Target ideas

[Carlos]

OH has a target of £3,641 to hit by mid August and another card target of £1,966 by early September (Amex)
Although I am not a fan of wasting on unwanted items – does anyone have innovative ideas on how to hit target?
I have thought of the idea of GC’s as Amazon is 10 years

Billhop is another at 2.95% (Have some CT that needs to be paid but not a fan of paying extra for the privilege if I dont have to)
Cash from ATM if I am correct is another option? which attracts 2.95% or possibly a bit higher?

Ideally I would leave the ideas til last and the target will be less as we will try and target spend to bring it down.

[alig4th]

Ask family (or friends) if they have any big expenditures they were going to pay for instantly you could put on you card (furniture, electronics, holidays, etc)

[Amexspender]

Hi do you use your card for day to day spending?

What about subscriptions? e.g netflix, gym membership etc transfer all those onto the card

Agree with asking family and friends

[can]

Major big spends can sometimes be paid earlier: insurance, tax and travel.

Or look at flyertalk’s UK MS entries: Book a fully refundable luxury hotel.

[Harrier25]

Funding your own Amazon account works too.

[Carlos]

Harrier25 wrote:

Book a fully refundable luxury hotel.

I was going to do this as a last resort, hopefully the account wont get flagged – any experience?

can wrote:

Major big spends can sometimes be paid earlier: insurance, tax and travel.

Or look at flyertalk’s UK MS entries: Book a fully refundable luxury hotel.

ID be interested to see what happens a few months (or weeks) down the line when you want a refund, will it be done by bank transfer? will the MR be clawed back?

alig4th wrote:

Ask family (or friends) if they have any big expenditures they were going to pay for instantly you could put on you card (furniture, electronics, holidays, etc)

I did, hopefully will get some replies. None in the short term

Amexspender wrote:

Hi do you use your card for day to day spending?

What about subscriptions? e.g netflix, gym membership etc transfer all those onto the card

Agree with asking family and friends

Currently do yes, thanks

[ChrisC]

Remember it’s not merely booking a hotel you need the hotel to charge you now for the trip and for it to still be a refundable rate.

So you may be better off buying a flight that you know will be charged now but be refundable to be sure. Then cancel it in a few months time.

When you claim the refund it will send your AMEX account into credit and the points will also be adjusted down to reflect the refund.

Gift cards could be a good idea but spread them around smaller amounts to several retailers that you usually use rather than a single large amount to a single one that would take for years to use up.

You can then use them yourself or palm them off as Christmas / birthday / wedding / christening presents

[SamG]

Gift cards are good – supermarkets sell a big range of physical ones. Even better if you’ve got a Morrisons cashback offer !

Hotels.com is good if you need to get over the line temporarily, book something refundable that you pay them for. They refund very fast

A little bit of PayPal friends and family seems to be ok

Put any phone / Internet accounts in credit

Stock up on durable groceries and household items

[ChrisBCN]

If your energy company accepts Amex you can prepay the next 12 months or so – that should cover all of the target 😃

[SamG]

Council tax you can potentially do at co op but it’s very ymmv how much you can pay in one go, I gave up with it and did billhop to save my sanity 😂

[NorthernLass]

Have you checked if you can pay council tax with Amex/Paypal?

Think carefully about cash withdrawals as I think they count as a negative on your credit score (also possibly don’t count for target spend).

[NorthernLass]

Also – take advantage of any offers to stock up on birthday/Xmas presents and get cashback/extra points. I used the 2 Guerlain offers to get some nice things for friends/family with birthdays in the next few months. It’s also very gratifying not having to scramble around sorting out gifts at the last minute!

[Andrew.]

What’s the normal monthly bill? You’ve got the whole of July and August regular spend first, so only looking at the marginal difference to spend.

No holidays over the next 74 days either?

[Carlos]

Andrew. wrote:

What’s the normal monthly bill? You’ve got the whole of July and August regular spend first, so only looking at the marginal difference to spend.

No holidays over the next 74 days either?

yes one booked for Dec, already paid on the amex

NorthernLass wrote:

Have you checked if you can pay council tax with Amex/Paypal?
unfortunately a relative pays council tax by direct debit, so might be crossing between lines if not closely monitored

Think carefully about cash withdrawals as I think they count as a negative on your credit score (also possibly don’t count for target spend).

i might do a test and find out – but not a fan of holding cash for no reason. There is a last resort CT due soon it can go towards, seeing if i can avoid the 2.99%

ChrisBCN wrote:

If your energy company accepts Amex you can prepay the next 12 months or so – that should cover all of the target 😃

British Gas bill quarterly. I am sure they dont accept amex though as I tried in the past
If I was hitting a visa/mastercard target then no problem

ChrisC wrote:

Remember it’s not merely booking a hotel you need the hotel to charge you now for the trip and for it to still be a refundable rate.

So you may be better off buying a flight that you know will be charged now but be refundable to be sure. Then cancel it in a few months time.

When you claim the refund it will send your AMEX account into credit and the points will also be adjusted down to reflect the refund.

Gift cards could be a good idea but spread them around smaller amounts to several retailers that you usually use rather than a single large amount to a single one that would take for years to use up.

You can then use them yourself or palm them off as Christmas / birthday / wedding / christening presents

When the points are adjusted down, will that impact the target hit (one is an anniversary target, the other is a welcome bonus target)
thats the main question i have in mind

[Karl]

Morrisons gift cards are good for this as they can be used to buy any other future gift cards Morrisons stock. They can also be used at self checkouts to keep under the radar.

[Richie]

Are you likely to need any big ticket items soon and have some storage space? I’m thinking kitchen appliances, new mattresses, new carpets, furniture. A browse through John Lewis website may be useful.

[Carlos]

Karl wrote:

Morrisons gift cards are good for this as they can be used to buy any other future gift cards Morrisons stock. They can also be used at self checkouts to keep under the radar.

ah thats handy to know – but what is the validity of the Morrisons gc?
edit: a quick google search (but website may differ from actual physical gc) says 24m

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[NorthernLass]

I’ll post this with a few caveats, but if you know the points game and have a definite (but flexible) use for them, you can buy avios or hotel points. HH has a 100% bonus offer on at the moment and Iberia has a 50% bonus offer on avios. This is best done if you have a outsized redemption in mind, Rob has written about it recently.

*Obviously don’t be the guy who buys 100,000 avios then complains he can’t get a first class redemption to Japan!

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Carlos]

NorthernLass wrote:

I’ll post this with a few caveats, but if you know the points game and have a definite (but flexible) use for them, you can buy avios or hotel points. HH has a 100% bonus offer on at the moment and Iberia has a 50% bonus offer on avios. This is best done if you have a outsized redemption in mind, Rob has written about it recently.

*Obviously don’t be the guy who buys 100,000 avios then complains he can’t get a first class redemption to Japan!

thanks, funnily enough thats how i booked the HH room for Dec via points (earned not purchased), so this time round round i have to give it a miss.