I’m doing a one-pay lease on a 4xe order… just waiting for it to be built. The dealer said I can put up to $10,000 of the payment on a credit-card.
I found the FCA DrivePlus MasterCard that offers 5% bonus “points” (1 point = $1) on dealership purchases plus a $100 statement credit after spending $100. If I put the $10,000 on the DrivePlus card, then that’s essentially a $600 post-sale rebate, reducing my effective monthly by $17 for a 36-month lease.
I also read somewhere that the points could be redeemed at a FCA dealership or the MOPAR site for double the value, turning the $600 into $1100, but I think this may no longer be the case.
Do y’all think this would work? Has anyone tried this?
Are there better credit cards to use for the $10,000? I’ve found other cards with 5% or 6% cash back in some categories, but not at dealers. I’m also aware of much better signup bonus offers with annual fee cards (AmEx Platinum, Venture X), but I either have these cards already or don’t want another card with an annual fee.
If the dealer will accept $10k on a credit card then there’s no reason you won’t get whatever points/rebates/etc. that are tied to whatever credit card you end up using.
For my past 5 auto purchases/leases I’ve always charged the DAS amounts on credit cards for that exact reason. Most dealers will only accept up to $2,500 to $5k or so on a credit card, so $10k is very generous.
As to “are there better credit cards”, well there are entire forums dedicated to that question. No one right answer, entirely depends if you want just cash back or points or something in between (I say this as someone with 17 credit cards currently).
That said, I don’t know of anything that would get you more than 5% back on a purchase at a dealer, I would read the fine print and make sure there’s no maximum rebate amount or purchase limit, etc.
Before signing up for a new card I would confirm that the dealer will take it (mostly an issue with AMEX). If they will take it then I would look into one of the credit card websites to determine the best use of that spend. You are going to get way more value from a large sign-up bonus than trying to target the highest straight % back; the better sign-up bonuses are going to be 20-30% return on spend vs 5%. If you don’t typically have a lot of spend then maximizing the large offers with large spend is going to be the best use of this unique opportunity. Personally I like Doctor of Credit for finding the best current offers, but there are plenty of other resources to help find the best current offers. R/churning is also another great resource.
There is a Amex Plat offer through Resy for 125k points SUB plus 15x points per dollar spent at small businesses( which I imagine the dealer is) on up to 25k spend.
So your 10k swipe would net you 275k points which is worth way more than the annual fee you’d be paying(downgrade after first year).
The Venture X or one of the Chase Inks are also good options.
THIS. I have this offer, and not only was pleasantly surprised when i got 15x my deposit on my lease, but learned that my furnace replacement will also trigger the 15x. Amex-Resy FTW here, IMO. Though I like Chase UR points more
- I’m going to need the weekend to process all that info.