g10ny said:My fault. You are right.

Still, a time breakdown would be needed. Drivers' Edge is the recommendation for me, but what about the next year? Also, if the caps are obviously taken into account, it is not so obvious that the tiers are considered.

Maybe playing with the simulator for a few more times would help.

Again, with a single trial I was able to prove that the website DOES USE TIERS. I'm not sure why you can't figure this out.

If you want so simulate next year when the Driver's Edge is no longer 6%, you can simply remove it from consideration as I already noted.

So to recap: If you want to prove to yourself that their are tiers, make 100% of your purchases gasoline and make the amount $5,000 monthly. Notice how Driver's Edge is no longer recommended as the single card option (6%>5% so if caps weren't used obviously it would be recommended)? Doing THE SAME SIMULATION notice the amount of the Blue Cash. 6500*.01+53500*.05=$2740 which is the listed TIERED amount.

What is "not obvious" about any of the above? It only took one simulation to figure it out.

g10ny said:
The key is to try it with the purchases as diversified as possible, and also to use higher spending levels.

Edit: answer to asdf: my mistake was to not having used a complex enough expense structure, thus the tiers did not come into effect.

No, it wasn't. As I showed above a single category purchase simulation that could not be more simple proves the website's ability to handle caps and tiers.

Edit: By the way, I think discussion about the operation of this website is not trolling. What else is there to talk about on a thread dedicated to a website? I just find your uninformed suggestions and analysis to show that you are not willing to even do the simplest of hypothetical scenarios before you start handing out advice.

g10ny said:Then I'd venture to ask which category was able to put the tiers at work for you from the beginning. (I assume the monthly expense played another role here.)

I already listed exactly how to replicate my simulation in my post a few posts up. Apparently are you not only unwilling to do simulations on the website before making recommendations but you respond to my posts without reading.

Also it is becoming apparent that "tier" means different things to us. I think you are confusing tier with category spending bonuses. Of course by definition a tier (you earn x% for the first amount spend (aka tier), y% for the next amount spent (aka second tier)) then tiers must be influenced by the monthly spending amount. I thought that was obvious.

If you are asking for the author to optimize blue cash by instead of doing monthly spending proportional to the current tiers and instead spend all money on one card until a given tier is reached or pre-buy gift cards to reach a tier then one must consider the opportunity cost of those gift cards sitting their before they can be used. Then one neads the guaranteed rate of return for that time period and it would require so many user configurable option that for a simple website the average user, even average FWF, would be very turned off.

If you want that level of complexity then I recommend you code it yourself like I have.

g10ny said:
BTW, I know what tiers are. I just prefer cards with no tiers. And no, Blue Cash is not working for me.

I don't like tiers either, that is why (plus no Costco within 20 minutes of my apartment, sigh) I don't own Blue Cash. But that doesn't mean I can't see the benefit for other people.

Still, I'd like, as I said before, a tool being able to guide people throughout seasonal switches between cards. It seems that the website's model works, but is not detailed enough.

I disagree but that is your right to think that. Seasonal switching would probably interest less than 10% of FWFers and FWFers (the mentality, not actual users) are probably less than .5% of the general population. Seasonal switching would only confuse most people who use this website. As I said, if you are so advanced that you want to do seasonal switching you can probably figure it out yourself and don't need a website to spoonfeed you.

I find combinations of 2% and 5% cards to be superior for me. I would have to spend over $24,000 (Rewards Plus, Cash Plus, Cash Plus) a year just on 5% purchases (used to be $36,000 before Dividend ended) before I would run out of 5% cards and I could use Blue Cash. Add to that the fact that I get 2% on every day purchases versus .5%/1.5% and I like my cards. Even if I lived near a Costco I think Blue Cash is only 1% at Costco where as there is a Costco card which is 2% at Costco.

However, I realize many people don't have $24,000(cap) in 5% cards so for them I can understand if you are a huge spender I see why some people might like the simplicity of Blue Cash.

The nice thing about AoR is you pick up so many CCs that after the promo is over you usually have plenty of dormant cards to get as many Cash Back cards as you can handle.

g10ny said:g10ny said:

Anyway, don't invest too much in that; for the average Joe what you've already done is more than enough. For this upgrade you'll only have the FWers as customers (but they'll sign up through cardoffers anyway). Or you could do it as a project if you are aiming a well-paid quant career at the big banks.

Exactly my point.


Hahahaha, did you just quote yourself and agree with yourself?

By the way what you were quoting was about tiers and caps which you were wrong about so my point was different than yours.

g10ny said:Compare with:

I was talking about optimized, time dependant spending using a hybrid of cards. You were talking about adding caps and tiers.

g10ny said: It seems that the website's model works, but is not detailed enough.

One last time. You said the author should add caps and tiers. I said if you had done any type of elemntary testing of the website you would have realized it already had caps and tiers.

We both agree that seasonal spending is of limited use to non-FW members. I also say it is of limited use to 90% of FWF users who aren't in extremely niche cases. The fact that if you are so niche to even realize you need it then you should be smart enough to calculate (by hand/calculator with pencil and paper if you wish to avoid "coding").

However, at the end of the day you call the website is "not detailed enough". While I say the website is detailed enough and adding premptive spending, time value of money for such spending, seasonal hybridized spending, etc would be net negative and would require so much work to understand that you'd be better off not using a website but instead doing it yourself because you would need to self calculate anyway because understanding the proper input would put you 90% of the way their to calculating it anyway.

Can we put this to bed now?

LustfortheMoment said:Joel, THANK YOU for your excellent site.

Question regarding AMEX Blue Cash.......... How does your algorithm factor spending up to the $6500 tier? If folks plug in monthly expenditures for both EDP and non-EDP, how do you allocate each of them in reaching the tier?

Thanks,

That's one thing the creditcardtuneup.com tool doesn't do as deterministically or as thoughtfully as it could.

I'm interested in hearing what kind of allocation you would prefer.

I'm interested in hearing what kind of allocation you would prefer.

Tough question, Joel. I think that you'd be safest in allocating spending up to the $6500 tier on a strictly proportional basis. That is, if folks spend 40% on EDP and 60% on non-EDP, one would suppose that they'd reach the tier by spending $2600 for EDP and $3900 for non-EDP.

As I noted earlier, I use a two card model. I charge ONLY non-EDP to Blue Cash until reaching the tier and use HSBC for EDP until shifting over to Blue Cash when I can start getting 5%. However, I would guess that most casual Blue Cash owners DON'T use "combination" cards.

Love your site,

ABBY

g10ny said:asdf9876 said:Hc000 said:Intresting website... for some reason, I can't seem to get AMEX cards as a recommendation, even when i spent 15,000 a month...

Really? I got it to recommend it no problem. Just put in $5,000 a month in groceries and no card with caps can compare.

The reason why $15,000 in general spending a month doesn't recommend AMEX Blue Cash is because 2%>1.5% I thought that was obvious. Did you even look at what card it recommened over the AMEX for general spending?
I think I am too stressed.
BTW, I know what tiers are. I just prefer cards with no tiers. And no, Blue Cash is not working for me.

Still, I'd like, as I said before, a tool being able to guide people throughout seasonal switches between cards. It seems that the website's model works, but is not detailed enough.

Any other cards to consider adding to the list?

Edit: coding abilities is one of my (many) weaknesses, although I am definitely willing to work on this. It would be a nice and useful exercise.

Hi g10ny. I'm not sure I understand what it would look like to "guide people through seasonal switches between cards". Would that be sort of a month-by-month picture of spending and which cards were used for the spending?

An example would help clarify this idea for me.