The Lure and Dread of the App-O-Rama

[randbot]

So, in my recent excursions around the intarweb, I stumbled upon a moneymaking scheme known as the "app-o-rama" which has me somewhat intrigued. If you haven't heard of it, these are basically the steps

Comments

[jsadler]

Phil's brother (the cheap one-who probably makes more money than any of the rest of them) did/does this.

It seems more trouble than it's worth to me too.

[rifmeister]

It seems like every time I get an offer for a 0% credit card, there's a 3% fee on balance transfers or cash advances, which would wipe out my profits. But maybe cards exist that don't have these.

Can you apply in Liz's name to take advantage of her good credit?

[randbot]

Well, some cards have a $50 or $75 cap on fees. And for those that don't (or even those that do) that's where the haggling comes in -- call up customer service and see if you can get them to reduce/drop the fee for you.

If nothing else, after reading all this, I think I will at least start doing more spending via credit card to take advantage of cashback and bonus programs. I used to think they were more trouble than they were worth, but it IS basically free money for nothing more than the effort of making a couple credit card payments instead of having the money come directly out of the debit acount.

[rifmeister]

Ah, yeah, if the fee's capped, that could help some.

I've been using Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards card for years. It's been fairly successful --- basically, we get what feels almost like unlimited gift certificates to Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy. I think they've recently made their points ratios a bit worse, which sucks, but on the other hand we haven't managed to use up the last batch of certificates.

I'm getting ready to switch to a Fidelity MySmartCash account. This looks like an awesome program, especially if you already use Fido: IIRC, you get a "debit card" account that pays about 3.5% interest, gives you 1.5% cash back on everything, and refunds all ATM fees, and it's easy to transfer money to/from a money market account, which pays 5%.

[mama2jude]

Have you thought about becoming an Avon representative? :D