How I saved an extra $500 off my BMW lease

Signed Deals & Tips
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1

Leased another BMW a couple months back and when I was going through the process I came across the BMW Card. Not a ton of info online but I crunched the #s and think it’s a pretty good hack if you have good credit.

Basically if you put everything you owe DAS on the card plus the signup bonus you can easily easily get enough points for a $500 statement credit (or more).

In addition it’s zero percent interest for the first 15 months and no annual fee so it’s kind of a no brainer.

1.) Sign up and earn 30,000 bonus BMW Reward Points when you spend $2,000 on purchases within the first 90 days after account opening.

2.) Lease/buy your BMW and put the entire charge on your BMW card - because you are spending at a BMW dealer you get 3x points.

So for me it worked out as follows:

30,000 points for sign up
21,750 points for BMW puchase

51,750 points total = $500 statement credit

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Nice!

Good tip, this hasn’t been mentioned before.

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Nice idea. Won’t be the best option for a lot of people though, because:

  1. Not all dealers accept credit cards
  2. You can get better sign up bonuses on many other cards, so a lot of people would prefer to open one of those and go for the SUB instead. Also, if you’re under 5/24, you definitely would not want to use a slot on this card.
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Also prevents DAS being rolled in and accruing interest

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Thanks!
Can you use statement credit to pay lease?

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WHAT ?!?! :

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Yes, u can use points to pay for lease directly but from what I understand u get a little more for your points if you just put it toward a statement credit. (like a $10 difference)

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Good point - make sure your dealer accepts cards!

(In my experience almost all of them do)

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So you put $7,250 down or did it include MSDs ? My question is that anything you pay for your car at the dealership counts towards the points ?

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You literally typed out what’s in my mind.

Wrt 1st point, I didn’t bring my checkbook when I lease my previous BMW, so the finance guy reluctantly let me use my credit card to pay for my drive-off + MSD.

Wrt 2nd point, unless BMW only pulls credit once for credit card and lease app, otherwise it doesn’t worth the hard pull on your credit.

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Some have a limit. On my recent Honda deal in SoCal the dealer had a $3k max for card payments.

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Includes MSDs - and yes, anything u pay for at dealership counts 3x toward points.

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Unless you’re shopping for a home loan at the same time, who cares about the second pull?

It’s funny how people will turn down $500 over a few meaningless points (once you’re over a certain score the rest has little marginal benefit).

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I leased from BMW Palm Springs - Phil hooked up an amazing deal and Doug in finance dept helped out with the credit card angle - highly recommended these guys. They rule.

15

Murrieta let me put the full $7,500 DAS on my business card. Works out nicely since I’m getting it all back in rebates and MSDs, and it felt good having some legitimate spend. Man, do I love MSDs.

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How many no fee credit cards will give you a $500 bonus?

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I can think of about a dozen that do with the first year waived. But 50k points doesn’t have to equal $500. Transfer partners make 50k worth way more than $500. But if you’re looking for a straightforward one and done, this isn’t a bad way to get $500 back if that’s all you’re after.

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It’s not a $500 bonus. It’s a $300 bonus.

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Tough crowd =)

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So the 500 dollars basically covers one months worth of lease payments or 1.5 depending on the vehicle, but after that, unless your getting a BMW or a BMW fan…no other benefits? Not trying to seem rude…just trying to make sure I understand what you are saying properly. Appreciate the tip!