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Get Free Stuff for Paying Your Bills

April 21, 2016

I’ll admit it.  At this point, I feel super entitled to free stuff.  I’ve put in a lot of time learning how to capitalize on credit card rewards points and now I can’t wrap my head around why I would ever pay for something, ANYTHING, and not get something in return for free.  Lacey and I pay with credit cards for literally every bill and expense we have.  Yes, this will now include mortgage payments. I’m going to tell you exactly how we do it because you should be getting free stuff for paying your bills too!

Before jumping right in and signing up for random credit cards to start paying your bills with; think about what your end goals are.  What do you want to get in return?  Look back on a previous post or two of ours that should help you decide on what card to sign up for to get a certain reward in return.

Once you select and receive the credit card that is going to get you the awesome reward you’re going for, you’ll want to create an online account with the bank that sponsors your new credit card.  For example, if you signed up for the Chase Sapphire card, you’ll create an online account at chase.com .  While logged in to your account, find where you can set up auto-pay.  It’s usually under a tab titled something like “manage payments”.  I would highly recommend you set auto-pay to pay off your entire balance each month.  This is an important step to make sure you don’t miss a payment and completely jack up your credit score (35% of your credit score is your payment history).

Now, take your new card and link it to every reoccurring monthly bill you have. Login to all of your online bill pay accounts for things like cable, internet, electricity, gas, water/sewer/trash, Netflix, iTunes, and anything else you can think of.  If you’ve never setup AutoPay for things like these don’t worry, it’s really easy.  Similar to how you setup your online account with the bank that provided your credit card, you’ll create an online account and set up auto-pay for each service you subscribe to.  Set your credit card as the payment source for every monthly bill you have. By doing this along with putting all of your day to day expenses on your card (groceries, gas, meals,etc), you’ll be shocked at how easily you’ll hit your spending requirements.

At this point, you may have figured out that your mortgage company and the bank you make your car payments to won’t allow you to pay with a credit card.  This totally sucks because these are likely your 2 biggest monthly bills and now you’re missing out on tons of reward points!  While most banks won’t accept credit card payments, they will accept checks.  There is an awesome service called Plastiq that will let you set up your credit card as a payment source while they will, in turn, send a check to whoever you need to pay. Boom goes the dynamite cuz you’re back in business!  While the Plastiq service does charge a 1-2.5% fee per transaction, if you sign up through our referral link you’ll get $200 of fee free payments.  Pretty cool of them to do that.

Is it worth the % fee that Plastiq charges for making your payments? Well, that’s up to you.  To put it in to perspective, let’s say your monthly mortgage payment is $2,000.  You’ll get charged about $40 to make the payment through Plastiq.  Let’s say in this example that you’re using the Southwest Premier card to make your payment.  For the $40 you spent to put $2000 on this card, you’ll reach the spending requirement and will get an estimated $650 worth of free flights within a matter of weeks after receiving the card.  You’ll be headed to Cabo, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Aruba, or any of the other awesome new locations Southwest now flies to.  So if you’re in a rush to hit the spending requirements on a credit card to get the bonus, it may be worth a few bucks to do it through Plastiq.

I hope this gets you started on a path that earns you awesome free stuff for every dollar you spend.  The next time you get an unexpected $1,000 bill…turn that around and get a free vacation out of it!  Good luck!  Let us know if you have any questions.

Free Stuff for Paying Bills

Turn your next unexpected bill into an unexpected vacation!

 

 

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Rewards Points Travel

Go to the Final Four for $200

April 7, 2016

For as long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of going to the men’s NCAA basketball Final Four.  Maybe it’s due to the fact that these games are always crazy exciting, or maybe it’s because my dad and I always had such a good time busting each others chops over whose bracket was better.  Whatever the case, this year I was able to finally check ‘attend a Final Four’ off of my bucket list.  I’m going to tell you how you can do the same next year for $200.

I always had the impression that only super rich and famous people could afford to go to events like this.  It wasn’t until this time last year when I discovered how we could fly to the Final Four, stay in a nice hotel, and go to all 3 games for only $200 per person.  You can take the same exact steps we took to get yourself to the 2017 Final Four in Phoenix, Arizona.

First things first…this year’s championship game…are you kidding me?!?!?!  Unbelievable!  I can’t tell you how lucky we feel to have experienced in-person one of the greatest championship games of all time.  The crowd absolutely exploded when Marcus Paige for North Carolina tied the game with 4 secs left.  Then the roof almost blew off when Kris Jenkins hit the game winning buzzer beater shot to win the National Championship for Villanova.  I caught both shots on video with my cell phone.  Check them out below this post.  Don’t mind all my screaming 🙂

Ok, back to how you and yours are going to go to the 2017 Final Four for $200 a person.

  1. Get your tickets
    • Go apply for the 2017 Final Four ticket lottery on the official NCAA site here.  You only have until May 31st to apply, so hurry up!  You will pay $200 per ticket in advance.  But wait Mat, that still sounds expensive.  Well, it breaks out to be $66 per game since you will get to see all 3 games of the Final Four.  Very good deal considering an average regular season game would cost $40ish per ticket.  Also, your odds of getting selected are better than you’d think.  It’s not guaranteed, but every person I know that has applied for the lottery has been selected.  If you don’t get picked, your $200 will be fully refunded, so you have nothing to lose.
  2. Get points for free flights to Phoenix
    • I’d recommend using Southwest Airlines to get to Phoenix.  They have nonstop flights to Phoenix from numerous cities.  You can use our referral link to apply for the 50k point offer on the Southwest Premium card.  The public offer is only 25k points right now.  Once you get the 50k points from this card, you should be able to book 2 round trip flights for free (depending on where you’re flying out of).  Let us know if you have any questions on how to get and use these points.
  3. Get free nights at a hotel
    • There is currently a 100k point bonus offer for the Hilton Surpass card.  This offer is being referred to as Hilton’s “best offer ever”.  With these points, you could book your free stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Phoenix which is right down the road from the location of the 2017 Final Four.  (we’re not getting compensated for promoting this card…it’s just a rad offer that we recommend).

So there you have it, by signing up for the ticket lottery and the 2 credit cards mentioned above, you should be well on your way to the 2017 NCAA Final Four.  Lacey and I would definitely recommend attending! Not only are the games themselves awesome, but all of the free festivities outside of the games are tons of fun as well!  Check out the pics and vids below from our trip last weekend to the 2016 NCAA Men’s Final Four.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Rental Car Houston, TX

NRG Stadium Parking lot Final Four 2016

Final Four 2016 Fan Fest BareNaked Ladies

The Barenaked Ladies performed outside the stadium during Fan Fest.

Final Four 2016 Fan Fest

Final Four 2016 Fan Fest

Lacey at Final Four 2016 Fan Fest

Final Four 2016 Fan Fest

Final Four 2016 Fan Fest Ferris Wheel

Ferris wheels are always more fun than we think they’re going to be.

Downtown Houston, TX

Final Four 2016 Fan Fest

Final Four 2016 Fan Fest

Ticket Line Final Four 2016

NRG Stadium Final Four 2016

Lacey watching Final Four 2016 game

Final Four Custom Lanyard

This pic was on our custom lanyards that we wore around our necks.

 

 

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