Dear Readers, As you all know I'm a credit card deadbeat (i.e. I never carry a balance). I have another admission. I'm also a whore. Not the stick it anything that moves kind of whore mind you. I'm a high class whore. It costs a lot to keep me happy and loyal. But, if you treat me right, I'm all yours. Let's get a few things straight though:
1) I'm the whore so I better be getting paid. If you charge an annual fee, you've got it all backwards. It's a rare occasion where something like that would be acceptable. One exception is my regular customer Mary (short for Marriott). She charges me a fee, but I get to stay at a nice hotel once a year for free which more than offsets the fee. She only really pays well when we do it in a hotel which is fine by me.
2) If you're only paying me for certain tricks, those are the only ones I'm going to perform. My friend Chase is like this (short for Chase Freedom). She only pays me well (5%) when we do our business in a grocery or drugstore. Well then that's the only place she's going to get used by me. And, when she changes her mind next month and wants to do it on an airplane, she better be paying top dollar there too.
3) Consistency breeds loyalty. Penny (short for PenFed Platinum) really only wants to do it at gas stations (5%). It's a little unseemly, but I'm a whore and she's setting the rules so I get paid for each pump, and I have to admit I love it.
4) Whores can fall in love. I'm in love with Chuck (short for Schwab Invest First VISA). He'll do it anywhere – and I mean anywhere, and he always pays reasonably well (2%). He's really great. When we travel abroad I never have to pay extra (no foreign transaction fees). Plus he helps me invest my earnings for free too (no brokerage charges on Schwab ETF purchases). As you can see, I have some good lovers, but I'm always looking for better ones. If you know of a better lover I should be considering, please comment! See how I'm whoring myself out this quarter.