I’ll start off by saying that this is maybe one of my all-time favorite schemes. While it won’t make you rich, it is a really pretty simple, so long as you can plan and execute accurately. In full disclosure, I have done this primarily at Discover after stumbling upon this a number of years ago. For $24/year per card, it’s a quirky freebie.
What is this?
Many banks will fully waive balances when the statement balance is extremely low. Discover, for example, waives balances $1.99 and under. Capital One, $0.99 and under. Truly free as the balance goes away fully.
Why does this exist?
I can only hypothesize, so here’s my thoughts. My ungrounded reflection is that this is a customer-friendly legacy artifact of paper statement processes. It costs money to print and mail statements. It costs money to field customer questions about small balance statements. If the balance is sufficiently low, it’s not worth it (read: profitable) to do that.
How can you easily take advantage of this?
Amazon used to be the most friendly way, as they used to allow gift cards as low as $0.10. With minimum gift cards now at $5.00, that’s no longer true. In the absence of that, I find myself typically either ordering a $1.80 bagel at work, or adding a highly nominal payment to my City of Richmond water bill. There are a hundred ways you could execute, from a small transaction at the gas station to a small recurring subscription to an amazon prime video rental.
Yes this is real. I do it because it’s kind of fun, and I really like my free bagel. No, it may not be worth if for you, but who knows, maybe it is?
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