Post by -hhPost by Thomas E.Post by Thomas E.Post by -hhPost by Thomas E.Post by -hhPost by Thomas E.Post by JohnPost by Thomas E.Post by JohnPost by Thomas E.https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/28/apple-goldman-sachs-partnership-ending/
"Goldman Sachs was new to consumer banking when the Apple Card
launched, and to establish a deal with Apple, it is not collecting
fees that many credit card issuers receive. The bank does not get a
cut of the fee that merchants pay to Apple to accept the Apple Card,
nor is it able to collect annual fees, late fees, or foreign
transaction fees."
How was this deal going to make money for Goldman Sachs when they had
to pay for all the back-office expenses, including customer service
"Goldman Sachs and Apple have worked together on the Apple Card
since it launched in 2019, and have also teamed up for the high-yield
Apple Savings account and the Apple Pay Later feature. The partnership
has not gone smoothly, with Goldman Sachs running into customer
service issues due to long wait times for disputed Apple Card
transactions and issues with the Apple Savings account."
Goldman Sachs apparently receives only credit card and loan interest
connected to Apple Card use. Apple benefits significantly at little
expense.
Apple Card is a fine product. It will be better under a more
intelligent bank.
Does your card allow you to buy a Apple laptop with 12 months of zero
interest?
No, I'd just pay cash and be done with it. Then too, the credit card rebates I
got over the last 18 months would more than pay for a 14" M3 Pro model
with 12‑core CPU, 18‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine model.
Or, has more than paid for all the fuel bill for both of our cars.
LMAO!!!
Really? Laughing at $2,306 in rebates, and that's just on my card? The wife has
one with the same 2% cash back. Those rebates are not taxed either!
So this $2306 represents the 2% cash back on .. oh, $115,300 spent on that one card?
Guess congratulations are in order for pushing to go so digital / cashless in the USA.
BTW, what are the typical CC surcharges you’re being hit with to use a CC, such as for
Municipal government, local businesses, etc? I’ve found these to often be 2% or more,
which results in a negative net sum.
-hh
Do you really think I would ever use that card when a surcharge would occur?
Based on your prior financial statements, yes.
Post by Thomas E.No, for tax payments I use ACH debit or a check. The county does charge $1 for
property tax ACH, a little more than the stamp to mail a check. I splurge and use
ACH anyway for those spring and fall payments.
Some are worse than others. Motor vehicle service is an example.
Post by Thomas E.No local businesses I know charge for credit card use.
Have you actually asked?
Look for the subtle ‘cash or card?’ before they tell you how much.
I’ve noticed that most of the small businesses here have done so.
And that’s in addition to the guilt-tripping to add a tip.
Post by Thomas E.That's spread over 18 months too, about $6,000 a month. About right...
What credit card company uses an 18 month default period?
All of the ones I’ve had who routinely provide summaries are annual.
My Honda dealer and oil change businesses don't offer cash discounts.
Shouldn’t it still be under warranty? How much are you spending on just your car?
Post by Thomas E.Neither does my car and home insurance provider.
Surcharge or not, do they even accept credit cards for payments?
Actual credit, not debit card, as that has far fewer consumer protections.
Post by Thomas E.About the only places around here that do offer cash discounts are gas
stations, and that's generally just 1% or so. We buy all gas at Costco anyway.
If I had a Costco card I could get 4% cash back on gas, but I get 2% anyway.
They also offer 3% back on travel and restaurants. Not worth the bother.
I ignore the tip offer unless I would have tipped anyway.
What do I do by ACH for a discount? Verizon, the Viking cruise we just bought
( 3% rebate), property taxes, income taxes, utilities, Netflix and the flying club (it's ACH only).
Because that’s a debit transaction, not credit.
Post by Thomas E.18 month default? WTF are you talking about? That about my monthly average
spending on the Visa card. I pay it off every month. I've never defaulted on any debt.
Your are not very smart are you?
“ Laughing at $2,306 in rebates, …”
“That's spread over 18 months too, about $6,000 a month. About right...”
If it had been annual, it would be just ~$1537 (2% of $76,866, which is $6400/mo)
instead $2306 as 2% of $115.3K. Why don’t you just try a bigger brag attempt by
using a three or five year rebate accumulation?
-hh
There you go again, making assumptions with no basis in facts.
What you’ve been describing is a riskless arbitrage - the financial equivalent of
a perpetual motion machine. That’s why I commented.
Post by Thomas E.My car is out of warranty, but more to the point the wife's CRV is a 2015 getting
close to 100k. We had an $1,800 engine problem, and yes the dealer took my credit card.
Ah, so it was a repair on your wife’s older car that you’re taking 2% credit for.
Check.
Post by Thomas E.That's right, the flying club and county government do not get charged for
anyone's payments. But guess what, most businesses do.
Which merely narrows where you might apply your arbitrage attempt.
Post by Thomas E.Yes, Allstate accepts credit cards. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hId3pRCATfW7hY7Rh5mDmrRl_dGYkXbG/view?usp=sharing
Ok. Of course, these are typically offered in conjunction with “easy payment plans”
which commonly contain higher net annualized rates. Opting for multiple payments
may make sense to consider in a high interest rate environment, but we’ve not been
in that sort of fiscal situation in the US for nearly thirty years (and the supplier can also
just adjust the effective finance rate).
In any event, we’ve been using a Mutual, so we classically get an end-of-FY rebate of ~10%.
Post by Thomas E.The $6,000 number refers to recent monthly Visa spend rate to get the rebates. Obviously, you idiot.
Except that $115,300 over just 12 months would have been a ~$10K/month burn rate.
Post by Thomas E.As for a longer time period, I could do that. The current Visa card is a switch from 2%
cash back Mastercard that happened about 18 months ago.
The Mastercard rebates go back to early 2018, 5+ years ago.
And other cash-backs - even if you didn’t personally employ them - go back many more years.
Post by Thomas E.Do you use a cash-back credit card?
Of course .. but only when it makes sense to do so. When there’s the likes of a 2%-3% CC
surcharge, i’ll pay cash. I’ll also offer to not use CCs with established small business
relationships I have on larger purchases even when there is no surcharge, as it puts a more
money into their pockets, such as when buying a full set of car tires (Diane says that her
husband doesn’t need free doughnuts!).
Post by Thomas E.Free and tax free money is a good thing. Especially when you have the discipline
and ability to totally avoid interest and late charges. :)
Except for how it isn’t tax free, of course. Maybe you’ll figure it out someday.
-hh
You just dreamed up 12 months. Quote "Then too, the credit card rebates I got over the last 18 months"
18 months was not arbitrary, it was just the time after I switched to Visa from MC. It's easy to look up in Quicken when you record Rebate in the credit card records.
Just for fun, with complete data from 11/1/18 to date our total card rebates were $9,246. That almost paid for our auto fuel expenses.
I can't think of a single merchant I deal with here that routinely offers cash discounts. The merchant pays about 3%-3.5%, so even if they give all to you the difference from a 2% rebate is tiny. You are not going to negotiate with the likes of grocery store chains, online stores, restaurant chains, Costco, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. Why even try when you can get 2% off anyway? Heck it's getting hard to pay with actual money in some cases. I recently went to a local bank to get cash from an ATM. I did not see an ATM, so I asked the teller where it was located. I learned that this branch has no ATM because it has no cash in the building.
Where on my income tax forms do I enter "rebate income"? Unless you mean that I pay sale tax on the full amount and get a very small rebate on sales tax that a cash discount does not pay. So what does that amount to? We will assume my state 7% sales tax and a 2% cash discount.
100 + 7% = 107, 2% rebate is 2.14, net cost 104.76
98 + 7% = 104.86
Difference is 0.10, or ~0.1%, $462 on the total card purchase rebates we received since late 2018. But that assumes that we could negoiate a 2% cash discount with the likes of Kroger, Amazon, WalMart, Costco, Hilton, Penske Honda, Allstate, doctors, online merchants, restaurants, Lowes, Home Depot, out-of-town gas stations, hotels, etc. and so on. Either not feasible, or not worth the hassle to me. I have the Target 5% off card too.
LOL
Unless you can get more than 2% off for cash, like I did with the Viking Cruises offer, the difference is minor. Which is why I took Viking up on the offer. I have the Target 5% off card too.
Finally how does this make sense: "I’ll also offer to not use CCs with established small business
relationships I have on larger purchases even when there is no surcharge, as it puts a more
money into their pockets, such as when buying a full set of car tires."
If they give you a discount for cash how is that putting more money in their pocket? If you really want to put more money in their pockets pay cash or with a debit card on list price! They avoid the CC charge and you pay only full price. That would really help them out.
