MyCardBlog

These days, I am always thinking which credit card company is the best from our customers’ eyes. This morning I was trying to find out the answer by using Google. It seems I have luck with me. Yesterday, JD Power and Associates just released the “2007 Credit Card Satisfaction Study”. And the final winner is American Express!

I’m not surprised about the fact. Honestly speaking, American Express provides the best customer services compared to other companies. You can always find an American customer service representative even in the late night. I was very surprised to talk to a balance transfer specialist at 10:30 pm when a general customer service representative couldn’t solve my problem about balance transfer, although I was held for about 15 min. If I call Citi in the late night, I should be prepared to hear Indian English and accept the fact that I can’t get what I want. I don’t know the operation system in a bank but I would say Citi is not so good. For example, they claim that they are offering $200 sign-up bonus for a new checking account. However, when you read carefully, there are some fine prints say the offer expires on 08/31/2007. Then the problem is they still put it online. I called them up and ask them for reasons. They couldn’t find the answer until now. I dare not to open a new account with Citi. At the same time, I should mention that the “Financial Review” process is also a problem for American Express. They should try to fix the drawback in the future. From what I know, the business card may be the major source of a “Financial Review”. If they couldn’t confirm your business, they will be worried that you can’t afford the expense. Not to mention that there are always no pre-set spending limits for business cards. Another point is not carrying high balance. Generally, lower than 70% of credit limit is acceptable.

Ok. Here is the story about Credit Card Satisfaction Study.
Customer Satisfaction Score>—Customer satisfaction, based on 1,000-point scale
American Express 735
Discover 728
Citi Cards 652
Chase 651
US Bank 646
Washington Mutual 638
Wells Fargo 636
Capital One 617
Bank of America 607
HSBC 571
Based on online survey of 7,812 credit card customers in June and July.

(Click to see large image)
American Express and Discover showed the highest satisfaction levels in the J.D. Power and Associates study, reflecting that an estimated 90 percent of their customers aren’t charged interest because they pay off balances in full every month. Conversely, the companies with the lowest satisfaction ratings, including HSBC and Bank of America, tended to be those with higher percentages of customers who carry balances.
Power divided card customers into “transactors” – those who, like most credit card holders, pay off balances and use the products as charge cards – and “revolvers” – those who don’t pay their balances in full and must pay finance charges. Transactors had an average satisfaction rating of 681 on a 1,000 point scale, compared with 613 for revolvers.
A credit card issuer’s “percentage of transactors pretty much drives the rankings,” said Jeff Taylor, senior director for banking at Power.
Similarly, among card networks, American Express and Discover outscored MasterCard and Visa. That was because banks that issue MasterCard and Visa had greater proportions of customers with outstanding balances.
The lower satisfaction of those who carried balances stemmed from customer unhappiness with interest rates, as well as other financial factors such as low credit limits. (HSBC has the problem. I’m complaining here!)
HSBC, the issuer that scored lowest in the survey, said it had not seen the report.
For those who don’t carry balances, card benefits, features and rewards, such as airline miles, were most important. American Express and Discover scored well in part because almost all their customers are enrolled in rewards programs. (Personally, I don’t think the rewards programs from Discover is very good. HSBC 2% cash back card is really good!)
Customers reported wide differences in problems with their card issuers. On the high end, 11 percent of Bank of America and Citi Cards customers said they had experienced a problem such as a billing mistake in the past 12 months. Only 5 percent of Washington Mutual and Discover customers said they had had a problem.
In part adapted from San Francisco Chronicle by the author Sam.

PNC bank is offering sign-up bonus for new customers opening a personal checking account with direct deposit between October 7 and November 17, 2007. They will give you $101 for opening a personal checking acount with direct deposit.

There are three checking accounts from which you can choose. For Free Checking account, you have to maintain $2,000 minimum balance to avoid ATM transaction fees outside PNC ATMs. For Performance Checking account, you have to maintain $2,500 minimum balance to avoid service fees. And you can earn interest for balance higher than $2,000. For Performance Select Checking account, $10,000 minimum balance required to avoid monthly fees.

Here are several important points about the sign-up bonus:
1). The payout of $101 will be credited to the qualifying account within 7 days of the first Direct Deposit, which must occur before 1/31/08.
2). A qualifying Direct Deposit is defined as a recurring Direct Deposit of a paycheck, pension, Social Security or other regular monthly income electronically deposited into a Free, Performance or Performance Select Checking account each statement cycle. The minimum amount of any single Direct Deposit must be at least $500. The Direct Deposits must be made by an employer or an outside agency.
3). You should maintain balance to avoid related fees.
It seems a really difficult deal to jump. I’m thinking of using ING Direct account or Paypal (they count Paypal and ACH push as DD) to put $600 in this account and then close it. Or maybe I will stay for 6 months as Chase. Of course I will open free checking, and get the money back to ING every month. My (or maybe all of you) concern is whether they will take the $101 back. Click here to application page.

PNC Financial Services is a U.S.-based financial services corporation, with assets of $92.0 billion. PNC operations include a regional banking franchise operating primarily in eight states and the District of Columbia, specialized financial businesses serving companies and government entities, and leading asset management and processing businesses. PNC is America’s 11th largest bank by deposits and is the third largest bank off-premise ATM provider in the country.

I think this is really an interesting idea to rent your credit score to those who in need of good credit score.

When I read the articles about renting credit score, I think I should write something about it for my readers. However, I am not encouraging you guys to rent your credit score. It seems unethical for me and you should also consider the risk of losing your personal information to others.

These days, having a good credit score means everything. It will make a lot of things easier for you if your credit history is clean, including renting out an apartment. The credit score is extremely important for those who want to buy a house. But in fact, lots of people might have insufficient credit score when they file an application. How could they do? There is a fast-growing business on the Internet: companies that claim to boost credit scores by transplanting the credit DNA of people with excellent payment histories into the credit files of people with sub-par histories. Most companies claim that they can increase the credit score by about 20 to 250 points, or more, by adding those with low credit score as authorized users onto the credit card accounts of people with excellent FICO scores.

In this way, the positive payment information of those with excellent credit score will flow into those with low credit score. Actually, our parents are always adding their sons or daughters as authorized users into their accounts. Obviously, it’s legal to add someone as your authorized users. And that’s why this kind of business is boosting on the Internet. Someone can rent their credit score for about $1,500 to $2,000 for 180 days or more. Some companies claim that they can increase their clients’ credit score by 150 to 250 points for just months with a price of $750! For those who want to boost their credit scores, they don’t have physical credit cards. So they can’t use the credit account. However, they may see the new account appear on their credit report which is the cause of the increase of credit score.

How much can you get paid for renting your credit scores? The amount you can get varies. It depends on the age of the credit card and the credit limit. There used to be a website named rentyourcreditcards.com is no longer. However, it’s no longer available now, in part I think due to the questionnaire from credit card companies and credit report agencies.

Anyway, I think this is an interesting idea to rent your credit score to others and that why some companies can make money from it. This post is just an introduction, and I’m not encouraging you to do this business. Again, it doesn’t seem a good idea to me. But I think you can learn something from it.

You may have already known that cancel a credit card may influence your credit score. However, there are sometimes you just have to do it. For example, the annual fee ($125) is going to be charged on American Express Business Rewards Card, and you don’t want to pay that money. Sometimes you find that that card is no longer profitable for you and you want to get another wonderful credit card. You may say this will affect my credit score and I don’t want to try. Ok. The most important things for your credit score is the credit utilization and credit history. If you are not cancelling your first credit card, it won’t hurt you. If you have huge credit limit, it will also be Ok for you credit score. Of course, you have to make a choice by yourself. Here are some tips on how to make your cancelling process profitable.

1). Combine with other existing credit cards.
You can choose to combine the credit card with another credit card from the sane issuer. You can call them up and ask for “moving” the credit limit from this card to another credit card. This approach is very useful for most credit card companies. However, sometimes some ristrcitions may be applied. Sometimes the CSR might give you wrong answers. So if one CSR tells you that he/she can’t do that, just hang up and go for another call. I think it works for most issuers.

2). Switch to another credit card.
If you want to avoid the annual fee of a certain credit card, you can choose to switch this card to another no annual fee card or a card with lower annual fee. It’s especially useful for Citi PP-Elite and Citi PP card. You can get more sign-up bonus from the Elite level card, and waive the annual fee for switching to non-Elite card. You can earn simliar miles for both cards. This approach is also useful for Citi AA series cards.

3). Get bonus for staying.
I have the experience. When I called Chase to close Chase Freedom card, they gave me $10 to stay with that card and transfer credit limit from another card. Usually, when you called to cancel your credit card, you will be transferred to a person who is specially trained to handle this problem. They may give you some incentives to stay with that card. But remeber, don’t get angery. Stay calm and talk to the person kindly. The goal of that person is trying to get you stay with them. You can make profits for them! I hope you can get bonus for staying with them.

When you are ready to cancel a credit card, make sure you have a plan to deal with the credit card company. If you have any experience with this , please feel free to make a comment.

Many friends have got emails from Chase which indicate that they will recieve $5 statement credit when you enroll a credit card account in the paperless statement service between 10/01 and 10/31. To receive the credit, you must stay enrollment until 11/30/2007. You can go through the following link to get enrolled or call the number at the back of your chase credit card and mention “Chase Library Code: OCT2007PPLS“.
Others claim that their emails state that they can get $10 for enrolling paperless statement service. Please check your emails.

We all have known the chase banking bonus—$100 with direct deposit. Here I want to provide another offer from Chase–earn miles from Chase checking account. You can earn 10,000 Continetal bonus miles for opening a chase checking account with direct deposit. If you choose to accept the Chase Continental Airlines Preferred Banking Card for a $65 annual fee, you can get 7,500 bonus miles more. Of course you can choose to get the Chase Continental Airlines Banking Card for only $25 annual fee and get 2,500 bonus miles. If you need Continetal miles, I think it’s really a good deal. you can combine the miles from credit card. With your first purchase, you can get 20,000 bonus miles from Continental Airlines World MasterCard. So how many miles can you get from Chase? If you want to earn 4,000 miles more,please check about KeyBank. The keymiles debit card will give you 4,000 bonues miles.

Here is a tip: when you open the checking account, choose the Preferred Banking Card and don’t use it. Cancel that card in 3 months and you can get the refund of the annual fee. Hmm… you can get 37,500 miles or 32,500 miles from Chase. It’s a good deal. The deal will expire on Dec 31, 2007. It’s useful for those who don’t have time to open a checking account to get $100. For checking account, click here and choose “learn more”, then you can print the coupon. Each time when you click “learn more”, you will getdifferent coupon code. For credit card, see here or see my previous post on mileagerewards card.

According to the report of CNN.COM, Shell Oil Products US (SOPUS) will launch a new credit card incentive and marketing campaign October 1, 2007 to raise awareness among consumers about the benefits of using the Shell Platinum MasterCard, with the objectives of boosting the number of active cardholders and increasing the loyalty of customers to Shell. Benefits of the promotion can be summerized as follows: (good for customers open an account during Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2007)
1). 5% rebate on all Shell gasoline purchases;
2). 5% rebate for 60 days on the first $2,000 in purchases everywhere else—up to $100 rebate;
3). 0% APR on balance transfer for 6 months without any transaction fees;
After 60 days, you will get
1). 5% rebate on all Shell gasoline purchases;
2). 1% rebate on other purchases;
3). Rebates are credited to your statement automatically against future Shell gasoline purchases with this card;
4). No annual fee for the first year, and annual fee will be waived if you make 9 purchases at Shell gasoline pumps.
There are three easy ways to apply for the Shell Platinum MasterCard anytime during the year: Visit your nearest Shell station to pick up an application, log onto http://www.877MYSHELL.com or call 1-877-My-Shell.
As I said in the previous posts, the credit card market is extremely competitive. If you can take the chance, you can get a credit card which maybe hard for you during normal situations.
I think this is especially useful information for those just bought a new card and want to save money on the pumps.
Please also refer to my post about gas card.

From now until January 15, 2008, you can get $10 Costco Cash card if you use American Express Costco Card to pay wireless phone plan automatically. Essentially all the wireless phone service companies allow you to set up automatic payment use a credit card. SO if you have an American Express Costco Card, you can have free $10 which you can sue at Costco stores.

Requirements: Only The True Earnings Card from American Express and Costco, The True Earnings Business Card from American Express and Costco, American Express Costco Cash Rebate Card, American Express Costco Business Card cardmembers are eligible for this promotion. And you have to set up automatic payment for your wireless phone service. To enroll through this link. You can also call 800-794-1308 and mention the code 087890001.