rewards But now I have to put that $100,000 in a Smartly checking account in order to activate my 4% rewards What are the interest rates on Smartly checking accounts well prepare your clown makeup your red nose and get ready to laugh cuz these are comedy interest rates Here they are Is there even any point in working out how much interest you would earn well I'm going to do it anyway On your $100,000 you would earn a whopping $5 So you're giving up $3,495 in interest payments in order to get 4% cash back on your credit card which if you max it out at $120,000 in spending per year which many people will not do but if you do you get $4,800 in rewards But then we need to deduct the $3,495 you lost out on in interest because you're not in the Smartly savings account Now your 100,000 is in the Smartly checking And that leaves you with just $1,35 And that is just 1.08% of your $120,000 in spending Congratulations US Bank You just turned a 4% cash back card into a 1% cash back card Literally you would be better off putting your money in a Smartly Savings account getting that 3.5% interest and then just getting 2% cash back which is the base rate on the card Words cannot describe what a ridiculous change this is And no one in their right mind should do this now US Bank has insulted the intelligence of Americans They are basically just trying to exploit people who aren't good at math The only situations where this card could serve a purpose is either if you just use it as a flat 2% card or if you average $10,000 per day balance in your Smartly checking account just because that is your natural financial behavior and thus you can then get the 2.5% on everything or if in the future interest rates go down so low that maybe at that time it could be profitable to get 4% of the card and leave $100,000 in a account that's basically getting 0% interest because you can't get any better But right now the opportunity cost is simply too high You'd be losing money You better call card services because put simply it is a scam All right rant over That is the video guys And don't forget to check out our sponsor Silo who unlike US Bank actually will go the extra mile and pay you extra cash back up to $5,000 on your entire portfolio balance And that's in addition to any gains and dividends on stocks and bonds that you have Go to siloarkets.com/ben or click the link below Please subscribe to the channel if you're new and we'll see you in the next video Bye-bye