American | Global Investors

Posts Tagged ‘American’

American Express Extended Payment Option = 5,000 Membership Rewards Bonus

April 10th, 2012 | Posted by Global Investors

The following promotion is for holders of American Express “charge” cards that have Membership Rewards Points, including the Green, Gold, and Platinum cards. (Basically, it should look like one of the cards above.) This would work perfectly for those that signed up for the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card that currently gives 25,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $2,000 within 3 months and are still in the fee-free first year.

Usually these cards require you to pay the bill in full after each month, but if you enroll in their “pay over time” feature they’ll give you 5,000 Membership Rewards points. (Platinum card holders can get an extra 10,000 points.) Now you can pay exorbitant rates like everyone else. But wait! The good news for you responsible consumers is that there is no fee for enrollment, and also no requirement to actually pay any interest. So why not enroll and grab an extra 5,000 points? Fine print from the 5k offer quoted below.

1. To be eligible to get bonus points, you must be enrolled in the Membership Rewards® program at the time of enrollment in these features. Only one bonus offer per Membership Rewards account is permitted, and bonus points will be credited to your account within 6-8 weeks after enrollment. Maximum 5,000 points per account. Bonus ID: 7908 and 7906. Terms and Conditions for the Membership Rewards program apply. Visit membershiprewards.com/terms or call 1-800-AXP-EARN (297-3276) for more information. Participating partners and available rewards are subject to change without notice. To get bonus points related to this offer you must enroll by June 30, 2012.

View full post on My Money Blog

New cardholder bonus:

30,000 American Airlines bonus miles after $1,000 in purchases within the first 3 months.
Annual fee waived for the first year ($95 in future years).

American Airlines perks:

Free checked bag. Your first eligible checked bag is free for you and up to 4 traveling companions on the same reservation.
Free Priority Boarding. Priority boarding also included for you and up to 4 companions.
10% rebate on award redemptions. Earn 10% of your redeemed AAdvantage® miles back – up to 10,000 AAdvantage® miles each calendar year. So if you redeemed 50,000 miles you’d get 5,000 miles back and your net cost would be only 45,000 miles.
25% savings on in-flight purchases (food, beverages, and headsets).
$100 Flight Discount on an American Airlines ticket purchase with $30,000 in annual purchases on the card and with cardmembership renewal.
Double miles on American Airlines purchases. Earn 2 AAdvantage® miles for every $1 you spend on eligible American Airlines purchases like plane tickets
and 1 AAdvantage® mile for every $1 spent on other purchases.
No cap on how many miles you can earn annually.

Also note that there are usually reduced mileage award prices for certain routes each quarter (17,500 miles for roundtrip economy instead of 25,000) if you have an Citi AA card.

In summary, this card is now much better-targeted for those that fly American Airlines on a regular basis. Again, the new perks to apply to existing Citi AA consumer credit cards listed below, but only for travel booked on or after 4/2/12.

Existing cardmembers who have the Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® Visa Signature, Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® World MasterCard, Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® World Elite MasterCard and Citi® Select® / AAdvantage® American Express can enjoy the new benefits immediately.

I’m afraid my elite status on all these airlines are going to expire next year with a baby on the way, but at the same time I’m going to need to hoard even more miles for future trips!

Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card application link

Chase Freedom® Visa – $200 Bonus Cash Back” border=”0″></a> 
 
<a href= Citi American Airlines AAdvantage Visa Card – New Free Checked Bag, Priority Boarding, Other Perks from My Money Blog.

View full post on My Money Blog

Read More » 20 Comments »

Cashing in on the American Dream: How To Retire at 35 by Paul Terhorst (Book Review)

December 6th, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors

One of classic books on many early-retirement reading lists is Cashing in on the American Dream: How To Retire at 35 by Paul Terhorst. However, this book was published in 1988 and has been out-of-print for a while. Luckily, I noticed that there were several used copies available on Amazon for $0.01 + 3.99 shipping (or $4 with free shipping) and grabbed one.

Author Background
Terhorst earned his money as an accountant, making partner at a major accounting firm in his early 30s. He retired in 1984 at age 35 with a nest egg of around $400,000. He and his wife Vicki (no children) refer to themselves now as “perpetual travelers”. He wrote this book in a era before the internet became popular – imagine how hard it would be to gather information on this topic back then, limited to early BBS chat boards or snail-mail newsletters. Sometimes I take for granted how easily we can share and discuss information today.

Paul and Vicki used to have a Geocities page that is now defunct, but they still occasionally write travel articles and it looks they have a small internet presence here.

Implementation: Managing Expenses
The basic retirement plan in the book is to spend no more than $50 a day = $18,000 a year (1988). Adjusting with the Consumer Price Index, this would be around $33,000 a year in 2010 dollars. However, personal inflation does not necessarily match the CPI, and they reportedly still manage on $50 a day as recently as 2003.

A major part of lowering your expenses is to avoid living somewhere expensive. Realize that the most expensive cities in the US are up there with the most expensive cities in the entire world! When you’re retired, you can live anywhere. The book includes several example of smaller cities in the southern US with temperate climates, lots of things to do, and a proximity to a major city and airport. They also support living close to the center of these smaller cities, using public transportation, and not owning a car – another big source of savings.

In addition, the author is a strong proponent of spending a good chunk of your time in foreign countries where a dollar goes a lot further. Latin America (Argentina) and Southeast Asia (Thailand) are places where they have lived. The key is to “live like a native, not like a tourist”. Don’t stay in hotels or live in gated communities made for expats. If the natives live on $10,000 a year, you should be very comfortable at $20,000 a year.

They pay for health care with cash in the same foreign countries, which offer quality care at much lower prices than in the US. The rest of the frugal-living advice is pretty standard. Prioritize your spending, cut out the excess consumerism, etc.

Implementation: Creating Investment Income
Investment advice is often referred to as the weakest part of this book. You have to realize that the 1980s were a completely different financial environment. With high inflation, you could buy FDIC-insured CDs paying 8% interest annually. Thus, he recommended liquidating all your assets to cash, including selling your home, and then build a CD ladder creating 8% income. Obviously, this is not an option today. But if you take a step back, you’ll see that the basic premise is that you should never take on any more risk than you need.

It’s hard to find any updated investment advice from Terhorst, but it appears like they are still happily retired and don’t worry about money much. If they needed money, you’d think they’d republish their book. I did find this 2003 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance article which provided some insight:

…they began to move their money into stocks – mostly low-cost index funds – when interest rates declined in 1992. Now they have 40% of their portfolio in large- and small-cap stocks, 40% in natural resources companies (oil, gold, platinum), and the rest in money market accounts. [...] Their assets now total more than $1 million

These days, I pose that a more realistic early retirement portfolio might be 50% dividend stocks and 50% investment-grade bonds paying out a 3% yield that will keep up with inflation overall. However, creating $33,000 a year would require $1,100,000. Creating $18,000 a year ($50/day) would require $600,000.

Implementation: Saving Up That Nest Egg
I think this area is actually the weakest part of the book. The advice is essentially work hard at your career and be a good company man. Do all the right things to get promotions and work your way up the ranks to management and upper management… until the day you bail out. This is what Terhorst did, and he doesn’t really explore any other options like starting your own business. I suppose the truth is that this method will work for many, but it’s not very satisfying.

Takeaways
The main lesson that I got from reading this book is that the concept of “early retirement” for everyday middle-class folks has been around and available for decades. However, most people today don’t seem to even know it’s an option. I guess it takes a special disposition to be unsatisfied enough with the normal 9-5 grind to do what it takes to get out of it. I’ve also realized that many people – good people! – are quite happy with working 40+ hours a week for 40+ weeks a year for 40+ years of their life. There are so many different ways to balance work, investment income, and spending to retire partially or retire early.. but first you just have realize that you have that option!

Chase Freedom® Visa – $200 Bonus Cash Back” border=”0″></a> 
 
<a href= Cashing in on the American Dream: How To Retire at 35 by Paul Terhorst (Book Review) from My Money Blog.