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Your Questions Answered
For the past week I have been asking readers to send in their questions so I can answer them. Here are the related posts:
- Your Questions Answered – Most Common Points & Miles Acronyms
- Credit History with Converted Accounts, Max Number of Amex AUs, Money Orders at Walmart & More
- Ink Bold or Plus, Paying for Someone Else’s Global Entry & Shopping Portal Clawbacks after Returns
- Credit Card Application Strategy – How to Decide Which Cards Stay & Which Cards Go
If you want to get your question answered, simply head over to this post and leave the question in a comment. I am working to get through most of them this week.
Question 1
Our first question comes from Robert:
Can you still open a Citibank checking account and fund it with a credit card? If so, what type of Citibank account do I want to open (link?), and which credit cards could I fund it with?
The answer is yes. Citibank allows you to fund a bank account quite generously with a credit card. Some banks do charge cash advances though, so it is important to be careful. A good strategy before trying to do this would be to lower your cash advance limit to $0.
If you are looking to fund a bank account with a credit card Doctor of Credit maintains a great list of banks that allow this. (Along with cash advance data points.) As for which Citi  account you should open, there are a lot of factors to consider, but I would choose the Citigold and pickup 30,000 AAdvantage or 40,000 ThankYou points as a bonus.
Question 2
The next question comes from CJ:
For business credit cards such as Ink, if i dont have a business setup yet is it ok to to use it to pay normal bills to hit the minimum spend requirement? I know the terms say not to but what is the downside to doing this?
Business credit cards are designed for business expenses. With that said, I have never heard of anyone having issues putting personal expenses on a business card. Yes it can be a violation of the terms and is not generally something I would suggest doing, but I know a lot of people who have done similar things without incident.
With that said, any time you are violating a credit card issuers terms then there is always the possibility of consequences. With a card like Ink, Chase could take all of your Ultimate Rewards points for example. So I guess the short answer is that I know of people who do it without consequence, but there is always a risk when violating a card’s terms.
Question 3
Our final question comes from Jan:
I would like to use Bluebird to pay tuition for my daughters (yes, two tuitions). I’ve been loading BB with GCs but am a little unsure as to whether everything can just sit there until August, when I write two large checks. Then repeat the process in December. Does BB have a ceiling on check amounts? Would doing this raise any red flag? Thanks!
This is actually a great question. Without knowing how much the tuition is, I can’t answer your question specifically, but I can shed some light on the topic for you. Here are the Bluebird limits that pertain to your situation.
- Maximum Account Balance: $100,000
- Bluebird Check Limit:Â Subject to Total Account Balance and Add Money Limits
So as long as your balance remains below $100,000, then you should be able to keep the money in the Bluebird account and write a check. Keep in mind that you can also transfer the funds out to a normal bank account instead of keeping them in Bluebird. I do not think either strategy is a red flag based on my experience.
If it were me, I would probably transfer the money out to a savings account every month and then send the payments from there. Bluebird checks are a little strange since they require pre-authorization and I try not to keep too much money in my Bluebird/Serve/REDcard account. With that said, your strategy is perfectly fine and should work.
Conclusion
There are quite a few more questions left to answer and I’ll be trying to get to a few each day. If you want your question answered then please leave a comment here. Also, feel free to chime in with your experiences and opinions about any of these questions in the comments! Have a great weekend!
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[…] Parking Money in Bluebird, Personal Expenses on a Business Card & Funding Checking Accounts wit… […]
Hi,
For question #3, wouldn’t it be better to pay the tuitions with a cc and get miles or points? Then pay cc with BB?
A lot of institutions charge a hefty fee or simply don’t allow you to pay tuition with a credit card.
Back to the personal expenses. If I travel for my job, is it ok to apply for business card even though it’s not my business in order to keep expenses separate? Or is that no different than just opening any other credit card? If you haven’t noticed I’m really trying to find an angle for the Ink card.
Autocorrect…
@Sarah – Just click on the blue link.
@Shawn – I almost forgot about this. Thanks.
Thanks, Yeah, I clicked the link and read the post, But what I saw from that post was some data point summary about if fund checking/saving account using CC were code as cash advance. Nothing mentioned about how to fund checking or saving. Did I miss something?
Hi Shawn,
I have one question extends your Question 1, which is how one can fund his/her bank checking/saving account with credit card?
Thanks