Maximizing the NBA Card 5x Rewards for Two Weeks

We’ve written about how it’s possible to get 5x everywhere twice a year with the BBVA NBA card. The card is now available with no annual fee and a $100 signup bonus. 

Final season runs from June 4 – June 19, 2015. Of course depending on how the games go they may not take that long, but we’ve clarified previously that the 5x rewards are earned from June 4 – June 18, no matter who wins or loses.

The key here is to maximize the 5x rewards during the 15 days we have to do so.

Here are some ideas…

• Prepay bills. This is really the best option in my opinion. Cellular, utilities, insurances, etc. With many carriers and services, you can pay out a few months in advance. Consider paying off these bills for the rest of the year or however much you’re comfortable with.
• Buy Visa gift cards at your local supermarket or drugstore. You can also get some free gas along the way if you have a Stop&Shop or Giant nearby.
• Pay taxes. If anyone has some tax liability they can pay now, this is one real opportunity to do so. The fee can be less than 2% and you can profit 3% without getting out of your PJs.
• Pay your rent. Fees can be as low as 2.5% and many will take Amex for the payment. See Complete List Of Options For Paying Your Rent With A Debit Or Credit Card.
• Pay other bills with Plastiq. Loans, mortgages, etc. There is a 2.5% fee, but it could be a nice option. Remember, buying Visa gift cards also comes with an activation fee.
• Load Serve. As we know, Serve still allows loading with Amex cards and the BBVA card has been earning points on the purchase with no cash advance issue.
• Buy Amex gift cards. On 6/4/15, you can get 2% cashback through the portal. Hopefully we’ll see other portals increase to 2% as well. You can then use the gift cards to buy Visa gift cards, pay taxes, pay rent, etc.
• Grocery store bonus. This one is targeted, but some folks got an extra bonus offer to get $50 when spending $250 at a supermarket.
• Fund a bank account. Many banks allow credit card funding and there are a few who allow Amex cards as well. We have a page dedicated to clarifying which banks allow credit card funding and which don’t. Here are the ones mentioned there as being able to fund with Amex: US Bank $500 (varying data points on cash advance), BMO Harris $1,000, Consumers Credit Union $1,000, American Heritage Credit Union $1,000. There are many other banks which may allow Amex as well. Hopefully, there won’t be any cash advance issue with BBVA, though it’s worth trying to lower the cash advance limit to be safe. It wouldn’t be worth opening an account just for the small amount of credit card funding you can do, but if you were on the fence to open one of these bank accounts this can be an opportunity to do so.

Things to be aware of…

• We don’t know how easy-going BBVA is. I’m hopeful that since it’s just a 2-week period they won’t have a chance or it won’t be worth their while to make problems with those who are hitting this hard.
• We are limited by our credit lines. Luckily, many people have gotten high credit lines which makes it easier to really make use of the 5x bonus.
• Try doing more innocuous purchases if you can. For example, prepaying your cellular or insurance and things like that. Diversifying and doing more ordinary transactions are probably better.

Big Caveat

Finally, we need to mention that there is a small chance that certain Financial transactions won’t be eligible to earn 5x. We’ve mentioned before that Citi has recently revamped their system to disqualify Financial-coded purchases from earning certain bonus rewards. I wouldn’t think that BBVA has such a thing coded in their system, but the possibility exists.

Potential problems:

• Loading Serve
• Buying Amex gift cards
• Funding bank accounts
• Paying taxes (We don’t know if this codes as Financial or not. Incidentally, this will make a difference with regards to some Citi cards as well, see this post.)

I honestly hadn’t entertained the possibility myself, but a reader pointed out that the Terms mention that certain prepaid cards, etc., aren’t eligible for any rewards. While most of the lingo there is standard in all credit card fine print, there is one place where it get a little more detailed than we usually see: “payments made for prepaid and reloadable cards such as certain gift cards, Visa Buxx,^® and similar cards”. That Buxx reference sounds like something out of Flyertalk (though, incidentally, no Buxx that I know of can be loaded with an Amex card).

Buying Visa gift cards from drugstores or supermarkets shouldn’t be an issue in any case unless there ends up being human intervention.

Again, while this is a possibility, I doubt this will end up being an issue. Let us know if you know anything more on this front.

[Further reading: Don’t Hit that 5x NBA Card Too Hard…]