If you have a good credit score and the discipline not to get into consumer debt, you can profit from your responsibility by participating in various credit card promos where their ad dollars go into your pocket. There have been some exceptionally nice deals lately to choose from, one of which expires soon. Here’s a brief summary:

$500 in Gift Cards or $500 towards Student Loans, your Mortgage, Airfare or Hotel

The Citi ThankYou Premier Card is competing with a 50,000 ThankYou Point bonus. You get 50,000 bonus ThankYou Points after $2,500 in purchases within 3 months of account opening. 50,000 points is worth $500 in gift cards, airfare, or a check towards your student loan or mortgage. No annual fee. See this post for details.

$500 in Cash or $625 towards Airfare or Hotel

The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is a rewards credit card offering new cardholders 50,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. 50,000 points can be redeemed for $500 cash or two airplane tickets worth up to $312.50 each since they offer a 25% boost towards airfare and hotels. No annual fee for the first year, $95 in future years. They also offer 2 points per dollar spent on dining & 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases. Additional details here.

(This card is the “big brother” of the regular Chase Sapphire Card, where you can get 25,000 points ($250 cash) after you spend $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months, and there is no annual fee in the first year or subsequent years.

This is their new travel-oriented card, with no foreign transaction fee on purchases and you can also earn points based on the amount of miles you actually fly. The annual fee is free the first year, $125 in later years if you keep it. Alternatively, if you want a card with no annual fee period, the Citi ThankYou^SM Preferred Card is offering 25,000 bonus points after $2,000 in purchases within 4 months.

This is a follow-up on the previously mentioned 50,000 bonus points offer (converts to $625 in travel) for the getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Thanks to readers Paolo and AT, they shared a way to get double those points, even if you’ve already applied.

Apparently, some people were recently mailed targeted offers for the same card, but with 100,000 points (converts to $1,000) instead. The problem was, you needed a special invitation code so there was no public application link. However, some clever folks who already applied for the 50k offer asked nicely for Chase to match with the offer code S6V, and many success stories have been reported on FW.

I was just able to successfully get 50K applied to mine and my wife’s accounts (just applied this past Sat. night in fact) and it was really painless, took 5 minutes. 200,000 total!

So the plan of attack would be:

1) Apply for the 50k offer. That’s the best available offer, and even by itself is a great offer worth $625 in travel. If you’ve already applied, skip ahead to:

2) Ask politely for a match of the new 100k offer. After getting your card, use the Chase website to send an online secure message requesting a match of the new, improved offer. There are no guarantees on this – you should be prepared to be happy with the $625 bonus – but it’s definitely worth a shot and I’d do it sooner than later. Use this helpful script from Paolo:

Dear Chase Representative,

I just this past weekend applied for my new Chase Sapphire Preferred card with a 50,000 sign up bonus of 50,000 points after spending $4,000.

Today, I learned of a new offer S6V which promises 100,000 bonus points. I would be very grateful if you would extend the 100,000 bonus point offer S6V to me as well since I just applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

I have been a long time customer of Chase, and have had my primary checking and credit card accounts with Chase for many years and hope to maintain them for many more years to come!

Kind Regards,

[Your Name]

I would customize this to your personal situation, mentioning your length or size of relationship with Chase if applicable. Update: Some people are reported that this window of opportunity has been closed.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.  “The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.”

Previously, I posted about the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, which is currently offering 40,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. This is quite a good deal, as 50,000 points can be redeemed for $625 in travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards™ (you can buy a more expensive ticket from any website and simply pay the difference). The Preferred card has no annual fee for the first year, but is $95 in future years. See the original post for more details.

If you don’t want to deal having to remember to cancel your card, the regular non-Preferred Chase Sapphire® Card is now offering 10,000 points worth $100 in travel rewards when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards, after you spend $500 in purchases within the first 3 months, and an additional 2,500 bonus points after you add the first authorized user and make a purchase in the first 3 months from account opening. There is no annual fee in the first year or subsequent years. The non-preferred used to give out their bonus with no minimum purchase requirement, so personally I’d rather take the extra $500 travel bonus via the Preferred.

Ideas for reaching the purchase limit without spending more money that you would otherwise include: prepaying any monthly bills like utilities and let the credit go down over time, pay your 6-month auto insurance or home insurance bills via lump sum, buy American Express gift cards that don’t expire and then spend them gradually, purchase gift cards at a discount from places you will shop at eventually through PlasticJungle or similar (Home Depot, Target, etc.), buying $1 coins from the US Mint (you’re basically buying cash), or buying grocery store gift cards (Safeway cards at Safeway). Basically just shift your usual expenses.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

“The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.”