This is the sixth in a series of posts on my experiences with credit card arbitrage. See others here: Part 1,Part 2 ,Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
I called USAA today. This was an ordeal in itself. I've had trouble getting a hold of them after 6pm, despite their website clearly stating that they have customer service reps available to 8pm, all continental time zones. I'd previously emailed them and complained of this, so when I couldn't get a hold of anyone tonight I went back and looked at their reply. That message contained a different phone number to try, and so I used it and got in touch with their web site support service. I was talking to a person, so that was progress there. She made a comment that leads me to believe that it was my phone number that prevented me from contacting a service rep initially. I have a Dallas cell phone area code, even though I'm living in Seattle. Since it's past 8pm in Texas, thats probably why I couldn't get through.
I finally got in touch with credit card rep. I asked how long my offer was still good for and if there were any limits on convenience checks. She said the offer was good from the date of the application, which is kinda of lame because you can't use your credit until you activate the card, and that wasn't until 10 days later. That still gives me about 4 weeks to make the most of this offer.
Interestingly, when I told her of my plan to post the check to my own checking account, she said this was a good idea. Since the convenience checks are essentially the same as cash, you don't have the same legal recourses that you would if you had problems with a bank check. So tomorrow I'm going drop two checks in a postal drop box, which conveniently gets rid of something that is the same a cash just lying around my house. I don't really like putting something like this in my mail box where anyone could pick it up, so thats why I'm putting it in the post drop outside a bank near where I live. More to come.
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