I thought, hey, free CDs, so after she told me about it I went to amazon.com and did the same thing. I thought I would be really cute and see how quickly I could close the account after opening it - could it be as fast as a week? As soon as the card arrived (about a week later), I paid the bill, waited a couple of days for them to receive payment, and closed the account. It actually took 14 days between the time I did my amazon order and the time I closed the account, but I think I could've made it in 10 days if I would've been on top of everything.

Anyway, I wish I didn't do that because a month later, Chase (the bank behind the Amazon Visa) sent my girlfriend a check for $20 to try out their credit protection service - you know, the "service" where you pay $0.79 per $100 so that Chase will make your minimum payment of, say, $10 for three months, if you get hit by a bus or something and can't afford that $30. (Maybe that's not exactly how it works, but I think that's the gist of it).

So of course she cashed the check. In about a week, she'll call Chase to cancel the service. When I did this with Citibank, they offered a $20 gas card to keep the service another month, so I accepted (I kept a $0 balance, so I didn't end up paying anything). Maybe Chase will do something similar.

So in the end, she got 2 CDs, I got 2 CDs, and we ended up with about $10 after shipping and handling. Thanks amazon.com!