Hey all, found this guide for using a Treasury Bond to make a little bit of money off a 0% credit card offer. I should note that I am not a tax specialist/accountant, and neither is the author of this post: https://www.uscreditcardguide.com/us-treasury-i-bonds-how-to-buy-with-a-credit-card-and-earn-7-12-apr-with-0-apr-float/

The actual cash value of doing this is only a net $184 (after credit card processing fee), albeit without tying up any of your cash. However, I thought it would also be very useful for meeting absurdly high SUBs like the ones found on the Business Platinum (or other business cards). I've personally avoided getting the Business Platinum despite thinking it would be a good fit for me because of the SUB. Maybe some of you have similarly avoided some cards for the same reasons.

So how does it work. Well the author in the post defines what you do for his use case:

• Get a 0% APR card
• On your tax return, fill out the request to purchase a US Treasury I-Bond. You're allowed to purchase up to $5000 per year of I-Bonds through your tax return.
• Calculate how much you owe on your taxes after taking the Treasury purchase into account: e.g. if your refund is $2000, you'll owe $3000 in taxes. In the author's use case, he assumes you don't have a refund at all, so you'll owe the full $5000.
• After filing your taxes, pay what you owe using pay1040.com (an approved taxes payment vendor); it has the lowest CC processing rate. You would pay a fee of $93 for the payment.
• Wait until the 0% period is up, sell your Treasury bond. You forfeit the prior 3 months of interest since you held it for less than 5 years. Make a little bit of interest (minus capital gains taxes), some credit card spend points, and whatever SUB you got from the card.

So how does this apply to Amex? Well the Business Platinum currently has a 0% APR offer for 1 year. So the logic is similar:

• put a dent in the $15k SUB. Maybe this doesn't help many people. Me personally, I couldn't spend $15k across 3 months unless I was deliberately looking to waste money while tying up my cash savings that I could've invested elsewhere. Now if you lower that down to $10k... I still couldn't spend that much normally. But if I pay forward on some things for $10k and pay it off over the course of a year, that starts to make sense.
• Sell the Treasury Bond after a year and pay off the remaining $5k on your card. Or keep the Treasury Bond if you happen to come across $5k you didn't have previously and keep earning interest. Keep in mind that in the 12 month APR use case, you would only earn 9 months of interest since you forfeit 3 months. But the second half of the year would have a lower APY anyways (due to inflation hopefully being lower) so it'd still be more than the credit card processing fee you paid.
• Get 1.5x points on the transaction since it's a transaction >= $5000
• Is this Churning? I don't think so, if we're asking for opinions. From a technical standpoint, it absolutely is not. Government spending, including payment of taxes, is considered to be a legitimate bonus-earning transaction by Amex. Additionally, buying bonds via tax return and paying for those using a credit card from an approved vendor is also completely legal and uncontroversial. There is just a confluence of events at the moment, of a high Treasury rate caused by inflation combined with a 0% offer from Amex for a card that traditionally has a high spending requirement.

So there you have it. I'm about 95% committed to taking this approach and applying for the Business Platinum, so if you're on the fence, I can report back with my results later. But keep in mind that the IRS is backlogged, and waiting to file tax returns isn't advisable. If anyone thinks they can poke some holes in this plan, I'd love to hear it.

One question some people may have is "what if I'm expecting a refund in excess of $5000?" What can likely work there is to file for an extension first where you'll estimate that you'll owe $5000 in taxes and then pay that amount via pay1040.com. Then when filing your return, you'll specify that you prepaid estimated taxes before filing and the IRS/tax software will tack on that amount to your net total.