MyCardBlog

This afternoon Hannah said I should write a post on why I write a blog on credit cards and banks. Emm. Actually, I don’t know exactly why I would get a space to write something about cards and banks. Obviously, credit cards and banks are the most useful tools in our daily life. When we make a purcahse, we may use cashes, debit cards, checks, money orders and credit cards. As we use them more and more, we should realize that we can earn cash back from them! Not just simply use it and don’t care about the benefits that cards can bring in! Except for the cash back we can get, we should also notice that the car rental insurance and travel insurance that cards can provide. We should also know that 0 fraudbility from credit card (well, if you lose cash, they are gone). And you might also notice other programs you can get in. Why not use a credit card??? However, the truth is there are so many credit cards from so many banks. How can we choose one from them? How can we get the maxium benefits from those cards? How can we make the application process more soomthly? Well, from my own experience, I get the inspirition to write something about cards and banks. One thing we should remember is: banks are earning more from us. DO NOT feel guilty to get money from them! At the same time, I hope my readers can visit my blog frequently and give me more suggestions. Thank you very much!

To be brief, the App-O-Rama (AOR) is a credit card application strategy—submitting many credit card applications in a very short time. And then enjoy the sign-up bonuses, free hotel stays and mileage bonus. At the same time, you can also get the 0% Apr promotion offers from the major credit card issuers by choosing right cards. After transferring the credit lines to your personal bank accounts, you can earn interests. The trick here is the credit card companies won’t report the inquiries immediately after your submissions. So when you apply for credit cards all at a very short time, the card issuers won’t see the inquiries from each others. In this way, you have more chance to get the credit card. You should have to remember four things: find the right cards; have a good credit history; have high credit limits on other cards; prepare to see the consequences from AOR. There is a website help you find the right cards for you and teach you how to get the bonus—www.app-o-rama.com.

It’s also interesting to see the report from the Wall Street Journal. The credit card issuers have noticed this problem. Them are beginning to put higher transfer fees on your balance transfer. The End of Profit from AOR is coming!

I think I should mention that try to use business cards for your AOR! Main reason is: the business card is hidden from you personal credit report! Your credit score cas stay higher adn you can still get good offers from major credit companies even after AOR. And usually business cards offers better 0 Apr promotions and have higher credit limits (business needs money). Please pay attention on Advanta which is a good business card issuer.

Hi, I am writing about the Chase Bank offer for our new customers. At first, you can get $100 for a new Chase checking account with direct deposit (DD). If you have a $25 coupon from your friends, you can get $125! Amazing offer! Then you can ask for $25 coupons from the banker. After you give the coupons to your friends who are willing to get an account from Chase. You can get $25 for each refer. Awesome! Wait! There is more you can earn from Chase!!! Register you chase check card with this link: https://www.chase.com you can get $50 for simply using your chase check card over$500 by October 15, 2007. Emm…. Chase is so nice for our newbies. If you don’t want to put your stipend into the chase checking account, there is a desent way to setup the DD. Use your paypal account, and send a certain amount (can be as little as 1 cent) to your chase checking account every month. Chase takes the paypal transfer as DD. You can also transfer the money from ING Direct account to your chase account. Can you imagine how much you can get from Chase??? If you can’t spend $500 before Oct 15, 2007, go to wamart and buy a $500 gift card. Make sure you use the debit card as credit card (you tell the cashier that you want to use it as credit car. Don’t input your PIN! In this way, you can buy foods from Walmart with 10% off!)

Today I am writing about 2% cash back card from HSBC bank. There are two sub-banks from HSBC—Household Bank and Orchard Bank. The two banks issue the 2% cash back card separately. As we can see, most credit cards give up to 1% cash back except for certain purchase. However, the 2% cash back card can give you straight 2% cash back on everything. If you can manage your cards, i.e. use different cards to at certain place, you can get the maximum cash back. You can redeem $25 once your cash reward is higher than $25. The drawback is you can only get $25 even though you have $25.05 cash reward. But it doesn’t matter. You can use them as long as you want to keep them. I should mention that it seems that HH and Orchard are offering credit cards for bad credit. If you have a very good credit history, it’s quite possible that you can’t get the offer.

Following is the link for Orchard issued credit card application links:

https://www.hsbcapply.com/start/orchardbank

In fact this is the pre-application process. After you submit your application information, you can see the offers from the Orchard 2% cash back card. usually you will get: 1. offered card with 2% cash back and without an annual fee; 2. offered card with 2% and with an annual fee; 3. offered card without 2% cash back and annual fee; 4. offered card without 2% and with an annual fee. In some cases, you can get 0% Apr on purchase promotion. I should point out that the first step is not a hard pull in your credit report. It a soft pull. (I have confirmed by myself—I have 20 soft inquiries on Experian from HSBC). Go ahead and try your luck!

Emm… Le’s talk about the credit card from Household Bank.

You can get the similar result from Household Bank by following the link: https://www.hsbcapply.com/start/householdbank?hbpath&

Usually the HH and Orchard will send out invitations by mail. I got the invitation from HH in July and by inoutting th information at www.acceptourcard.com/master or www.acceptourcard.com/visa you will get instantly result. Don’t expect to get high credit limit from HH and Orchard. Even though you have >$10,000 credit limit on other cards, you can still get $750 credit limit from those two cards. It seems they are managed by space monkeys, right??? I got the HH card in July. Then in Auguest, I got the no annual fee with 2% cash back offer from Orchard when I was playing the pre-approve process. But when I submitted the application, I got denied! The reason was I have already got the maxium cards from HSBC! Oh, man! I got only one card! Then back to the middle of Aug, somebody said they got the invitation from HH with the visa version of the 2% cash back card (all I mentioined above is mastercard) and got the card immediately! If we are lucky, we can get the visa version! But who knows!

I have mentioned the AMEX business gold rewards card in my second post which can give you 25,000 membership rewards points after your first purchase. Here, I’m writing about abother great card from American Express—The Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card. You can get 10,000 starpoints after your first purchase. What do the 10,000 starpoints mean??? It’s equal to 3 free night stay at the participating Starwood hotels in 95 countries! This is my dream card. Although we can get a lot of rewards cards, I think this card is beat. Let’s do the math. You can redeem 2,000-3,000 starpoints for one night stay at the starwood hotels which is about $150 dollars per night. And you can get 1 starpoint for $1 purhcase. Then you can see rate of the cash back is about 5% or more. The annual fee for the first year is waived and after that is $45. They increased the annual from $30 to $45 recently. I can imagine that a lot of friends are trying to avoid annual fee, but this card is the only one that worths paying the annual fee. If you want to try your luck, you can call in and ask for waiving the fee. Also you can convert the starpoits to other airline mileages. For example, you can redeem 20,000 starpoints for 25,000 AA miles. This is really a wonderful card! I applied this card on Aug 15th, and then I got a letter from AMEX that I have to verify my annual income. I went to the Human Resources Office to get a verification letter stating my annual income and sent out the letter yesterday. Let’s see what will happen.

Issuance of banking loans requires verification of your personal identity, annual income, etc. You should not rely completely on debt relief loans for managing your finance. You need to know the fundamentals of refinance loan. This would help you from being heavy indebted in future. You can even compare wide variety of personal and business loans online and choose the one that meets your requirements in the best possible manner. The deutsche bank is launching its new credit facility for its business customers. The customers interested in boat financing can now get low interest loans.

This post is particularly useful for those spend a lot of money on their gasoline. Hereby I recommend several gasoline credit card from several major card issuers.

1. BP Visa Rewards Card from Chase USA. This card was rated as the “best gasoline credit card of 2006″. It will give you 10% rebate at all BP locations for the first 60 days. At the same time, you can get 4% rebate on all eligible travel and dining. And you can continue to get 5% at BP gas stations after the promotion period and 2% rebate on all other eligible purchase. You can also get 1% rebate on other purchase. This is really a good card for BP users.

2. Discover Open Road Card from Discover. This card can give you 5% cash back on gas pumps and auto maintenance. You can enjoy 0% Apr on purchase and balance transfer for 12 months. I have this card for many months. I really enjoy the cash back from the pumps.(I’m spending more!) If you are not a green card holder or US citizen. You might try your luck. I got this card luckily by talking to a credit analyst. She wanted to do business with me! And she never asked me to fax the green card to her. Emm… Good luck!

3. Citi Driver’s Edge Options Platinum Select MasterCard from Citi Bank. At the first year, you can get 6% rebates on the purchase you make at supermakets, drugstores, and gas stations. After that you can get 3% for the above eligible purchase. Another feature is you can get $1 for every 100 miles you drive! Awesome! When you’re driving, you are making money!!! It’s also qulified for a Citi photocard. You can put your picture and signature at the fromt of this card.

4. American Express SimplyCash Business Credit Card from American Express. This card can give you 5% cash back on gas, office supplies and wireless services. You can still earn 1% cash back on other purchase. This card will automatically give the cash back to your card every month. With this card, you can get open saving at the most business expense. This is an perfect card for business owners. If you want to get it as an individual, put your name as the business name and the SSN as the ITIN.

5. Washington Mutual Platinum MasterCard from Washington Mutual. The feature of this card is you can get 10% on gas purchase for 6 months and up to 5% on everyday purchase. Another attractive feature is you an get free credit score through this card!

6. Visa Platinum Gas Cash Reward Card from Pentagon Fedral Credit Union. You can get 5% cash back on gas purchase and 1.5% cash back on other purchases. The cash back will be credited onto your account every month.

7. TrueEarning Business Card from American Express and Costco. You can get 55 cash back on gas purchase, 3% for dining out and 1% on everywhere else. You can also enjoy the Open Savings program from American Express.

8. Shell MasterCard from Citi Cards. You can get 5% cash back on gas purchase at Shell gas stations.

There are many other cash back cards for gas purchase.

Sinclair Platinum MasterCard from Barclays Bank Delaware, Lukoil Platinum MasterCard from Barclays Bank Delaware, Marathon Pltinum MasterCard from Chase USA, Hess Visa Platinum Card from Chase USA.

Well I hope we can have more cards included in this post. If you have any good ideas please feel free to leave a comment. I appreciate your advice.

Emm…. It seems there is no attractive card from Bank of America. (FIA Card Service, N.A.) As I mentioned in my first post, the University of Iowa Alumni Association Platinum Plus Credit Card with Worldpoints Rewards Card porvided 25,000 world points after spending $250 in July, 2007. If you missed this card, then we should stay and wait for the next turn. Who knows when and which card issuer will release a $250 bonus card. Hereby, I recommend a card from BOA—Bank of America Rewards American Express Card. You can get $50 credit after the first purchase. At the same time, this card provide 0% Apr on Balance Transfer and Cash Advance! Oh, it’s really great for those who are in need of cash! I would say the only drawback for this card is the woldpoint is not so attractive right now. If you want to get cash from world point, it’s equal to 2 points for 1 cent. It’s much cheaper than other rewards cards. So please prepare to convert this card to other card after the first year. There is a nother card that you can get $50 bonus after first purchase—Bank of America Worldpoints Mastercard Credit Card. This card also provides 0% Apr on Balance Transfer and cash Advance. The $50 credit is very quick! You can get it in 7 days after your first purchase! Another card is Bank of America World Mastercard with WorldPoints which proveds the similar benefit with the above mentioned 2 cards. Also please refer to the Bank of America Visa Signature with WorldPoints card. I would like to provide a trick for appluying BOA credit card. When you enter into the BOA main page, click “credit card”. Then you will enter into the credit card page, and then click “check for offers”. You can provide personal information and see what card is prepared for you. It’s a soft hit on your credit report. In this way, I got my first BOA credit card. In fact, I can choose 3 cards from which I choose the BOA rewards American Express Card. Have fun!