Alexis Akira Toda

Alexis Akira Toda

Mathematical economist

Buying Delta gift card with American Express Delta SkyMiles Platinum Card

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With my American Express Delta SkyMiles Platinum Card, I received a targeted offer for 5 extra Delta SkyMiles per dollar for purchasing a Delta gift card. In addition, Delta is also running a promotion with a $25 Uber voucher for those who buy $300 or more in Delta gift cards.

As I am a frequent user of both Delta and Uber, I have just bought a $300 gift card, which gives me $25 Uber voucher and \((1+5)\times 300=1800\) SkyMiles. As one mile is valued at around 1.1 cents and my Platinum card gives a 15% discount on using miles, I estimate that 1800 miles is worth around \(1800\times 1.1/85=23.3\) dollars. So, in total, I recovered around $48 of benefits that I am sure to use within the next couple of months by spending $300, which is pretty good. But this sort of credit card optimization is not worth the effort unless I like optimization itself.

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Tracking spending

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In this post, I mentioned that Fidelity Full View provides account syncing for Fidelity customers. Dividing spending into categories, it also presents a pie chart of spending. The picture below is my own example; I erased the specific amounts and kept only the percentages. In general, to save money, it is best to focus on spending categories with large shares, which in my case are home, children, food, travel, etc.

Tracking cash flow

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In this post, I mentioned that I tracked every single penny of my spending from 2008 to 2022, but I stopped because there was little room left to improve my behavior, and the opportunity cost of keeping track of everything was too high. During this period, I tracked my income and expenditures by manually entering items in an app and using (now discontinued) Mint.com.

Capital One Quicksilver 0% intro APR (3)

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In my post, I mentioned that I have been happy with the Capital One Quicksilver Card because it offered 0% intro APR for 15 months (and the card has no annual fee and gives 1.5% cash back on all purchases).

I referred my wife to open an account, and we both received the referral bonus. But what has been truly great is the targeted deals through Capital One Shopping. We are now remodelling our two bathrooms that are over 20 years old. As my wife has been searching for fixtures, she has started receiving targeted deals from Home Depot, Lowe’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc., often offering 15% cash back. Furthermore, the timing of our remodelling coincided with Black Friday/Cyber Week sales (of course, intentionally), so we often get an additional 20% off from the merchants. Overall, I think we saved a few thousand dollars by optimizing credit card use.

I highly recommend the card to anybody. If you open an account by clicking this link, you will receive an extra sign-up bonus.