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The Countdown to $500

March 7th, 2014 at 10:44 pm

My husband's Chase Southwest Rapids Rewards Plus Visa arrived today in the mail. I have already activated the cards. The countdown to spend $2000 in the first billing cycle begins! We will receive $500 worth of gift cards once we meet the requirement.

The online account shows the first payment due as March 26, so based on other Chase credit card accounts, I think the statement date will be March 29. So I really only have three weeks to make purchases to likely avoid paying the $69 annual fee. Well, I will have to pay it, but I can request a refund. Does that seem right to those of you who have done other Southwest Visa offers?

Our first purchase will be to pay our high electric bill from February. A whopping $172! Crazy cold winter leads to high heating costs. I have quite a few things to charge to this card, including our tax payments, an auto insurance payment, two donations, an upcoming cell phone bill. I might be able to get my husband to pay for his weekend travel on the card...but maybe not since they do like him to use that government card. That would sure help though! Worse case scenario is to buy gift cards for upcoming purchases. I think we can do it!!

In other good news, we received a $25 Target gift card for some spending we did on our USAA card back in November. It finally arrived. Another snowflake for March!

How quickly could you rack up $2000 in spending? And what would this spending be on? Would it include a splurge or would you be able to spend that on regular expenses?

3 Responses to “The Countdown to $500”

  1. ceejay74 Says:
    1394234230

    I just got my statement yesterday. I checked it, and even though it records $2000+ in purchases, I only have 2000 or so rewards points. Darn, must not have made the purchases before some invisible cutoff date!

    So do you typically ask them to refund the annual fee or do you just cross your fingers when you cancel and hope they refund it? I wonder if it'll be too late to get mine since I clearly have to wait for another cycle before I get my points.

  2. ceejay74 Says:
    1394234848

    Oh, one other thing: my last two purchases were on 3/3 and 3/4. Does that mean I'll pretty much have to pay them off before my next (4/6) statement to not incur interest, or do I have a bit of leeway? If I pay everything off, I'm afraid my annual fee refund (if I even get one) will come as a statement credit that I'll have to spend vs. getting in cash.

    Does that make sense? What are your thoughts?

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    1394236893

    I know that I paid everything off, canceled and then when they confirmed cancellation I made my case for a refund, which I was sent in the form of a check, since they knew I couldn't use a credit balance. It arrived pretty quickly. I also had a return on the cancelled card that was sent at the same time.

    Any purchases made after the cycle date give you more time to pay them off...on the due date of the next cycle. You will get your rewards. I wouldn't cancel until you do, and I don't think it means you will HAVE to pay the fee, but the sooner you cancel the better.

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