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Ok. If you are not categorized as one of four types of people, you are ready to proceed to prepare for playing the balance transfer game. Here are some definitions:

Balance transfer is the act of transferring debt from one credit card to another assuming the newer card has better terms and rates. According to the definition, you can only do balance transfer between credit card accounts. However, there are many direct and indirect ways to put money into your saving/CD account. So, technically, you can use balance transfer to get cash.

Cash advance is a cash loan drawn from the available credit of your credit card account. (You can get cash from an ATM or cash advance check sent by the credit card issuer.) Usually there is no grace period for cash advances. Interest accrues daily until the complete balance is paid in full. Transaction fees may apply.

Double Billing also known as two-cycle billing. Finance charges are calculated on the balance you hold over the two previous months, rather than on the average daily balance for one month.

Finance Charge is interest and other fees applied against purchases, balance transfers and cash advances. Unless the issuer has a grace period, finance charges are accrued until the credit card debt is paid off.

Minimum Payment is, to not default, the minimum amount the cardholder is required to pay.

It’s important to remember the definitions of the above terms as you need to read carefully about the fine print of your credit card agreement. Once you submit your application, you’re supposed to accept the terms and conditions issued by the bank. All the information you need to evaluate the balance transfer offers can be found at terms and conditions.

Let’s take a look at the perfect Citi professional card. You can find the following features in the terms and conditions:

Annual fees: none

APR for purchases: 13.24% variable

Balance transfer APR: As long as balance transfers are completed within 9 months from date of account opening, 0.00% for 9 months from date of first balance transfer. After that same as for purchases.

Cash advance APR: 22.24% variable.

Default APR: 31.24% variable.

Balance transfer fee: 3% of each balance transfer; $5 minimum, $50 maximum. There is no fee with the 0.00% APR balance transfer offer described above.

You can see the screenshot:

This card is currently offering $15,000 ThankYou Points after first purchase. Meanwhile this card is also offering 0% APR on balance transfer for 9 months without any balance transfer fees. Can you imagine how much you can get from this card by combining sign-up bonus and earning from balance transfer?

All major US banks are reporting loss this year. Most banks are not offering 0 fee balance transfer offers. For example, Bank of America is charging 3% balance transfer fees for all balance transfer requests without limit! It’s really hard to find out balance transfer deals these days. My next post is to list the best balance transfer cards.

I believe most of us have got the letter regarding a class-action lawsuit claiming that ” Visa, MasterCard, their member banks, and Diners Club, conspired to set and conceal markups and fees, typically 1-3%, on foreign transaction.” and “those persons who made a foreign transaction using a Visa-, MasterCard-, or Diners Club- branded credit, charge or debit card between February 1, 1996 and November 8, 2006 are members of the Settlement Damages Class.”

If you have made transactions outside the U.S. between Feb. 1, 1996 and Nov. 8, 2006,you are eligible to get the refund. You need to complete and submit a claim form prior to the deadline, either on-line at www.ccfsettlement.com/claim, or by mailing or faxing in the form. There are some options about the refund.

1. Easy refund of $25 which is recommended if you travel outside of the U.S. for less than one week or had foreign transactions of less than $2,500 using your eligible cards during the class period.

2. Total Estimation Refund which is based on typical spending during travel and answers to the few questions listed on the claim form. This option is recommended if you traveled outside the U. S. for more than one week or had foreign transactions of more than $2,500.

3. Annual Estimated Refund which is based on the information you provided and is recommended if you had extensive foreign travel and foreign transactions.

If you want to get the refund charged by the above mentioned credit card networks, you can fill in the claim form online and wait for the result. For more detailed information, you can refer to the official FAQs.

I have lots of emails in my inbox about how to take advantage of the 0% APR on balance transfer from their new credit cards. Some are really curious about how to make extra money from 0% APR balance transfer. Here I will start to write a series of posts about how to make extra money by taking advantage of the 0% APR balance transfer offers from credit card issuers.

I believe most of us have already known how to get sign-up bonuses, how to maximum your cash back/rewards by selectively and wisely use your credit cards combination. However, some of us may be not familiar with the balance transfer and not know how to earn money from it. My post “Earn free Money from Citi” turned out to be one of the most popular posts in this blog. I don’t have enough time to reply each email. Instead, I’d like to write some more detailed stories about balance transfer.

Why do the credit card issuers give you 0% APR balance transfer offers? Of course, their purpose is not to let you earn interest from high rate saving accounts or CDs. As a matter of fact, they want you to pay down debts with high interest rates-auto loans, credit card balances, personal loans, payday loans and home-equity loans. Usually the 0% APR is time limited. For example, most of 0% APR offers will expire in 12 months. After that, if you can’t pay off all your balance on that card, you have to pay the regular interest rate (usually between 14% and 20%). This is an evil tactics used by credit card issuers. They want you to use the 0% APR offer; meanwhile they hope you can’t pay off the balance before the due date.

However, what if you don’t have any debt? Well, you can get extra money from high interest rate saving accounts or CDs by transferring your balance to those accounts. If you can take $10,000 from your credit card, you will end up with $10,500 after 12 months, and then put $10,000 back to your credit card account. It’s radically simple! You’re using one bank’s money to earn money from another bank. You don’t need to use one penny of your own money.

As I mentioned above, you have to pay regular interest if you can’t pay off the balance in time. The credit card issuers aren’t stupid. They are high profitable institutes. They know how to earn profits from their customers. You can’t be too careful about playing money games with them. People with the following

People always forget to pay bills.

It’s very simple. If you can’t pay bills in time, credit card companies will charge late fees and will also terminate the 0% APR offer. You have to pay regular rate. If your late payment exceeds 30 dates, your credit report will get hit by a late payment. Sometime, other banks will also close the accounts without notifying you first.

People need to use credit soon.

If you’re preparing for a mortgage, car loan or other kinds of loans, you’d better don’t play the game. A huge balance on your credit report will definitely lower your credit score. In this case, you can’t get a good rate for your new mortgage or loan. Or maybe you can’t get a loan. Please also remember that even you have paid off your balance, you have to wait for a bout 2 months until the payment appears on our credit report.

People have bad credit and limited credit history.

Of course, if you can’t get a good credit score, you can’t get a good offer from credit card companies. And you can’t get a high credit limit to maximum your earning.

People carry balance regularly.

If you carry credit card balance regularly, you might be not able to pay off the credit card balance before due date. If this is real, you have to pay tons of money. For example, $10,000 will generate more than $1,000 interest with regular interest rate. If you need cash immediately, you can find other financial products. Borrow money from credit card companies is a not wise decision.

Senate Bill (SB) 250 (Corbett) will allow consumers to redeem gift cards for cash once they falls below $10.

Consumers will get a break this holiday season thanks to a new California law – Senate Bill 250 by Senator Ellen Corbett (D – San Leandro). The new law gives consumers the right to cash in an unused or partially used gift card when the value of the card is less than ten dollars. Currently, gift cards worth less than five dollars can be subjected to dormancy fees and a store can refuse to give the remaining value back in cash no matter how small the value.

“At this time of year when so many people are purchasing gift cards it is important to know there are new laws protecting consumers,” said Senator Ellen Corbett, the author of the new law. “With the enactment of SB 250 consumers can feel more confident this holiday season that when they give a gift card that they will not be making a donation to a retailer because as of January 1, 2008, Californians will be able to cash in the remaining value of a gift card below $10.”

“SB 250 was based on the simple, common sense notion that consumers should get their money’s worth without having to buy something they don’t really want,” said Richard Holober, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California. “After all, the retail store or restaurant chain was already paid for the full value of the gift card.”

Businesses have profited mightily from millions of gift cards with small balances that are never redeemed – an undeserved bonanza for their sellers. Between 2005 and 2006, companies claiming millions of dollars in income from gift cards that remained unredeemed for two years after they were purchased included: $43 million for Home Depot; $43 million for Best Buy; $30 million for Limited Brands; $8 million for Nordstrom; and more than $7 million for Michael’s Stores.

Thanks to SB 250, come January 1st, California will lead the nation in consumer protections for gift cards users.

The positive impact the new law will have on millions of consumers is highlighted by the recent “Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll” showing nearly two-thirds (62%) of Americans plan to purchase gift cards this holiday season – second only to clothing (71%) among respondents. Nationally, Americans are expected to spend 70 billion dollars this year on gift cards alone – with billions of those dollars going unused. For Californians, that’s about to change.

You can also see the release at Consumer Federation of California.

Well, I have a post about Capital One Card Lab. This post turned out to be one of the most popular posts from the search engine. Several days ago, my blog was hit by more than 200 IPs from Google by the single keyword: CapitalOne Card Lab. Today I will briefly introduce gift card lab.

Christmas is coming and the gift card is a very popular gift during holiday season. They seem to be a perfect solution to the problem of what to give this holiday season. According to the survey conducted by ConsumerReports.org, about 62% consumers are planning to buy gift cards this year. It’s also estimated that gift-card sales will reach 80 billion in 2008. The primary driver for the growth of gift cards is that a gift card allows a recipient to choose the gift they really want. However, another question comes up. How can we make the gift cards special? Customize the gift card by yourself—choose your favorite picture and make the card design by yourself at giftcardlab.com. At gift card lab, you can choose upload your favorite picture and make a card design by yourself. In this way, you make the gift card really special. It’s second to none! I think this is really a good idea. At the same time, you can choose from thousands of card designs provided by gift card lab to customize you card designs. There are also a bunch of different styles for specific occasions like birthday, anniversary, mother’s day, father’s day, Christmas and graduation. Furthermore, the visa gift cards offered by gift card lab can be used at anywhere visa card is accepted.

Anyway, if you don’t have any idea on what to give as a special gift, gift card lab might be a choice for you. (www.giftcardlab.com)

These days the president blog (Chinese) is holding a campaign—“What do you do other than blogging?” Well, I was chosen to write a post about my life other than blogging. Actually, this idea has been in my mind for a long time. However, I have been working very hard to find out more deals and sign-up bonuses for blogging. I actually don’t have much time to think about writing something about my personal life. OK. Today I got the chance to sit down and write something about my daily life.

As a graduate student, I have to spend tons of time in research. Reading papers, doing experiments, and analyzing my data are three major activities everyday. However, when I have time, I will watch TV. My favorite TV programs are “Modern Marvels” in History Channel and “How it’s made” in Discover Channel. Meanwhile I like National Geographic Channel and Animal Planet very much! They are just wonderful! You can learn a lot of stuffs about nature. I’m also watching some dramas like the “Prison Break”, “24 Hours” and “The Closer”.

Another hobby is watching NBA basketball games. Although I don’t play basketball too much (I don’t have time to play basketball right now.), I like watching other guys playing on TV. In order to watch NBA games, I subscribe the NBA league pass which will let me essentially catch every exciting game.

In a word, TV is my favorite “pet” in my daily life. Maybe my next plan is to visit some National Parks like Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park and the Grand Canyon National Park.

I have a post about how to know your credit score. However, the score you can get from those credit services are not the official FICO credit score. Sometimes we call it FAKO score. Of course, if you have a WaMu credit card, you can get the official FICO credit score for free. Today I found that at myFICO.com you can use free FICO score estimator to roughly estimate you myFICO score. The process is very simple. You just have to answer 10 simple questions about your current credit status—how many credit cards, balance, loans, etc. Then you will get an estimated FICO score range. If you don’t want to deal with credit bureaus, this is a nice tool to roughly know your credit score. I think this will be helpful for your future use. I used this credit score estimator and got the following credit range.

Click here to get your FICO score.

I just received my new issue of Money magazine (January 2008). I found a very interesting article as “The Future of Your Money Is Here”. In this article, they introduce some websites which they think may bring a virtual world of speed, simplicity, and intelligence to your financial life. It’s really nice. As we all know the number of sites that waste your time and give bad advice is expanding, and there is no standard measurement to judge whether this website is worthwhile or not. Money magazine has tested some websites and consulted experts and users to create an easy-to-follow guide to where to go and what to do once you get there.

PERSONAL FINANCE:

TO TRACK ALL YOUR MONEY IN ONE PLACE
Moneycenter.yodlee.com

TO IMPROVE YOUR BOTTOM LINE
Cnnmoney.com, ConsumerismCommentary.com, GetRichSlowly.org

TO EXCHANGE IDEAS
SavingAdvice.com

CARS

NARROW THE FIELD
ConsumerReports.org

SEE WHAT OTHERS THINK
Edmunds.com

GET THE BEST PRICE
CarDeals.org

INVESTING

TO GET IDEAS
Pimco.com, LeggMason.com, Efficientfrontier.com

TO TEST YOUR IDEAS
Diehards.org

YOUR CAREER

TO STAY IN TOUCH
Facebook.com

TO MEET NEW PEOPLE
Linkedin.com

SHOPPPING

TO HUNT FOR BARGAINS
Slickdeals.net, FatWallet.com

TO FIND BUYER REVIEWS
Amazon.com

TO COMPARE PRICES
Pricegrabber.com

REAL ESTATE

TO CHECK OUT REAL ESTATE
Trukia.com, Zillow.com

TO GET THE NEIBORHOOD SCOOP
Outside.in

TO LOOK UP SCHOOL INFORMATION
GreatSchools.net

TO GET THE LAY OF THE LAND
Maps.Live.com, Maps.Google.com, Walkscore.com

COLLEGE

TO START THE SEARCH
Nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator

TO GET THE DIRT
CollegeConfidential.com

TO TOUR BY VIDEO
CampusTours.com

I agree what they have summarized. But of course different people have different opinions even on the same thing. So I’d like to hear more voices from you. Please feel free to add some wonderful website you visit daily.

The best blog about credit card and banking bonus—-www.mycardblog.com.