MyCardBlog

I pointed out in this post that Sony Rewards had credited 10,000 bonus points in our accounts at www.sonyrewards.com on April 24, 2008. The promotion from Sony Card was a really great deal. I have never seen such a huge bonus from a certain credit card for simply using $500 in a month. Yes, usually you can get a small amount of bonus points for using your credit cards during a certain promotion period, but the bonus points are usually in 1,000 scale. Last year, they mysteriously credited $100 in your Sony card account. Surprised, right? Anyway, Sony Card is a really good card to get some free money from Sony and Chase.

The problem here is how to use those Sony points. Maybe you can redeem a Sony Walkman Video Player, maybe you can redeem a Sony home theater system, or maybe you can get a hot Sony alpha SLR camera with some new money (You have to pay some money.). Anyway, there are many choices there for you to make the decisions. However, you may still be not satisfied with those rewards and want some gift cards. Essentially every rewards program offers gift card redemption for their customers. Sony Rewards didn’t do so. But Sony Rewards is offering gift card redemption now! They just introduced the gift card redemption option in late April this year. The gift card redemption is a really great supplement to Sony Rewards Program.

There are many gift cards available at Sony rewards program. You can choose those gift cards by categories: apparel, department store, dinning, gasoline, general merchant, and specialty. Some great gift cards I like/suggest are: BP, Barnes & Noble, Border’s, Starbucks, Kohl’s, Macy’s, and TJX. The values of gift cards vary from $25 to $100. The redemption is based on 1 sony rewards point=$0.01. For each gift card redemption, 150 sony rewards points will be charged.

If you don’t use this card quite often, here are some tips on how to earn some small Sony rewards points.

• Finish 1 poll will give you 10 points (weekly)
• Update your wishlist will give you about 25 points
• Visit www.sonyrewards.com now and then, sometimes you can get some welcome points
• Visit “Insider Specials” frequently and you can always find great deals

If you don’t have a Sony Card yet, you can apply for this card through this link which will give you 10,000 Sony rewards points after you spend $299 or more.

If you have been considering getting your first credit card, or probably your second or third credit card, it’s very likely that you will get lost in a credit card world. The reason is quite simple — there are over hundreds of different kinds of credit card products in the market nowadays. When you are looking for a credit card, you should also consider a credit card that can suit your financial situation, lifestyle, and spending habit. You might also want to get high-quality customer service from credit card issuers. With so many choices, it’s really difficult to dig out a best one for you. But, if you are a smart consumer, you can always find out Great card offers at newcreditapplications.com.

You can choose from over 100 credit cards in their credit card database. You can choose essentially any credit cards according to your own needs. For example, if you always carry balance on the credit cards, you may find some Low interest credit cards there. If you like the service from American Express and want to get another card from American Express, you can simply click “American Express” under credit card issuers section. You can also compare some different rewards credit cards together and then choose the one that best fit your needs. In this way, you can easily find out which credit card you like best without searching through the internet. Once you choose the credit card you want, you can simply click “Apply Now” button and you will be redirected to the credit card issuer’s application page.

Whenever you want to find a card that fits your needs, this is the site that you should bookmark.

If you’d like daily tips, thoughts, and suggestions on how to maximum your rewards and how to catch sign-up opportunities, subscribe to MyCardBlog for free by clicking this link.

This is my monthly updated list of credit card sign-up bonus. I have a special page for credit card sign-up bonus where you can find a complete list of credit cards which will offer you a certain amount of sign-up bonus. I hope this list will be helpful for those App-O-Rama planners. I think it’s necessary to keep a tidy list of credit cards with some fulfillment requirements. The aim is to keep you updated with sign-up bonus offers. There are two main requirements for a specific credit card entering in this list: minimum $50 sign-up bonus and must be a mainstream brand like American Express, Discover, Citi, Chase, BOA, etc. Thus all the credit cards on this list are available to everyone.

All the credit cards are listed in order of value and I will try my best to keep this list updated in a monthly manner. Basically, I assume 100 points/miles=$1. Because you can always redeem your points or miles for certain gift cards.

Do you have any problems about handling and saving your money? Do you need some tips on how to save and smartly spend your money? Do you want to find a one-stop site that can give you all the information about money? If your answer is yes to any one of the above questions, you’d better check out Money.co.uk. Money.co.uk surely is a website that you can find tons of high quality articles and a variety of information about money related matters.

Money.co.uk is a brand new financial portal with resources, materials, and information on how to save money, spend money and make money. They offer the latest money saving tips, tricks, deals and promotions. Money.co.uk also contains a lot of useful information about credit cards, loans, mortgages, insurance, savings, shares, and utilities. You can get everything you need there about your personal finance and daily life. When you get there, you will find out that every section of Money.co.uk is talking about different aspects of money. Another feature makes me fall in love with this site is you can get tremendous information-news, advices, comparisons, and other useful tips-from every section of this site. For example, at the credit cards section, you can compare top UK credit cards along with many credit cards related news, tips, and articles. If you are new to credit cards, you can refer to “credit cards explained” section about basics of credit cards. They also provide links to apply for those tops UK credit cards. Once you have made the decision on which card to pick up, you can easily apply for that card by click the “Apply” button.

Money.co.uk also provide insurance like car insurance, van insurance, home insurance, pet insurance, travel insurance, motorbike insurance and many others. The insurance market is really competitive nowadays. If you don’t know which one to choose from, you can use their “compare insurance” service to get free quote from many insurance companies and find out the top insurance offer. Of course, you can always get latest news and tips about all kinds of insurance there.

Money.co.uk also provides free RSS subscription service to their visitors. By signing up RSS feed, you can get the latest information about money stuffs from Money.co.uk. They also offer free money savings tips newsletter. The newsletters will be delivered to your email whenever there is some useful information to pass on. You can also get money saving e-book from Money.co.uk. This is really an amazing site!

Whenever you want to get some information about money, you can always go to Money.co.uk. It’s a “one-stop” site about money.

As I mentioned early in this April, Bank of America will offer “Museums On Us” promotion early this May. The “Museums On Us” promotion is free to all Bank of America customers with a valid Bank of America credit card, check card or ATM card. This year, Bank of America added many new museums at more states. They added some museums at Illinois, Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Michigan, Florida, Texas and Washington this year. Bank of America also expanded the promotion time. Now, instead of one month (this is a typical time), you can get free admission to over 70 museums nationwide on the first weekend of every month all year long. In this way, more Bank of America customers can benefit from this famous “Museums On Us” promotion.

Bring your photo ID and a valid Bank of America credit card, check card or ATM card, and you can receive free admission for one. Since Lasalle Bank has been acquired by Bank of America, Lasalle Bank cards are good for Lasalle bank customers at Illinois and Michigan. You can also get free email or messages from Bank of America to remind you about “Museums On Us” monthly.

For details about “Museums On Us” you can go to the promotion page from where you can find a list of participating museums in your state.

If you’d like daily tips, thoughts, and suggestions on how to maximum your rewards and how to catch sign-up opportunities, subscribe to MyCardBlog for free by clicking this link.

This is a follow-up post of my previous “5 Grocery Rewards Cards That Can Save Money for You“. I personally like and use my Chase Freedom Card, as most of you know. (My Favorite Rewards Cards) I have already cahed $50 check from Chase Freedom Card in about 4 moths. I have looked at a lot of rewards cards in an effort to find one that gives my more cash rewards. As I only spend about $800 per month, the only one that best fits my spending profile is the Chase Freedom Card. Considering there is another great rewards card (Blue Cash from American Express) as I mentioned in my previous post, I simply did a math and made a comprison between Chase Freedom Card and Blue Cash from American Express. I hope this post will be of some help to you. Here is what I did:

Rewards Programs of These Two Cards:

Chase Freedom Card offers “dynamic rewards” program. You can get 3% cash back on 3 most spending categories from 15 preset rewards categories. These include grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, TV/Cable service providers and so on. You can earn 1% cash back on everything else. Although there is no overall maximum on the amount you can earn , there is a maximum of $600 per month which can earn 3% cash back. Another feature of this card is once you accumulate $200 in your account, you can get $250! Yes, Chase will throw in another $50 bonus which makes the rewards up to 3.75% and 1.25% respectively.

Blue Cash from American Express offers a tiered rebate level, based on your total spending in a year. For the first $6,500 you charged on this card, you can only get 1.0% cash back on “everyday purchase” including grocery stores, drug stores and gas stations and 0.5% on everything else. Once you have spent more than $6,500 for the year, you can get 5% cash back on purchases at grocery stores, drug stores and gas stations and 1.5% on everything else. Obviously, this card is for the big spenders.

Assumptions about Your Spendings:

In order to make a simple comparison between these two cards, I have to make a few assumptions about your monthly spendings.

1. Charges are spread out consistently over the year. (This is an importatn factor when we talk about Blue Cash from American Express. The sooner you can get the $6,500 threshold, the more you can earn you cash back.)
2. You charge all your spendings on a single card. Yes, my suggested spending method is somewhat “combinationly”. But in this case, you charge all of the expenditure in a single card. For Chase Freedom Card, I assume that Gas, Grocery and Drug will be your 3 essential categories.

Results:

• For a total spending level of $1,000 per month, of which $500 is grocery, gas, and drug, the Chase Freedom Card will earn $240+$50=$290, while the Blue Cash from American Express will earn you $227.5. The winner is Chase Freedom!
• For a total spending level of $2,000 per month, of which $800 is grocery, gas and frug, the Chase Freedom card will earn $384+$50=$434, while the Blue Cash from American Express will earn you $653.75! The winner is Blue Cash for sure!

Through a simple comparison, you can see that for a relatively low level of spending, the Chase Freedom Card is a better choice for you. But if you charge a huge amout on a same card monthly, the Blue Cash Card is the best choice for you.

However, there’re more on this topic.

1. If you spend less than $1,000 per month, like me, I suggest you use Chase Freedom Card for 3 specific categories and get a Household/Orchard Bank Card with 2% cash back. In this way, your minimum rewards is 2%.
2. If you spend more than $1,000 per month, you can use Blue Cash Card for “everyday purchases” and use Chase Freedom Card to pay Cable/TV/Internet services and Wireless bills. In this combinationally spending method, you can really maximum you rewards.

In a word, Chase Freedom and Blue Cash from American Express are both very great rewards cards. You should find out which one best fit your spending profile.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest consumer price index, food prices overall rose 5.3% in 2007, while prices for basic staples such as milk, bread and eggs soared by double-digit percentages. And it’s expected that similar increase will continue this year. Yes, we can’t control the prices of the food, but we can earn mximum rewards if we can smartly enough to choose a good credit card. Supermarkets are playing all kinds of tricks to luring you to buy somehting expensive although there are other cheap alternatives. Sometimes you can mistakenly pick up a wrong merchandise which will get more money out of your pocket. However, one thing we won’t do wrong is to put a right grocery rewards card in your wallet. Here are 5 grocery rewards cards worth swiping:

1. Blue Cash from American Express

If you use this card as you primary card, it offers the best grocery rewards around. The bottom line is you have to spend more than $6,500 per year. Once you have spent more than $6,500 on the card, you can earn 5% cash back on “everyday purchases” at gas stations, supermarkets, and drugstores. You can earn 1.5% cash back on everything else. The only drawback of this card is you can only get 1.5% cash back (0.5% on everything else) before you reach that threshold. Another feature is there is no monthly or yearly cap on this card. You can earn as much as you can!

2. Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card

This card offers 5 thankyou points for every $1 spent at grocery stores, gas stations and drug store. Not like Blue Cash from American Express which requires you to spend more than $6,500 to enjoy the 5% cash back, there is no minimum spending requirement to earn 5 thankyou points for every $1 spent. However, you can only get 5 thankyou points offer for 12 months. After that, you can only get 1 thnkyou point for every $1 spent everywhere.

3. Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card

You can get 5% on supermarkets, drugstores and gas station purchases and utilities for 6 months. After that, you can only get 2% cash back. You can also get 1% cash back on everything else. This card is not so good as Citi Diamond Prefferd Rewards Card which offers 5% cash back for 12 months. But, this card has college student version which enable college students to build their credit history and earn cash back rewards.

4. Household/Orchard Bank Platinum Card with 2% Cash Back

This card has been mentioned in my “7 Great Credit Cards You Should Know” post. You earn 2% cash back on everything including grocery! If you can’t get a rewards card which enables you to get more than 2% cash back, you should consider this card. Usually this card is by invitation only. The invitations from Household Bank and Orchard Bank (owned by HSBC) are “real invitations”. Not like CapitalOne Bank, once you receive an invitation from them, you are guaranteed to have their cards. (CapitalOne Bank sends out a lot of invitations to you but you can still get rejected because their pre-approved invitation is a joke!) The only drawback of this card is you can’t expect high credit limit from HSBC. The typical credit limit is around $300~$2000. If you request to increase your credit limit, you can either get rejected or only a small amount ($300) will be granted.

Generally there are 5 types of credit cards in the market. Find the best card for your lifestyle from secured to low-interest to reward to student and to business.

Secured Credit Cards

Best for: Someone with no credit history or have ruined their credit profiles.

Pros: A secured card is report to the three credit bureaus, so using one/two responsibly can be a smart way to establish or repair your credit profile. (Tip: put in large amount of deposit and use as little as 50% of that credit line.)

Cons: The secured part means you put down a deposit, usually between $300 and $2500, with your application. Many secured cards have all kinds of fees (including annual fees). Read the fine print very carefully.

Zero or Low Interest Rate Cards

Best for: Someone is short of cash and planned to pay down credit debit quickly.

Pros: The lower rate can save you a bundle on your current interest costs. Usually you can find the low rates from balance transfer cards. If you are planning to carry balance all the time, you’d better check out some credit unions.

Cons: Introductory balance transfer rate usually lasts for only 6 to 12 months, and then reverts to something higher, typically around 13 percent to 20 percent. Only one mistake will make your rate up to normal immediately. You’d better manage your balance transfer cards wisely.

Rewards Credit Cards

Best for: People who make the majority of their purchases on a credit card and pay off the balance each month.

Pros: These cards usually offer cash back, miles or rewards points toward purchasing select merchandises. Some rewards cards, for example, currently offer as high as 5 percent cash back on select purchases with no annual fee. (Blue Cash from American Express and Citi CashReturns Card)

Cons: As stated in pros, the rewards are always limited toward purchases on certain merchandises. (Tip: use rewards card in a combinational way is the best approach to maximum your rewards.)

College Student Cards

Best for: Obviously, College students.

Pros: These cards are targeted to college students who want to manage their spending responsively. No strict credit rating is required to get approved for college students. You’re not supposed to report annual income. Some cards are even offering great cash back and rewards. (Citi mtvU Card)

Cons: Some credit cards issuers charge higher interest rate for college student cards. (Typically Citi Bank does so.) If you fail to manage your credit cards, you are in a big trouble.

Business Cards

Best for: Small business owners and anyone willing to take advantage of the “hidden report” (AOR planner’s favorite.).

Pros: Small business cards often offer better rewards programs and have higher cash back rates. Some cards may even have no pre-set credit limit. These cards also offer better introductory rates. You can always find great sign-up bonus from business cards. (see this post)

Cons: no. （It’s said that the famous Financial Review from American Express is caused by business cards. If you have a business card for personal use, you are quite likely to get financial review from American Express.

(This post is for those new to credit cards.)