MyCardBlog

I enrolled in the Citi Credit Protector in the early November, 2007. Today I got my free digital picture frame from UPS. This digital picture frame is Coby DP-769 7-Inch Widescreen Digital Photo Frame with MP3 Player. According to Amazon.Com, the price for this one is about $75. What a great deal! (see the specific feature through this link at Amazon) The cost for enrolling in Citi Credit Protector is 0 and for only 85 cents per $100 of your New Balance shown on your billing statement for each billing period. SO if you don’t use that credit card, you pay nothing for a 7-inch widescreen digital photo frame. If you do want to use that credit card, you can pay your balance before the statement sate. In this way, they will also not charge you. If you have multiple citi credit card, you can have multiple free digital picture frames! If you don’t have a citi credit card yet, please try to get one! Easiest citi credit cards to get are: Citi mtvU card for Sollege Students, Citi Dividend Card for College Student, Citi Diver’s Edge Card for College Students, and Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network. See the posts about Citi Credit Protector at MyCardBlog.Com. (post 1 & post 2) Enroll the Citi Credit Protector for a free digital picture frame here.

Chase is currently offering a $125 sign up bonus for their Chase Free Checking Account with Direct Deposit. (Previously, they were offering $100.)

Just open a new Chase Free Checking Account with Direct Deposit with a minimum opening deposit of $100 at a Chase bank location near you, and you’ll receive the $125 banking bonus in 60 days, but you must print out the promotional certificate, which has a unique promotional code. The most important thing is to get the $125 coupon. Hereby I’m giving out a link to get the $125 coupon for those who want to open a checking account at Chase.

Chase Free Checking $125 Coupon Link (until 04/31/08)

In order to get this coupon, you must can login to the Chase online account, which means you must have a credit card account or other non-checking accounts with them. If you already have a checking account with them, this link will be invalid.

Print out your $125 Chase banking bonus offer, bring it to your local Chase bank to open a new Chase Free Checking Account with Direct Deposit (with a minimum opening deposit of $100 and a repeating direct deposit), and you will receive your $125 bonus.

Update: Because lots of readers want to open a checking account at Chase but the link to the coupon is expired. A very easy way to get a Chase $125 coupon is to get a moving package from the USPS office.

I believe most of us have a lot of junk mails (e.g. credit card application invitations). Believe it or not, identity fraud is very serious in America nowadays. A very important way to prevent identity theft is to properly dispose your junk mails. Then what do you do with junk mails?Because some have our personal information (address etc.) on them. I don’t want to just throw them into the trash can. Instead, I use a Junk Mail Shredder to help me to dispose those junk mails. I got this Junk Mail Shredder last Sunday when I found it was on sale. I got lucky because it’s the last one in my local Staples store. You pay $59.98 and get $40 easy rebate, so the final cost of this powerful Junk Mail Shredder is $19.98. What a great deal! The Staples MailMate Junk Mail Shredder can shred CD/DVDs, credit cards, small paper clips, and 10-fold sheets! To see this powerful junk mail killer, you can click here.

Junk Mails

Credit Cards

I really like this little Junk Mail Shredder! I hope this post will be helpful to all of you.

If you haven’t received the bonus from JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., you might want to check this out.

From CourtBriefs.com

Class action claims Chase bank failed to provide promised bonus for opening new checking accounts.

Case Number: 2008CH2257 Filed: January 18, 2008

Christopher L. Akinyemi, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.

Amount: $50,000.00 Type Of Case: Class Action

Plaintiff Atty: Norman Rifkind, Amelia S. Newton, Heidi VonderHeide, Lasky & Rifkind, Ltd., 350 North LaSalle St., Suite 1320, Chicago, Illinois 60610 (312) 634-0057 (312) 634-0059 (fax)

Judge:

Jurisdiction: IL Cook County Circuit Court, Chancery Division

Summary:

The Defendant bank is accused of having failed to provide, within ten days of the opening of certain new checking accounts, a promised $100 bonus for doing so. Plaintiff Christopher L. Akinyemi, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, sues JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.

The Plaintiff seeks to assert a class action on behalf of all persons or entities who opened a Chase Free Checking account with $100 or more, and where the Defendant allegedly failed to credit an offered bonus to the account.

The Plaintiff is a resident of Laotto, Indiana. The Defendant, according to the Complaint, is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $1.5 trillion, and a leader in investment banking financial services for consumers. It has company headquarters in New York, and its U.S. retail financial services and commercial banking headquarters in Chicago.

In late 2007, the Plaintiff states, he received a coupon to receive $100 deposited directly in his account for opening a Chase Free Checking account with $100 minimum opening balance. The coupon stated that it was valid from September 1, 2007 to January 31, 2008.

The Plaintiff asserts that he opened his Chase Free Checking account during the term of the coupon offer. The coupon promised that the $100 bonus would be automatically deposited into the new account within 10 business days of accounting opening.

The Plaintiff claims that he did not receive his bonus within the 10 business days as promised. He contends that the account he opened was eligible for the bonus, and was not one of the types of accounts excluded from the offer, i.e., “High School Checking, Chase College Checking, Chase Access Checking, New Jersey Consumer Checking and Chase Basic Checking.”

Claims are asserted for breach of contract. Remedies sought include actual and compensatory damages in excess of $50,000, pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, and an award of costs and attorneys’ fees.

The original case file can be found here.

Above is a summary of credit cards click record. From this chart, we can clearly see which cards are most popular among mycardblog.com readers. I think this chart can be used when you are still wondering which card to apply for. The above listed credit cards have more than 100 click in the past few months. Although other credit cards are also clicked in this site, their click is less than 100. (So I just ignored the clicks of other credit cards.)

Related posts about above mentioned credit cards for your reference:

Citi mtvU Card (post 1)

Simply Cash (post1, post 2)

Starwood Preferred Guest Card (post 1, post 2)

Blue Cash (post 1)

Chase Freedom (post 1, post 2, post 3)

Discover More (post1, post 2)

Citi Professional (post 1, post 2)

Citi CashReturns (post 1)

This afternoon, I was asked why I applied for business card for personal use. I think most of you may be not aware that using business credit card will bring some benefits for you. I believe we have good reasons to apply for business cards for personal use.

1. Many business credit cards offer fabulous deals. Some of those deals are much better than those of consumer credit cards. For example, The Gold Card from American Express OPEN ran a promotion in summer 2007 to give out 25,000 bonus points for new applicants, which can be redeemed for either free round-trip domestic tickets or a $250 gift card. A lot of people don’t know that they don’t need to run a business to qualify for a business credit card. Anyone can apply for business credit cards even if they are not part of a corporation or LLC. Just use your own name as the business name and use your Social Security Number (SSN) as the Tax ID to apply for business credit cards.

2. Business cards are hidden from your personal credit report. Business cards will not appear on your credit report. Therefore, your credit utilization is lower (The balance on the business cards will not appear on you credit report.) You can maintain a high credit score. In this way, you can still be able to get some great deals.

3. Business cards are generally giving out high credit limit. They are supposed to be used for business purposes.And business cards have great 0% APR offers. (This will give you more extra money.)

4. Business credit often is not included in the maximum exposure level a credit card issuer will give you. If you can’t get more credits from you personal cards, you may want to try business cards.

5. Business card issuers care less about card utilization but more about the timeliness of payment. It seems that the business credit is viewed in a different manner than is personal credit. It’s often assumed that the usage of your credit card is for you business.

Why an individual can apply for business credit cards? Because an individual can be a business too. The type of the business is called a sole proprietorship, which is the simplest business entity. Sole proprietorship is completely legit and is recognized by the Internal Revenue Services (IRS). In a sole proprietorship, your name is your business name and your SSN is your business Tax ID. For example, you can be a sole proprietor if you are doing some temporary contract work for a company, or if you are just selling items through online sites like eBay or through garage sales. (When the credit card companies ask what kind of business you are doing, this is a good excuse.)

Here are some recommendations:

Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network (10,000 ThankYou Points—check out this post. Easy to get.)

Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card from American Express (10,000 star points—up to 6 free nights stay at starwood hotels!)

Other business card don’t give you sign-up bonus but great rewards.

American Express Simply Cash Business Card (see this post)

Discover Business Card (5% cash back on office supplies, 0% APR on purchase and balance transfer. Easy to get.)

My friend sent me an email about how to save money at Amazon.Com. I’d like to share this with you. (I don’t who is the first to discover or com up with this genius idea.)

“Quick Picks” are your personal Amazon.Com deal of the day (DoD) that have been catered to your past purchase history. I hope this trick can help you save money when you are shopping at Amazon.Com.

To see your current “Quick Picks”

• Login to your account at http://www.amazon.com
• Click on “Today’s Deals” next to the gold box at the top
• Scroll down to see Your Name’s Quick Picks

Usually the deals are based on your purchase history, but maybe you don’t want to buy similar products any more. Then how can you get deals for something you want? The trick is to fool the system. Usually this will take one day + to work. Let’s say you want a Pentax K10D SLR camera. Following steps will tell you how to fool Amazon.Com and get a deal.

Step 1: What you have to do is to fake Amazon that you have something related to it. (Pentax K10D camera) For example, you have a Pentax camera lens. So search for a Pentax camera lens, and then at the details page do a search for “Rate this item to improve your recommendations” and next to Rate this item click on “I own it”. What this does is link it to your recommendations.

Step 2:

• At the top of Amazon’s page, click on “Recommendations”.
• This will list everything that is recommend broken down by category.
• Remove everything not related to Pentax camera by clicking “Not interested” this may take quite a bit of time if you’ve purchased a few items from Amazon. Another quick way to remove unwanted items is to click on “Fix This” on an item and then click on “Don’t use for recommendations”.

Step 3: Come back the next day and see what Amazon has put in your “Quick Picks”.

This should work for everything. Just do what I told you above and check in the next day. I just played this “game” two days ago. I fooled Amazon that I had a camera lens.

Terms and Conditions – Gold Box Quick Picks

• You must make at least one purchase through your Amazon.com account in order to be recognized as eligible to receive Gold Box Quick Picks offers. If you are a new customer, you should begin to see Quick Picks three business days after your first purchase.
• The Gold Box Quick Picks discount is only available for items added to the Shopping Cart from the Quick Picks section of the Gold Box page. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox]
• Only one Gold Box Quick Picks coupon may be redeemed per eligible customer per day. Once you add an item that is eligible for a Gold Box Quick Picks coupon to your Shopping Cart, the coupons for any other items that were eligible that day immediately expire.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons may only be applied to one unit of product (unless otherwise stated).
• Each Gold Box Quick Picks coupon expires 60 minutes after you add the eligible item to your cart.
• Offer good while supplies last.
• No substitutions or rain checks.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons are nontransferable, not for resale, and not redeemable for cash.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons are good only for specific products featured.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons cannot be applied to orders already placed with Amazon.com.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons do not apply to shipping and handling or taxes.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons cannot be combined with other promotions.
• If you return a product purchased using a Gold Box Quick Picks coupon, your refund will equal the amount you paid for the product, subject to applicable refund policies.
• The Gold Box Quick Picks coupon must be redeemed through the Shopping Cart. 1-Click® checkout may not be used in conjunction with redemption of Gold Box Quick Picks coupons.

Does not apply to any products purchased in Amazon.com’s other sites, including Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.co.jp, or Joyo.com/Amazon.cn, in Amazon Marketplace, or from third-party merchants.

Today I received 2 emails concerning the year end summary (credit card usage) from Chase. It’s a great tool to track your yearly spending and prepare your household budget for the next year. I have a Chase Freedom Card and a Amazon.Com card, both of which will provide year end summary.

To review your year end summary:

1.You can login to your account at www.chase.com/yearend.

2. On the Statements page, click the “Year End Summary” link at the bottom of the page.

The year end summery will give you month by month list of your spending at Travel & Entertainment, Restaurant, Automotive, Merchandise, Services, and Miscellaneous. It will also give you detailed list of your transactions—a good time to find out wrong transactions and file dispute. Hereby, I strongly recommend you all to look through your year end summary. One of my friends found out that he has been charging by the Reservation

Rewards Program all the time in the past 11 months with a $11 monthly fees. And he doesn’t know what it is!

The Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express also provided year end summary for its cardmembers. the Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express features:

• Earn 10,000 Starpoints® with your first purchase — enough for up to 3 free nights at a category 1 or 2 hotel.
• Earn 15,000 bonus Starpoints after you spend $15,000 in 6 months
• Use Starpoints® for free nights and upgrades at over 825 participating Starwood hotels and resorts in 95 countries
• Transfer Starpoints® — almost always on a 1:1 basis — to the frequent flyer programs of over 30 major airlines
• Earn one Starpoint® for every dollar you spend and double Starpoints® at participating Starwood properties and retail partners
• No annual fee for the first year and $45 thereafter
• Express Approval. Get a decision in less than 60 seconds.

Apply Now!