Mistakes have been made

18

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I was wrong.  I was wrong.  I was wrong.  Yep, I made (at least) three mistakes in my last two blog posts.  Let’s review:

1. JCB’s Marukai card

In the post, “Buying miles and points and cash from the IRS with credit cards,” I recommended the JCB Marukai card for paying federal taxes.  Since the card earns up to 3% cash back, I figured it was a great way to earn a profit while paying taxes.  Then reader Gagne wrote:

Somebody reported that PayUSAtax does not accept JCB Marukai card here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/t-1356003.html
But it’s on Nov 6, 12 – not sure if rules changed or not.

Yep.  It looks like this Marukai card runs on its own network and is usually, but not always, treated the same as a Discover card.  Wacky.  Anyway, it may be possible to pay taxes with this card, but most likely not.  Oops!

2. Virgin Atlantic Gold status

In the post “Buying perks and points from the IRS with credit cards,” I said that you could earn 40 tier points and get Gold status by spending $100K on the BOA Virgin Atlantic American Express card.  Well, not really.  Reader David wrote:

Virgin Atlantic Card only allows earning of 2 tier points per month, and 24 tier points per year. We cannot get to Gold (40 tier points) by credit cards alone.

So, I checked the terms & conditions and found that he was absolutely right.  You can get to Silver, but not Gold.  Oops #2.

3. Virgin Atlantic bonus points

So, while I was perusing the Virgin Atlantic credit card’s terms & conditions, I discovered that I had made a mistake about the number of bonus points earned with high spend.  In both posts referenced above, I had written that you earn 7,500 bonus points with $15K spend, and an additional 15,000 bonus points when you hit $25K spend.  I was wrong (see the pattern?).  In fact, you get an additional 7,500 bonus points when you get to $25K spend so that the total bonus points add up to 15K.  Oops #3.

I’ve added notes and corrected the offending posts.  My apologies if these errors have caused any trouble!

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Big Corporation or 47%

OMG! Some people PAY the IRS?!?

Kathy

You HUMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love your blog.

Lively

Everyone makes mistakes. You’re doing great.

DaninSTL

No worries, rock on.

WestMichMark

Look at this way, You are learning how to speak and what to say to become a congressional candidate

I was wrong and I made a mistake or I misspoke :))))

Ray

I’m so mad I am thinking of following you. NoT. Play on playa. You doing a swell job. Just find me the best seats in saver from Lax to HkT

Ray

I’m so mad I am thinking of following you. NoT. Play on playa. You doing a swell job. Just find me the best seats in saver from Lax to HkT

Stvr

This reminds me of the time I spent 10K at sears and didn’t get 20x

Isaac

Didn’t actually notice any of those mistakes, but I did notice the Marukai card description and eagerly signed up. Thanks for alerting me to what should be a useful card to hang onto.

Mike Reed

@dginchelsea – that’s exactly why I acknowledge errors in comments and leave the wrong text in, but struckthrough – because there are too many people making “silent changes” once “caught.” As for this case, with all the credit card offers reviewed on BA, there have to be at least a couple of mistakes. Nothing but love, FM. 🙂

Mike Reed

@dginchelsea – that’s exactly why I acknowledge errors in comments and leave the wrong text in, but struckthrough – because there are too many people making “silent changes” once “caught.” As for this case, with all the credit card offers reviewed on BA, there have to be at least a couple of mistakes. Nothing but love, FM. 🙂

Dom

The best way to make up for the mistakes is to post more credit card links.

Tom (a different Tom)

Unsubscribe.

😉

(This is the most helpful BA blog.)

dginchelsea

I gotta say, it’s refreshing to see a BA blogger admit that he made a mistake or two. Some other bloggers on BA (one in particular) makes frequent mistakes, and attempts to correct his mistakes are censored, rather than incorporated into an edit to the original post. Good for you.

Anita

Good lord, man. What have we left to believe in?