Earlier this week, we mentioned the Valentine’s Day specials going on with the major airlines and hotel chains.  On top of that, you can now earn 500 bonus miles through United Mileage Plus Shopping for spending $50.  And, to make it even sweeter you can earn 500 additional miles for signing up for their email list.  United was already paying 30 miles per dollar spent on FTD purchases through United Mileage Plus Shopping, so stack this deal on top of it, if you are planning on sending flowers to that special someone.

Click here to sign up for their email list and take advantage of the shopping deal.

This is a great example of cashing in on miles when making a normal purchase.  Many of the airline/hotel/credit card shopping portals are offering high points per dollar payouts for buying H&R Block or TurboTax software.  Here are the best deals:

Update:  You can also earn 1,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points for purchasing TurboTax via this link right here.

In addition to flowers, there are great bonuses on the shopping portals right now for jewelry, clothing, chocolate and other gifts.  Check it out.   You are going to spend the money anyways, so you might as well earn some points while you are at it.

If you do not understand how to use shopping portals, click here for more information.

To sign up, click here.

I try to make my first cancellation call 2-3 months before the annual fee will hit me.  In the competitive world of travel credit cards, you generally will have an agent on the phone who has agressive offers to retain you.  Here are the typical offers you can see:

1.  Annual Fee Waived.  I have had luck over the years where a credit card company will waive the fee for a year.  I may not use the card any longer, but there is no harm in keeping the card for an additional year.  Your credit score typically drops 3-7 points when you close an account (it will go back up over a period of a few months) so if you don’t need to cancel the card, you might as well keep it another year.  I try to spread my churns throughout the year, but often times I will have several renew close to each other.  Some cards periodically have promotions throughout the year where you can earn additional points as well.

2.  One time credit.  This credit is typically close to the amount as your annual fee, some times a little more.  In many cases you can take the credit, make charges equal to or more than that amount, wait a month and then call back and cancel.  You keep the credit as free money.

3.  A mileage retention offer.  I have had card issuers offer 10,000 miles for me to keep a card.  If I am close to an award ticket on that airline, it is worth it.  Most of my mileage cards are around $85 a year, so 10,000 miles or more is pretty much a wash.

4.  A bonus mileage offer.  I have had this offered to me a few times, sometimes in combination with my annual fee.  They are typically something like charge $X.XX amount and get X bonus miles.  If you call early and get the offer, you can make the charges to get the bonus and then call back to cancel again.

5.  A downgrade to your current card without an annual fee.  Most banks will offer you this at one point or another.  They essentially downgrade your card to one without an annual fee that earns less mileage.  For instance, you have a card that pays a 1 mile to $1 spent ratio with a fee.  They will offer you a free card that pays 1 mile to every $2 spent.  No, it won’t help your mileage accounts.  The main advantage here is if you are churning a lot of cards at once to avoid fees but don’t want all these recently closing of accounts to hit your account all at once.

In December I started the process of churning cards that would have fees coming up.  Two cards offered me deals.  Chase offered me a $100 credit on my account to keep my Continental OnePass account.  I took the $100 credit, charged $100 of free money and called and cancelled.  They did not charge back the $100 and I did it before I was charged an $85 annual fee.  It was nice to earn $100 in free money from Chase!  I then called Citi Cards to cancel my Citi AAdvantage Visa.  I picked it up 2 years ago with the first year free with a sign up bonus.  I tried cancelling this card last year, and they gave me an offer that was a combination of waiving my annual fee and giving me a bonus mileage offer.  I got the bonus and put the card away all year.  In December when I cancelled, I was offered a promotion of 3000 bonus miles after charging $500 on it.  I charged the $500, paid the card and waited for the 3000 miles to show up on my American Airlines account and then called back to cancel.  $100 and 3000 miles for just a few phone calls.  I love churn offers!

Now, I wasn’t denied for my credit rating.  My rating was 761 last month when I checked it (after adding 3 new accounts).  Chase denied me the Sapphire Prefered (a card that I have been meaning to add for a long time, but kept getting pre-occupied with big sign up bonuses and knew I would get to this one eventually) because I had signed up for too many credit cards with Chase and had been issued a new Chase card within the last 30 days.  I recently received a targeted offer for the Chase Priority Club card that gave me 80,000 Priority Club points by using it once.

So, instead of not being able to use the card and all of its benefits, I decided to call the re-consideration hotlineyesetday at 888-245-0625.  The agent on the phone told me that I was denied by Chase for opening another account within the last 30 days and for opening two accounts last year (Marriott Rewards, Continental One Pass).  I told her that last year I knew due to my job I would be staying at Marriott a lot and that I had a few trips planned that involved Continental.  I then explained that I opened the Priority Club account this year because my frequent work destination has changed and that I would not be staying at Marriott as often but would be staying at Holiday Inns.  I also said I would be flying to Phoenix many times this year and the Continental route was not convenient so I would be using other airlines.  She said all of that made sense, put me on hold a a few minutes and then came back and said I was approved.  Making the call was worth it.

Coincidentally, a co-worker approached me today and said that he received a decline letter from Chase the day before due to other accounts being opened recently.  I explained what I did and he duplicated my process, but changed a few small details.  A few minutes later he was informed that his Chase Sapphire card was on the way too.

Moral of the story:  if you are declined, call the bank.  As long as you have good credit and come up with a good explanation ahead of time, you are likely to get approved.

• Valentine’s Day is coming up.  You are going to have to buy your significant other something.  Wives/girlfriends:  get him some sort of electronic gadget from Best Buy or perhaps some tools from Sears.  You’ll also earn 1 mile (2 miles from Sears) for every $1 spent.  You could also buy him a few shirts from JOS Bank.  If you register your credit card on the web page, you can still get this credit at the retail store.  Or you can buy him anything else from dozens of department stores like Kohl’s, JCPenney or Macy’s.  Guys–you know you are going to have to buy flowers.  Order them now on FTD.com through the United Mall.  You earn 20 miles per $1 on that web site.  This one purchase of flowers that you were going to make anyways will earn you 1500 base miles plus the 500 mile bonus.  It’s a no brainer.
• Order gift certificates from Restaurant.com.  The gift certificates are essentially for half off (ie, $50 for $20, etc).  When checking out if you enter the promo code “DINNER” you’ll buy these certificates for 10% of their value–$100 gift certificate for $10.  There are a few good restaurants that I like to go to in my city, this site helps me save a lot of money.  The catch is that you must spend double the value of the certificate.  For instance, you must spent $150 to use a $75 gift certificate costing you $75 when you get the check.
• Planning on eating at PF Chang between now and the end of the month with a $75 bill?  Register your card on this site and earn 2 miles for every $1 spent plus get the bonus.
• Have a baby at home?  You are always going to need diapers.  Order $75 worth of diapers from Babies R Us.
• Or think long and hard about anything you plan to purchase in the next month.  New Blu Ray player?  Maybe some luggage?  Car parts?  Gifts for a baby shower or wedding?  No matter what you are looking for, any you plan to spend $25 or more you should always hit an airline shopping mall first to see if you can find what you are looking for and earn the miles.  In this case, spend $75 and get the bonus!

According to some readers on FlyerTalk.com, you will receive this targeted offer if you have a positive balance of miles in your United MileagePlus account.  If you have a 0 balance and have Continental OnePass miles, transfer a few of them over.  If you don’t have any miles on either Continental or United, go dining with MileagePlus Dining or make a small purchase with MileagePlus Shopping.

Visit United.com and sign in first and then hit the main web page.  It should be in the bottom right hand side in an box that looks like this:

After you click on that link, you should see these details: