Your Ultimate Checklist For The Best Rewards Credit Cards Sign-Up Bonus Offers

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Credit card issuers use various techniques to get consumers to sign up for
their card products. I beat myself up sometime after I applied for a credit
card and realized that I forgot to use a certain method to get a better
sign-up welcome bonus offer. With that being said, here’s the “checklist” that I am
putting together and it can be used next time you are looking to apply for a
specific credit card. This is to help ensuring that you sign up for a credit
card that has the best welcome bonus offer out there.
Checklist For The Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Offers
Special Offer From Amex Hilton Aspire Card
Table of Contents  [show/hide]

    Check Available Standard Public Offer

    Always check what’s available with the public offer first and not through any
    blogger’s referral link because while I admire points blogger’s work of
    those individuals, some are so tricky to include a lower than the standard public offer
    just because they receive commissions from their links. The rule of thumb is,
    check the standard public offer then compare with the following checklist.

    View Your Pre-Approved & Pre-Qualified Credit Card Offers 

    When you check pre-approved or pre-qualified credit card offers directly
    with a particular bank, it sometimes can offer you a better than the standard public
    offer that’s specially targeted to you. Here are pre-qualified credit card
    links for each card issuers. However, not all issuers have links
    that are working. 

    See Pre-Qualified Credit Card Offers in CardMatch

    CardMarch
    is a tool that allows you to check pre-qualified credit card offers. Based
    on data points, generally you may receive a better than public welcome
    offer. For example, you might receive 100,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards
    offer as opposed to a much lower general public offer for Amex Platinum Card. However, it’s also worth checking with CardMatch tool to see if you are
    pre-qualified with a better sign-up offer for other credit cards as well.
    CardMatch may receive commissions from credit card issuers when you apply and
    get approved through them. I do not have any affiliation with CardMatch. 

    Use Incognito or Private Browser Mode

    American Express is especially the credit card issuer that targets consumers
    on different card’s offers based on their different IT techniques. One of
    those techniques involves using incognito or private browser mode that you
    could be seeing better sign-up special offers for you. 

    Other methods including emptying the cache in the browser, access the
    credit card’s page
    at a different location or on a different computer, or do the VPN trick if
    you want to go that far. However, if you are not a tech savvy, don’t do the
    VPN trick as you might inadvertently mess up your Internet access. 
    The gist of it is, you may get a better Amex credit card’s welcome offer if
    you access the offer on a browser that is in incognito mode for Chrome or in
    private mode for Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Edge. 

    Perform Dummy Bookings

    When you book a flight with an airline or make a reservation with a hotel
    directly online, you could be presented with the airline’s or hotel’s credit
    card offer during the booking process or on the final payment page. The
    offer often time could be the same as the public available offer but with
    additional statement credits that the public offer does not have (see screenshot below). Sometimes,
    the offer could even be better. You just need to perform a “dummy” booking
    (not finalized booking) with a specific airline or hotel that you are looking to
    apply for their credit card to see if you receive a better sign-up offer
    than the public offer. You are not required to actually make a real
    booking. 
    Checklist For The Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Offers
    This is not an offer, this is just a screenshot example

    Use Credit Card’s Referral Link

    From time to time, credit card’s referral link from your friend, a family
    member, a blogger or even from me can offer a better sign-up welcome bonus too.
    If not and if the public offer link is the same as the referral link, you can
    think of using the referral link to earn extra bonus points from the bank and
    gift them to support your favorite blogger or your friend and family
    member instead. For example, say a public offer of
    Amex Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant
    is 75,000 bonus points offer. If you sign up through a friend’s referral link,
    you earn the exact same 75,000 bonus Marriott points and your friend receives
    15,000 bonus Marriott points from your approved application. Although that
    extra 15,000 points are not yours to keep, they go to your friend’s account
    thanks to you. So technically you earn 90,000 bonus points from the
    bank. 

    Check the Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Offers Post

    Before applying for a credit card, be sure to check out the Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Offers
    page to study about the best past sign-up offer and see if the
    best current sign-up offer is worth applying or you should wait. 

    I am going to be honest with you here that I do include referral link if
    only the best current public offer is the exact same offer as my referral
    link
    . Otherwise, you can rest assured that I only include non-affiliate links
    that have the best current sign-up offer available out there. This blog is a
    one man’s work so while I try to update those credit card’s links as much as I
    could, mistakes or dated links could happen so I’d appreciate if you point
    that out to me at thepointslife at gmail dot com, so that I can update the
    links accordingly. It’s not my intention to trick you to use my referral link
    to get a low sign-up bonus offers out there. 

    Checklist Summary

    In summary, use this checklist as a guideline next time you are looking to apply for a credit card to earn a nice sign-up bonus:

    • Check Available Standard Public Credit Card’s Sign-Up Offers
    • View Your Pre-Approved & Pre-Qualified Credit Card Offers (Each bank’s link can be found under the section above)
    • See Pre-Qualified Credit Card Offers in
      CardMatch
    • Use Incognito or Private Browser Mode
    • Perform Dummy Bookings
    • Use Credit Card’s Referral Link
    • Check the Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Offers Post

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