I've been rotating through new credit cards to get sign up bonuses for a while now. I've been targeting the best cash bonuses or at least cash/ travel bonuses. Over all this has worked great for me and I netted over $2000 in various rewards in 2015.
Unfortunately I just struck out with a Capital One Venture card. Annoyingly it was my mistake that lost the bonus but I think its a slight trap anyone could fall into. I signed up for the card in January of this year. The sign up deal is that you get 40,000 bonus miles when "once you spend $3,000 on purchases within the first 3 months". OK thats easy enough and I've done this kind of spending deal on several cards before. But no.
Make sure you figure out when the clock starts and what the exact time period is to meet a sign up bonus.
Some cards start the period on the day you sign up for the card.
Today I added up the spending on my first 3 monthly statements and I'm a bit over the minimum required $3,000 at about $3,025. So I should get the bonus right? No. The clock for the bonus spending requirement started the day that I applied for the card. The clock did not start when I got the card. The clock didn't start when the statement periods started either. I spent my $3000+ in the first three statements and missed the deadline by two weeks. So that is annoying. Lesson learned. At least I can do is pass on the heads up to maybe help someone else from finding the problem.
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June 16, 2017
PSA : Credit Card Sign Up Bonus Gotcha To Watch For
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