MyCardBlog

I believe most of us enrolled in the Chase Check Card Promotion (see this post). I sent them a bank mail to ask about the bonus. However, what I got is:

Dear David,
I want to thank you for your patience and your business
with Chase and wanted to write you back to let you know
that I did receive a response from my inquiry about your
promotion. Unfortunately, you did not qualify for the
promotion as the requirement was to spend $500.00 with the
card during the time period, but it appears only $328.41
was spent. I am sincerely sorry for any inconvenience and
thank you for your time.

If you have any questions or require further assistance,
please e-mail us via the Secure Message Center or contact
our Internet Service Center at 1-877-242-7372.

Thank you,

XXXXXXX
Internet Service Center

I remember that I spent more than $500 on this card and I never entered my PIN during check out. Anyway, how can we trust Chase again? I’m really disappointed with Chase.

Compass bank is offering $50 iTunes gift card for opening a new Build-to-Order Free Checking Account. Open the checking account with a minimum $25 deposit within 30 days of registering for the offer, and you will receive a $50 iTunes gift card.

However, the offer is limited to the residents of Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico or Texas. The offer is available only to new Compass new customers and will expire on December 31, 2007.

The feature of this account is absolutely no fees. No direct deposit and no minimum balance required. You can also use the free bill pays online. Another feature is you can get $25 bonus each year for keep account open.

You must make one withdrawal or deposit each statement cycle in order to receive the bonus cash for that particular statement cycle. This approximate amount earned each statement cycle is $2.08. This amount is added every statement cycle (every month) totaling $25.00 at the end of the twelfth statement cycle.

A hard pull is implied to open this account. You can see the promotion page here.

I have 12 credit cards from the following credit card issuers: BOA, Citi, Chase, AMEX, Discover, National City, WaMu, University of Illinois Credit Union and HSBC. To be a smart credit card user, I just selectively use some of them. Here I’d like to share my experience with you.

1). National City Everyday Rewards Visa Card-up to 4% cash back on everyday purchase. You can get 4% cash back at gas stations and 2% cash back at restaurants. This is my first credit card in US. I definitely will keep it all my life. It will automatically send out a check once you reach $100 in rewards. I usually use it at restaurants and gas stations.

2). Chase Freedom Visa Card-3% cash back on the first $600 of purchases in your top 3 Everyday Spending Categories and a 1% rebate on all other purchases. Right now, they also offer $100 sign-up bonus after first purchase (officially you can only get $50). I use this card to pay my cell phone and cable/internet bills. I also use this card at Meijier (a supermarket similar to Wal-Mart from where you can’t get 3% cash back). You can get a check when you have $50 in rewards, or you can get a $250 check once you reach $200 in rewards. It seems you can make 3.75% and 1.25% cash back if you can wait to reach $200 in rewards. (This is what I’m planning to do.)

3). Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card-1 point per $1 spent. You can get 10,000 bonus points after first purchase which will let you get 3 free night stays at SPG hotels. If you can spend $15,000 in the first 6 months, you can get additional 15,000 points. You can start to redeem a free night stay at SPG hotels for as low as 2,000 points. The other feature of this card is you can transfer the points to miles mostly on 1:1 basis plus bonus points. For examples, 20,000 points can be redeemed as 25,000 miles. The points can be redeemed as almost any airline miles. The annual fee for the first year is waived, and is $45 per year if you’d like to keep it.

4). Household Bank Platinum MasterCard -2% cash back on everything. I have nothing to say about this card. It’s just wonderful! You can request the cash back check for every $25.

5). Discover Open Road Card-5% cash back on the first $100 of purchase for gas and auto maintenance per month. It’s good that I never spend more than $100 at gas stations and have a 4% cash back card as a backup.

If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Citi has a new $200 bonus for opening a new checking account. The new promotion code is MVS4. You have to call citi toll-free number 866-810-9043 to open the account and mention the promotion code. Of course, you can apply for a new checking account in branch and ask the banker to enter the promotion code. I can’t find anywhere you can apply for the new account online with this promotion code.

How to get $200?

Open a new checking account with at least $100 (EZ-checking doesn’t qualify)

Set up direct deposit or use 2 bill pays per month for 3 months to get the first $100

Another $100 will be credited to your account within the next 3 months

Must be a new customer without any checking and saving account history with Citi

You can open the account by phone or at a Citi Financial center (please mention the promotion code)

The monthly fee for the Citibank checking will be waived as part of this promotion as long as direct deposit or bill pay usage is maintained.

Offer expires on Feb. 29, 2008

Please note that a hard pull will be appearing on your credit report during the application process. Outgoing external transfers are limited to $2,000 daily and $10,000 monthly. If you don’t keep direct deposit or use bill pay from citi, monthly service fee will be charged.

I have a post about the other $200 promotion at here.

Recently, WaMu keeps sending me mails and emails about its free checking account service. Ok. Let me briefly introduce the free checking provided by WaMu.

WaMu is officially known as Washington Mutual. It is actually the largest savings and loan association in US. Wamu provides financial service across the US. After the acquisition of Providian Financial Corporation in 2005, it’s also the 9^th largest credit card company in US.

The most intriguing feature of the WaMu checking account is “free checks for life.” In this way, you can order checks from WaMu online for free at any time. This will save us a lot of money. WaMu offers one Overdraft/NSF fee waived for each 12 months. It also offers free outgoing international wire transfer. Another feature is they offer free Gold Debit MasterCard with Reward. Reward paid to the account on anniversary date and equals $0.03 for each Gold Debit MasterCard purchase transaction made with the last year up to a total reward of $250. (Is this similar to BOA keep the change?) If you open a free checking together with a saving account, you will earn 4.75% APY from saving account (Statement Savings account)! Minimum amount to open a checking account and saving account is $1 each.

I would say the banking service from Wamu is really great. They don’t impose common fees. No minimum balance required and no direct deposit needed. You can transfer your deposit from saving account to checking account instantly. Another nice feature is that online funds transfer. You can link up external accounts. Of course, they need to verify the account via two trial deposits.

The free of fees, convenience and high yield interest make WaMu checking/saving combination a top choice.

HSBC is offering $25 for their customers. All you have to do is to use Bill Pay to make three bill payments through your online payment account by January 31, 2008. If you qualify, the $25 bonus will be directly credited to your account in about 6-8 weeks. Although the bonus is not so sweet as Chase, it’s just extra money for the account holders of HSBC. Click here to start paying your bills.

I have a post about the promotion from Chase Rewards Plus. Today when I carefully look through the merchants listed at that site, I got a new find.

www.giftcertificates.com is listed as a merchant. And you will earn 5% cash back for any purchases through the link at Chase Rewards Plus. My idea is if you buy the gift cards or gift certificates through the link at Chase Rewards Plus you can get 5% cash back. And then you can use the gift cards or gift certificates as cash at most merchants. In this way you can save more.

At giftcertificates.com you can buy gift cards or gift certificates from a variety of merchants like BestBuy, Staples, TigerDirect, Macy’s TJMaxx, CVS, Foot Locker, Bon*Ton, SAKS Fifth Avenue, Dillard’s and so on……..As we know, most of credit cards can’t give you 5% cash back at the above merchants (Citi CashReturns Card). However, in this way, you can earn 5% cash back even though you don’t have the CashReturns card. Plus you can still get 1% cash back from Chase Freedom.

Today I noticed that the giftcertificates.com is offering 10% off on orders $100+. It’s super hot!!! Use the promotion code: HOLIDAY2 at checkout to get the 10% off. You have to pay the shipping fees which are about $2.95 for USPS Regular Mail. Take the advantage of this offer, and the promotion will end on Dec. 9th. If you use the link from Chase Rewards Plus, you can get about 15% cash back!