depends on location, I'm in DC suburbs in Northern Virgina and there are plenty of 2011s unlike the 2010, I got my LTZ for $1801 UNDER MSRP, not over.
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Correct. I have one of the old cards, which I opened in 1992 around when the probgram started, I think it used to be called "Blue" or something, and am grandfathered in at the old terms when it was discontinued (around 1998?). Although they keep trying to get me to convert to the new card (I always politely decline).Terra-Nox said:
The old card terms are basically the exact opposite of the "new" (actually 12 year old) card. The new card, you can get unlimited 5% earnings, but you are limited in how many you can redeem (as I understand it). With the old card your 5% earnings are capped at $500/yr, with expiration after 7 years, but there is no redemption limit.
In theory (and in all GM's printed literature) you should have a 7 year * $500/yr = $3,500 redemption cap per auto even with the old Blue card. But I exploited some quirks in the system, and planned my purchase 8 years in advance, to get $750 past that. I did not use the card for almost the full earnings year 8 years ago, then charge $10k in the final month of my earnings year to get the $500/yr all at once. It was easy to do back then because the US Treasury still allowed you to buy Savings bond with CCs back then. On this end of the seven years -- due to some quirks in anniversary vs. cycle date differences -- I had 13 days to accumulate up to another $500 at the start of my new earnings year, but still within the window that I would get credited the new earnings before that $500 expired from that one month 7 years ago. But I didn't have an easy way to max out the $500 like I did back then with savings bond purchases, so I only got about another $300. In talking to a CSR at GM Card Earnings a couple months ago as I was planning the endgame on this, I understand there are a few that have even done better than me, someone even got over $4,500 somehow.
In order to max out my earnings as much as possible in that 13 days window, I went completely nuts with my credit card, not only buying lots of stuff, but essentially paying for stuff in advance -- I paid my insurance premiums early, overpaid phone/internet bills so I would have credits, bought enough gift cards from my local grocery to pay for the next few months food, buying an amazon gift card to load up my balance with them for future purchases, etc, etc, etc. My card actually was frozen by GM Card fraud protection twice in 13 days
In hindsight I missed one golden opportunity: I had been in contact with dealers negotiating my price before my final earnings cycle closed, but I waited to go sign the contract until a couple days after. Because the car I bought was on a train & not on the lot, I didn't close the deal until 10 days later. If I had known it would work that way, and thought of it, I would have gone in a couple days earlier to sign the contract, before my final qualifying earnings cycle ended, and used the GM card to make a $2k downpayment (you are allowed to charge up to $2k of purchase price to a credit card). Then when I came back to close the deal I would have cashed in the GM Card earnings then, and thus had $2k * 5% = $100 more earnings to apply from a $2k downpayment made at the contract signing
I actually just paid off last month's nasty $6xxx credit card balance yesterday, after paying for the car itself last week. So lets just say it's been a very hard week on my bank balance :'(
This story had me rolling!Hysterical, and a very creative use of the terms to best advantage!!!MadMark said:
Kind of interesting, I never considered any GM car until the past year or so, so having the credit card would have been a waste of time for me. Now I'm kind of jealous.
Glad you liked it. Yeah, it was a leap of faith for me back in 92 when I got it. I wasn't' sure I would ever use it, but back then there really weren't any great rewards card alternatives except for airline ones with big annual fees, and I was unlikely to use. The card I had been using (the only CC I had ... oh those were simpler times!) didn't give me any rewards so it was all the same really, the points were just a bonus. At that time I had a VERY hard time imagining myself buying another GM actually. I had an '84 Skyhawk, and it was a complete disaster, I used to call it my "piece of Brazilian [email protected]" (I'd read that assembly was done in brazil).mnussbaum said:This story had me rolling!Hysterical, and a very creative use of the terms to best advantage!!!
Kind of interesting, I never considered any GM car until the past year or so, so having the credit card would have been a waste of time for me. Now I'm kind of jealous.
Really though my best deal I got with it was the first go around in 2000 when I bought a Chevy Prism, which is really a Toyota Corolla with slightly different sheet metal (both were built by NUMI in CA). The Prism had been a Geo model, and Geos were exempt from the GM Card program, but through a stroke of luck they folded Geo that year and rebranded the Prism as a Chevy for the last couple years of its lifespan (NUMI made Vibes after that). So I got to apply around $3200 in earnings to that (wasn't quite as sophisticated back then with gaming the system). Combined with some end of model year rebates & new grad allowance for my wife, etc., I got a fairly nice Prism with all the important options (ABS, airbags, and 4 speed automatic were not standard) for something like $8,500. I still have that car, it's got 120k miles on it and I've never had to replace anything but the brakes and batteries (knock on wood). Great second car for the family, I hope it lasts another ten years.
FWIW, I'm not sure I'm gonna use the GM Card anymore though. I could have gotten $1k for just being a credit union member, so that really cut into the real return on it, and there are lots of other good rewards cards to use these days (I have one for 5% on gas, another for 3% on travel restaurant, another for 2% on grocery ... all cash, not points). And who knows what GM will look like in 9 years -- that's how long it take to max out the card like I did (since I've charged $3300 of the $500 already this year, I might as well not accumulate more this year, and then to max out an amount over $3500, I would not want to start charging again til fall 2012, and buy again in November 2019).
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