MyCardBlog

I just got the information about the Discover Card promotion with shopping malls in US. It seems Discover does this promotion every year. The promotion is quite simple.

Get a $20 discover gift card for every $200 in purchases made with your discover card at participating shopping center between 11/1/2007 and 12/31/2007. You have to present your original receipt to the shopping center customer service or discover card booth. They will give you a $20 discover gift card and put a stamp on your receipt. Remember you don’t have to put the receipt there. You can still keep it. So maybe you can return the stuffs to the stores and make $20. However, you can only get maximum 5 gift cards. It seems Discover is going to warm up the shopping season now. For details about this promotion, please see here.

This afternoon an idea suddenly came into my mind. Which gift card would give you best resale value? Since we have a lot of Membership rewards points from AMEX, Thankyou points from Citi and world points from BOA, we might use those points to redeem some store cards. Then here comes a problem. Which card will give you best value? Believe me, different gift cards will have different real values. (I suppose you want to sell the gift cards at ebay for cash.)
Then I did a little search at ebay. I took 5 recently completed auctions for each popular gift card, like Home Depot, Target, Best Buy, Staples, Amazon, GAP etc. I then counted in about 5% eBay auction fees and then calculated the net resale percentage (shipping was not counted) according to the following equation:

Ending Bid x 95%) / Face Value = Estimated Resale %
Even with only 5 data points per store, it will give us a hint.
We all might have known that Amazon.com gift card has the highest resale value. Because you can easily redeem it online, and they essentially sell everything from groceries to electronics. Target and Home Depot followed closely behind. The worst performing out of this limited sampling was Gap. Banana Republic, and Old Navy also hovered about the 80% range.
So if you want to redeem some gift cards, you will know which one will give you best value.
Of course, this post also gives you a hint: use store gift card to save money! For example, you can only get 2% cash back when you shopping at Staples. However, if you use gift cards, you can save as high as 10%. If you use credit card as PayPal payment, you can still earn cash back from credit card!

These days we all have some rewards card on hand. SO which kind of rewards do you prefer? Cashback? Air miles? Hotel points? Automatic Rebates or Discount? According to the survey conducted by cardtrak based on an online poll of 1,000 people, about 56% of consumers prefer cash back on their credit cars, while 23% said they favored air miles. About 12% preferred points and only 9% selected automatic rebates or discounts as their favorite rewards. Nearly all general purpose credit cards offer some type of rewards nowadays. According to a credit card website, the number of reward credit cards in the US has grown from 290 million in 2002 to 500 million in 2006. For card issuers, the rewards programs will pay an important role on how their consumers use their credit cards. For example, HSBC is a newbie in credit card market. However, we can see the number of their card holders are increasing in the past few months. Their 2% reward cards issued by Household Bank and Orchard Bank are really a good move. Their cards are a must for most of us. Personally, I would vote for cashback and hotel rewards as my favorite rewards. Of course, if I fly a lot, I would get some miles cards. Currently, I will save some starwood points which I think will be useful when I want to use them to redeem hotel stays in large cities like Chicago, New York etc. I encourage you guys to give your opinions. Thanks.

Today I came across an article from USA Today that tells you how to manage the useage of your credit cards. The best suggestion is “Still, choosing the card that best suits your borrowing habits can improve your credit card experience.”

Choosing a credit card that best suits your borrowing habits can help you maximize the rewards you can earn from credit card. At the same time, a good performance from the revolving accounts would help us boost our credit score. The potential benefits of this is we can get low rate car loan and mortgage. Of course, the by product is—App-O-Rama—free tickets, free stuffs and cash.

Choose the right credit cards and maximize your earning/rewards from credit cards. I was surprised to see that my cashback from my Chase Freedom card this month is $4.8. Considering my spending on that card is only $178, I’m prerry happy to have this card for my daily use. I got the HH 2% card this at the end of this June. And I have got $25 from HSBC last month—SO quick. Currently, I’m also use the Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express. In sight of the great benefit of free night at SPG program and the versality of transfer starwood points to mileages. I strongly recommend these three cards. Of course, the key point is to match your spending habit with your credit cards on hand. So you might have different ideas on how to use your credit card. Maybe you can tell us what credit cards currently you are using…Thanks.

I noticed the promotion several days ago. And I have a post about this promotion here. However, at that time, I was unable to get the promotion code to register my check card. According to the talk with Chase CSR, the promotion is targeted at those who didn’t use their check card for 3 months. However, this night I randomly put 2356325 as the promotion code, and my card was registered! Amazing! Then I also tried with 1234567 to see whether this will work or not. Guess what? You Chase Visa Check Card is registered to earn $50! SO my guess is you cna put in every 7 digit numbers to register your check card. Go ahead and try you luck!

To qualify for this offer, you have to make 15 signature based purchases from Oct 1st to Dec 15, 2007. Remember you can’t enter PIN when you check out, that won’t be considered as signature based purchase. To register your check card, please click here.

When I was search on web to find out some interesting articles about credit card, I came across the the story about the first credit card. I think this would be a very interesting topic for my friends. Although we are using credit cards daily, we might not be aware how the first credit card came from. In the early 1900, people were using cash to pay for everything. Although we could see the increase in individual store credit accounts, a credit card could be used at more than one store was not invented until 1950. It all started when Frank X. McNamara went out to have supper with his two friends.

In 1949, Frank (head of the Hamilton Credit Corporation) were eating with his two friends at Major’s Cabin Grill, a famous New York restaurant located next to the Empire State Building, to discuss a problem customer of the Hamilton Credit Corporation. The problem was that the customer borrowed money from the corporation couldn’t be able to pay the money back. The problem came when the customer lent a number of store charge cards to his poor neighbors who needed items in an emergency. It’s too bad that the neighbors were unable to pay the money back to him and then he was forced to borrow money from the Hamilton Corporation. At the end of the meal, McNamara reached into his pocket for his wallet so that he could pay the money by cash. he was shocked that he had forgotten his wallet. He then asked his wife to send money to him and pay the bill. He then sweared that he would never let this happen again.

Then McNamara came up an idea—a credit card that could be used at multiple locations. However, people still needed a lot of cards in order to do shopping in multiple stores. McNamara had the idea of needing only one credit card. McNamara discussed his two friends Bloomingdale and Sneider and then they started a new company in 1950—Diners Club.

Instead of individual companies offering credit to their own customers, the Diners Club was going to offer credit to individuals for many companies (they pay the companies rather than the customers do it).

Previously, stores would make money with their credit cards by keeping customers loyal to them. However, the Diners Club used a different way to make money. They were actually not selling anything. The companies was charged 7% transaction fees while the customers was charged $3 annual fee for a Diners Club card. We should note that this card was not charging interest. (interest bearing cards came much later)

The first Diners Club credit cards were given out in 1950 to 200 people and accepted in 14 restaurants in New York. The cards were not made of plastic; instead, the first Diners Club Cards were made of a paper stock with the accepting stores on the back.

It’s amazing to see the concept of credit card grew and by the end of 1950, 20,000 people were using Diners Club credit card. —-this is the story of the first credit card.

Below you will find a comprehensive list of credit cards with 5% rewards in specific purchase categories. If you want to find a great card, this post will be helpful for you. Please refer to the credit card issuers for more detailed information.
Bonus: bonus for new applicants—sign-up bonus
Rewards Limit:reward cap each year
Redeem For: rewards options which can be redeemed for GCs
AMEX Blue Cash
Bonus: none! Redeem For: cash.
You can earn 5% after your first $6,500 in total spending each year. If you use credit card a lot, e.g. use it to pay your rent, or mortgage, this would be your best card. After your initial $6,500 in spending per year, you can get 5% cash back on everyday purchase. Besides, you can also earn 1.5% on every other purchase.

Hilton HHonors Platinum AMEX
Bonus: 10,000 points. Redeem for: Hilton stays.
The rewards of this card are only valuable toward Hilton hotel stays. However, you can get 5 points for $1 spending at gas, supermarket, drug stores, US post office, restaurant, cell bill and Hilton hotels. Then you can get 3 points on other purchases. The value of a point is between 0.5 to 1.4 cents depending on how you can redeem those points. The first 4 stays at Hilton hotels can get 2,500 bonus points. Also if you are looking for hotel card, please refer to Starwood card from AMEX.

Discover Open Road
Bonus: none. Redeem For: cash, GC.
5% cash back on gas and auto repair service for the first $100 every month. The low limit and limited reward area hurt the reputation of this card. However, we seldom spend over $100 on gas. If you redeem the cash back for GC, you can earn 6.25% cash back. (student version)

MtvU visa from Citi
Bonus: none. Redeem For: GC, travel.
If you redeem the thankyou points as cash, you can’t get full 5% cash back. This card can help you get 5 thankyou points at dinning, Amazon and bookstores. You will also earch extra bonus for good GPA.

Advanta Platinum Business Card
Bonus:none. Redeem For: cash.
The great thing about this card is you can earn 5% cash back on broad spending. The credit requirement for this card is a little bit high.

Discover Business Card
Bonus: none. Redeem For: cash or GC.
While this card has a limited reward area—office supplies. You will also earn 2% on gas and 1% on other purchase.

American Express SimplyCash Business Card
Bonus: none. Redeem for: statement credit.
I’d like to say this is a perfect card! You can get 5% cash back on gas, office supplies and wireless service.

Discover More Card
Bonus: $40. Redeem For: cash and GC.
Get more program let you get 5% cash back quarterly on hotel stays, restaurant, gas, airplane tickets and much more. The drawback is you have to register you card accordingly. There is no foreign transaction fees for discover card. It’s a quite good card to own.

Other limited rewards cards

Citi Diver’s Edge Platinum Select Card
Bonus: none. Redeem For: GC, Travel, cash.
You can get 6% cash back on gas, supermarket and drug store for 12 months and then, 3% thereafter. Another feature of this card is you can get money—1 cent for 1 mile—for your driving. Check out his card at Citicards.com.

Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards card

Bonus: None.
You can get 5 thankyou points at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations for 12 months and 1 thankyou point thereafter.

Citi Platinum American Express Card
Bonus: 15,000 points. Redeem For: cash or GC.
The annual fee for this card is free for the first year and then $99 after that. You can get 5 thankyou points at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations for 24 months. At the same time, you can get 3 thankyou points on other purchases. After the promotion period, you can only get 1 thankyou point. But who want to keep this card after 1 year?

BP Visa Card
Bonus: none. Redeem For: BP GC.
This is a great gas card if you use BP gas all the time. You can get 10% cash back at the first 60 days. And then 5% cash back thereafter. Another great feature is you can get 2% cash back on dinning and traveling. You can buy some gift cards at the BP pump during the first 60 days.

Other cards: Shell gas card, marathon gas card, Hess gas card, Banana Republic Card, Hooters Card, BP visa Card.

These days I was always thinking one problem—”Can we save money by using credi card?” I hate to say that I found at last I paid more than I can save–that’s I can see the money in the checking account is increasing day by day ot month by month! We are always talking about deals from credit card companies—get higher cash back and get sign-up bonus. Yes. It’s great if we can get better cash back and sign-up bonus. However, here comes the problem—are we spending more when we using credit card? We pay whatever we want by credit cards and pay off the balance every month. With credit cards we can afford what we actually coudn’t “afford”. When you check out with “real” money, you can feel the money is “slipping away”. Ans then you would say ” Emmm……I should save some money.”

Last Sunday, when I went to Walmart, I noticed that a 26 inch Sharp LCD HDTV is on sale—from $699 to $347. Oh yeah! What a great deal! Then I decided to buy it, although I have already had a TV. I swiped with Starwood Card from AMEX (which is my favorite card now check it out here). I didn’t have the feeling that i spent $347!!! That’s the problem. When I checked my account at AMEX—I was trying to think of a way to pay the balance—$500 for only one week! I activated just one week ago—in order to put the statement closing date with blue from AMEX together. Maybe this is only my problem—I can’t control my budget! If you can control your spending, then you shouldn’t have the problem. But I really should start to ask myself—why not carry only one card in my pocket and think before swiping the card. But I should say credit cards make things convenient. So my conclusion is credit card would bring convenience for you if you can limit your spending. If you can’t control your spending like me, then you should start to think about it. Anyway, save money is not an easy job, at least, for me. How about you?