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I’d like to thank John for reminding me of the promotion from Key Bank. As far as I can recall, Key Bank is famous for the previous banking promotion which offered a free iPod for opening a new account with them. This time, Key Bank is offering $100 Key Possibilities gift card for opening a new Key Express Free Checking Account with direct deposit or automated payments. In order to get the $100 gift card, you have to open a Key Express Free Checking Account between 03/29/2008 and 04/25/2008. You can open an account at Key Bank local branch, www.key.com or by phone at 877-888-3658. To qualify for this bonus, you have to make a combination of two direct deposits and/or automated payments each of $100 or more by 6/27/08. If you close your account within 180 days of account opening, you will be charged a $25 account early closure fee.

Fine Print:

Must open a qualifying checking account at a KeyBank branch, Key.com or through 1-877-888-3658 between 3/29/08 and 4/25/08 and make a combination of two direct deposits and/or automated payments each of $100 or more by 6/27/08. Free checking only applies to a Key Express Free Checking account. Qualifying accounts include Key Express Free Checking (this is the basic banking account in NY) and Key Advantage®. You will receive your $100 Key Possibilities MasterCard® card within 90 days of meeting requirements. The gift card can be used at locations that accept Debit MasterCard cards. Direct deposit transactions are limited to: payroll, social security, pension and government benefits. Automated payments exclude Key Bill Pay, debit card automated payments, PayPal® transactions and account to account balance transfers. Offer available to individuals without an existing checking account at KeyBank as of 03/28/08. Offer not available to individuals who have opened a KeyBank checking account in the last 12 months. Employees of KeyBank, its affiliates and subsidiaries are not eligible for this offer. Limit one $100 Key Possibilities Card per qualifying account. Limit one $100 Key Possibilities Card per individual. Offer valid while supplies last. The $100 value of the Key Possibilities gift card received for opening a checking account with direct deposit and/or automated payments will be reported on Form 1099-INT. If you close your account within 180 days of account opening, you will be charged a $25 account early closure fee.

Features of Key Express Free Checking Account:

• No monthly maintenance service charge
• No minimum balance requirement
• No per-check fees or limits
• No monthly or annual KeyBank Debit Card fee
• No fee for using your KeyBank Debit Card on purchases when using a PIN or signing for a purchase
• Free, unlimited use of Key’s nationwide network of ATMs
• Free 24-hour access to your accounts with Online Banking
• Free Key Bill Pay to pay your bills quickly and easily online

NO hard pulls were reported for opening this account at Key Bank. They need your personal information to identify you. Details of this promotion can be found here. Key Bank is the 16th largest bank in United States based on total deposit and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2007, key Bank was ranked 319 on Fortune 500.

Today I received an email from Chase about some exclusive offers for my Chase Amazon.Com Platinum Visa Card. I got this card about 6 months ago with very low FICO credit score (around 670 at that time) with $30 bonus. Hereby I’d like to share my offer to all of you.

1. Earn up to 1,000 points for adding new authorized users

According to this email, I can get 500 bonus points for adding a new authorized user in my account. The time duration is from February 1 to December 31, 2008. I can get maximum 1,000 bonus points for adding authorized users which means I can add 2 authorized users.

Fine print:

The 500 bonus points will be earned for each authorized user added to your account from February 1 through December 31, 2008. The maximum reward accumulation for this promotion is 1,000 points. Authorized users may use the account in the same manner as the primary cardmember, but will not be responsible for payment. Reference to the account may appear on the authorized users’ credit reports. The Cardmember Agreement and Reward Program Rules and Regulations will apply to transactions made by authorized users. All points earned by authorized users will be added to the primary cardholder’s account. Please allow 10-12 weeks after completed qualifying activity for bonus points to be posted.

2. 500 bonus points for enrolling ePay.

The 500 bonus points are very easy to get. All you have to do is to register your card at www.chase.com/amazon and pay your credit card bill online every month.

Fine print:

The 500 bonus points will be earned for choosing ePay once you are enrolled online at www.chase.com/amazon from February 1 through December 31, 2008. The maximum reward accumulation for this promotion is 500 points. Please allow 10 to 12 weeks after completed qualifying activity for bonus points to be posted. Avoidance of late fees is dependent upon your ePay account having sufficient funds to pay your bill at the time of the electronic withdrawal. Bonus points only awarded on first time enrollment.

3. Some promotional coupons for using my Amazon.Com Platinum Visa Card as your payment menthod.

Music—take an extra 10% off (code: CDJLXT8U)

DVD—additional $5 off $50 (code: DVD5BFHR)

Electronics—$20 off $200 (code: 2IK9E6R8)

Place your order on or before May 15th, 2008, to enjoy the savings.

I believe those coupons are for one-time use only, if you have used one of my coupons please leave an comment here.

Overall, Amazon.Com Platinum Visa Card is an ideal card for those frequent buyers at Amazon.Com which will give you about 3% cash back for every dollar you spent at Amazon.Com. This card comes without any annual fees. When you accumulate 2,500 points, you can receive a $25 Amazon.Com gift certificate which can be used at Amazon.Com later.

Apply for this card right now and you can get $30 statement credit after you make your first purchase with this card. Business version and student version are also available.

I’d like to mention that if you are a college student and usually buy a lot of stuffs from Amazon.Com, you can consider the Citi mtvU Card for college students which will give you 5 thankyou points for every dollar spent at Amazon.Com. That’s about 5% cash back for making purchases at Amzon.Com by using Citi mtvU Card.

Other related posts: American Express Card Promotion at Amazon.Com: Get $10 or More for Spending $50, Amazon.Com Quick Picks,Citi mtvU Car-Best Credit Card for College Students

I first reported this promotion 4 days ago (this post). I think most of you have received the email from American Express about the current promotion at Amazon.Com. I have a Blue from American Express Card and Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express. Thus I received two emails about getting 1,000 bonus points for spending $50 or more at Amazon.Com before March 31, 2008. It’s a great deal! These days I keep receiving emails from my readers about the promotion they received. Hereby I post some deals below for your reference:

Blue from American Express: 1,000 (someone reported 1,750 bonus points) bonus points for spending $50 or more.

Blue Cash from American Express: $10 statement credit for spending $50 or more.

Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express: 1,000 bonus points for spending $50 or more.

Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card from American Express: 1,000 bonus points for spending $50 or more.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card: $10 statement credit for spending $50 or more.

Hilton HHonors Platinum Card: 1,000 bonus points for spending $50 or more.

Platinum Business Card from OPEN The Small Business Team: 1,500 bonus points for spending $50 or more.

American Express Preferred Rewards Green Card: $10 statement credit for spending $50 or more.

American Express Plum Card: 1,500 bonus points for spending $50 or more.

There might be more other card members received the same email from American Express.

If you can spend $50 or more before March 31,2008, it’s great to just sit and wait for the bonus points. If you don’t know what to buy and don’t want to miss this deal, what should you do?

Here is what I did today—bought $50 Amazon.Com gift certificate for myself at Amazon.Com! In this way, you can save the money for future use and you won’t miss the bonus points!

Other thoughts: I’m glad that my Starwood Card can receive the promotion email. 1,000 points=1/3 of a category 1 night stay which is equal to $30. Don’t miss this deal!

FNBO Direct has just stated a promotion for its BillPay Account. FNBO Direct is famous for its high interest rate and easy money transfer. I believe many readers have the FNBO Direct savings account. This $25 bonus is a very easy money to get as long as you open a BillPay Account and make an online billpay in 90 days. This promotion will expire on 04/30/2008.

Details of the promotion:

* Limited Time Bonus Offer: If you are a current FNBO Direct Online Savings Account customer, you can earn a $25.00 bonus for opening a new FNBO Direct BillPay Account. We will credit the bonus to your BillPay Account within 30 days after it is opened. In order to earn the bonus, your BillPay Account must remain open for 90 days and you must make at least one BillPay payment during that period (we reserve the right to deduct the amount of an unearned bonus from any account you have with us). This offer is only applicable to BillPay accounts opened on or after 03/25/08 and is limited to one bonus per household. This promotion is set to end on 04/30/08, however, we may change or discontinue this offer at any time. The FNBO Direct BillPay Account pays an annual percentage yield of 2.50%. The APY is accurate as of 03/25/08 and is subject to change. Fees may reduce earnings.

You can find the promotion page here.

Features of the BillPay Account:

• No minimum balance required to open
• There is no monthly fee
• Paper checks cannot be used
• BillPay payments from your BillPay Account may not be less than $5 or more than $10,000
• Your ATM Card can be used at any PLUS networks ATM without a foreign ATM charge.

As far as I know, FNBO launched this account in November, 2007. It’s designed to be like ING Direct’s Electric Orange account in that there are no paper checks. The BillPay account has a current yield of 2.50% APY.

Note: NO hard pull has been reported for opening an accout at FNBO. You can always check my “Hard Pull and Soft Pull” to see whether the banks will pull your credit report when you want to open an account there.

Due to the mortgage losses, banks are reducing the credit card borrowing limits, even for those who have good credit records. I have some friends recently received letters from their credit card issuers stating that their credit limits have been reduced. Rich Helmich, my colleague, told me that he had a Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card got closed by Citi Bank last week. Factors that could let credit card issuers make this decision: minor mess-up (late payment once? exceed the credit limit once?), carrying too much balance on your credit cards (usually credit issuers “soft” pull your credit report periodically) or other risky debts, not profitable to the credit card issuers……

Lowering your credit limit can push up your debt-to-credit ratio, which will hurt your credit score. How can you defend your credit limit if this happen to you?

Make An Appeal: maybe a computer may cut your credit limit, but a costumer service representative can fix the bug for you manually. You can always call them up and request to have your previous credit limit reinstalled. Please be polite during the appeal process.

Threaten to Cancel: If the customer representative doesn’t fulfill your request, you can ask him/her to close your account. And tell him/her that you never use a credit card with low credit limit! Banks can’t afford to lose a good customer. Last year, I requested to increase my credit limit on my Chase Freedom Card and got rejected! Then I called Chase up and asked the credit specialist to close my account. Then she increased my credit limit immediately plus a $10 rewards credit on my Chase Freedom Card!

Apply for A New Credit Card: It might help you to increase your overall credit limit. Citi is in a big trouble right now. I think most of you can avoid Citi. American Express and Discover are still in a good shape. Some credit cards from American Express and Discover are still easy to get.

In a word, if you are profitable to your credit issuer, your chance to get hurt in this credit crunch is very low.

Need tips for how to deal with customer service representatives?

Suggested posts:10 Confessions of A Chase Customer Service Representative 1

10 Confessions of A Chase Customer Service Representative 2

These days my post about earning enough thankyou points for a free trip to Europe and Asia have been proved to be a very popular blog post in the internet. It was also highlighted at www.digg.com. If you have a solid credit history and willing to take advantage of the bonus thankyou points, I think it’s a great idea to accumulate your thankyou points and redeem them for a flight ticket. Actually, most frequent flyer forums conclude that the best way to use your thankyou points is to redeem them for a flight ticket. Considering that the Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MasterCard is offering 25,000 bonus AAdvantage miles, I think it’s a good idea to get enough AAdvantage miles to get a free flight ticket.

How can you get enough AAdvantage miles for a free ticket?

Sign-up bonus miles from Citi:

Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MaterCard 25,000 bonus miles

Citi Gold AAdvantage World MasterCard 15,000bonus miles

CitiBusiness AAdvantage MasterCard/Visa Card 25,000 bonus miles

Another card you can consider is the Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express. They offer 10,000 bonus starpoints which can then be converted to AAdvantage miles later. (If you are lucky, you can get 20,000 bonus points.)
According to AA, 50,000 miles are enough for an economy class ticket to Europe or Asia at off-peak season. (see the detailed requirement)

Fidelity is offering AAdvantage miles for opening a new nonretirement brokerage account. If you deposit $2,500 in the new account, you will get 5,000 miles. If you deposit $10,000, you will get 15,000 miles. If you deposit $50,000, you will get 25,000 miles.

I hope this post will be of some help to those who want to get a free ticket!!!

I have many individual posts about how to get your free credit score and credit report. You can get a free copy of your credit report every year from www.annualcreditreport.com which is a government supported website. However, this website doesn’t provide credit score. Then how can you get your credit score for free? Let me tell you……

WaMu Platinum Visa Credit Card

Actually, this card was formerly issued by Providian which was then acquired by WaMu one year ago. From then on, all the WaMu credit cards will provide free credit score to the card holders. You can see your credit score once you log in you online account at www.wamucards.com. The credit score is based on your TransUnion credit report and is updated every month. Recently, they are sending out some invitations with sign-up bonus. Some readers report that if you don’t use this card for a while, they will close your account due to inactivity.

I have to mention that WaMu just launched a new credit card—ESPN Total Access Visa Card. This card is easy to get. If you can’t receive the invitation from WaMu and want to take advantage of the free credit score service, you can try for this card.

CreditKarma.Com

I have an introduce about this website here. They provide FAKO credit score based on your TransUnion credit report. (Although they claim that they can pull your credit report from any of 3 credit bureaus, you’d better believe that they only use TransUnion credit report.) Yes, it’s free! They will not charge you for your free credit score. But they have you credit status on hand. They can make money by corporate with many financial institutes by promoting some financial services to you.

Prosper and Lending Club

The above two mentioned websites are famous person-to-person lending clubs. They will pull your credit report, if you sign up as a borrower there. Instead of a credit score, they will give you a credit grade. By referring to the credit grade, you can roughly know your credit score. If you have a very good credit score, your default loan rate will be much lower than those with bad credit grade. You may not familiar with these websites. Currently, they are offering $25 sign-up bonus.

E-Loan.Com

You can also get a free credit score at eloan.com! It’s very simple. Click this link to eloan.com. You will see a variety of credit services provided by eloan. But they are not free! At the bottom of that page, you will see ” Free Credit Score (Credit Score Only)“. That’s not FICO score and is based on your credit profile at Experian. In fact, it’s supposed to help you to choose some better mortgage rate. It’s valid only for once. You can choose when to use it.

I hope this post will be of any help for you all!

My post “Earn ThankYou Points for A Free Trip to Europe and Asia” turned out to be a very popular post. It was also mentioned at Fatwallet! It’s amazing. However, recently, Citi is about to change the terms on using fixed flight option. I have to make some changes here.

There will be only a limited credit cards can be eligible for the fixed flight travel option at thankyou network. Please remember that the new terms will be effective on April 15, 2008.

Certain ThankYou Members have the option of redeeming for air travel at fixed ThankYou Point amounts. As of April 15, 2008, ThankYou Members with a Smith Barney Account, Citibank® Account, Expedia® Account or the following Card Accounts are eligible for fixed flight airline tickets at fixed ThankYou Point amounts: Citi PremierPass® Card – Elite Level, Citi PremierPass® Card – Smith Barney Elite Level, Citi PremierPass® / Expedia.com® Card – Elite Level, Citi® ChairmanSM Card and Citi Chairman® American Express® Card. This list is subject to change without notice. Fixed flight option Travel Rewards are only available when you call the ThankYou Service Center. Agents will work to offer you the best deal on available flights – you are not required to select the fixed flight option.

It’s very straightforward, some popular credit cards like: Citi PremierPass Card, CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network, Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network and CitiBusiness PremierPass Card will not be eligible for the fixed flight option. It seems that if you want to take advantage of this program, you’d better have Citi PremierPass Card-Elite Level or Citi PremierPass/Expedia.com Card-Elite Level. Other credit cards are not so easy to get.

So the key to play this program is to get one of above mentioned credit cards and get enough thankyou points. Following is a list of cards offering great thankyou points bonus:

CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network: 15,000 ThankYou Points—-by far, the easiest business card to get!

Citi PermierPass Card-Elite Level:20,000 ThankYou Points or the non-Elite Level card: 10,000 ThankYou Points.

Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network: 10,000 ThankYou Points

CitiBusiness PermierPass Card: 15,000 ThankYou Points (this sign-up bonus will expire on March 31, 2008)

40,000 ThankYou Points from CitiBank (this post)

Other methods to earn ThankYou points:

Use Citi checking/saving account and debit card (Citi Bank will send about 300 ThankYou points every month. If you use all of the banking services provided by Citi Bank, you may get up to 800 points per month.) You can also use other credit cards like Citi mtvU card and Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards card to earn ThankYou points.

I think the fixed flight travel option is by far the most valueable way to redeem your thankyou points. Because there are not so many good gift cards in the thankyou network.