MyCardBlog

It is strange to see so many credit card issuers are adding more credit card products recently. The credit card delinquency rate was up 11% during last quarter. US Bank just launched a new business credit card-the U.S. Bank Cash Rewards Business Platinum Card. This credit card is said to be a good credit card which offers businesses a new way to save while manage their expenses.

The U.S. Bank Cash Rewards Business Platinum Card offers triple rewards (3%) cash back on cellular, gas and office supply purchases and one percent cash back on all the other purchases. There is no cap on the amount of cash rewards you can earn on this card and  the cash rewards in your account never expires. Cash rewards can be redeemed once you reach a $25 threshold and in additional increments of $25 thereafter.

There is no annual for this card or if you make at least one purchase with this card (otherwise you will be charged $25). You can add more authorized users in your account and they all earn cash back! Plus, you’ll receive an annual bonus equal to 25% of your prior year’s Cash Rewards on your account anniversary date.

U.S. Bank actually has a chart on their website to show you how much you can save with the new U.S. Bank Cash Rewards Business Platinum Card.

If you are a business owner, I strongly suggest you use this great cash rewards business card. They only accept applications in local U.S. Bank branches.

The U.S. Bank all offer other great business credit cards:

The U.S. Bank Select Rewards Business Platinum Credit Card

The U.S. Bank Travel Rewards Business Platinum Credit Card

The U.S. Bank Business Platinum Credit Card

WorldPerks Visa Business Card

SKYPASS Business Credit Card

Citi just launched a new credit card product days ago-the new Citi Forward Card. This credit card is called “A credit card designed to meet the specific financial needs and interests of today’s consumers. Specially built to help consumers maintain healthy credit, Citi Forward is the only credit card that lowers the purchase interest rate by a quarter percent when cardmembers use credit wisely and rewards them with ThankYou Points each billing period for paying on time and staying under the credit line.” I am very tempting after knowing more about this new Citi Forward Card.

This Citi Forward Card is a new credit card product issued by Citi by partnership with MySpace. The information about this credit card can be found at www.myspace.com/citiforward.

This credit card offers up to 11,000 bonus thankyou points for new credit card members. Here is how:

• 6,000 bonus points after $50 in purchases are made within 3 months of account opening.
• 5,000 bonus points when you sign up for paperless statements within 3 months of account opening.
• 5 Reward points for every $1 you spend on dining, books, movies and music. 1 reward point for every $1 you spend on other purchases. (It seems similar to the Citi mtvU Card.)
• Up to a 2% purchase APR reduction when you make a purchase, stay under your credit line and pay on time 3 billing periods in a row.
• 100 bonus points each billing period when you pay on time and stay under you credit line.
• No Annual Fee.
• 0% APR for 6 months on purchases and balance transfers.
• 4 beautiful card designs to choose from.

The first 6,000 and 5,000 bonus points seem not difficult to get. $50 purchase and signing up paperless statement is a piece of cake for any of us. What I like most is the 5 thankyou points for the money spents on dining, books, movies and music. This is similar to the rewards program offered by the Citi mtvU Card which is the best student credit card out there in the credit card market. Now it tells me that the Citi Forward Card is another great student card offered by Citi.

Citi Forward includes free membership in Citi’s ThankYou Rewards Network. You can redeem your accumulated thankyou points for millions of items at thankyou.com.

More details can be found at http://www.citiforward.com.

In today’s times magazine, I found that there is a promotion page about Discover More Card. I personally like the discover more card very much and would like to recommend it to everyone here. Not to mention there is a $100 sign up bonus on this card right now. You can earn 5% cash back on selected categories every 3 months. If you are looking for new credit cards, you should consider this discover more card.

The offer includes:

$100 cash back bonus when you make $500 in purchase on this card within 3 months of account opening.

5% cash back bonus in popular categories which will change every 3 months.

Plus you can still earn up to 1% cash back on all other purchases

There is no annual fee with this card.

0% APR on balance transfer until March 2010.

For apply, go to www.apply.Discovercard.com and use the invitation code: DBPD. Or you can call 800-206-4960 to apply for this card.

Please remember that you have to apply for this card before May 27, 2009.

A picture about this offer is attached here.

Here I want to make a detailed description of the cash back bonus offer from Discover Card.

Full 5% CashBack Bonus on category purchases throughout the year should by signing up for each program. You have to go to discovercard.com to sign up your credit card every 3 months to be eligible to get the 5% bonus.

After you spend more than $3000 on this card, you can start to earn 1% cash back on every purchases. For the first $1500, you can only get 0.25% cash back and 0.5% for the other $1500.

But if you redeem gift card at discover card rewards program, you can actually get more cash back. For example, you can get $25 gift card for $20 or $50 gift card for $40. It depends on which card you choose.

I receive a post card from American Express which indicates that I could earn 25,000 bonus American Express membership rewards points for opening an account at Fidelty and make required deposit. I think this is a good chance to earn membership points which only requires an easy transfer of your money to Fidelity account and then you can close it after you get the bonus points.

The massage on the post card is very short:

Earn 25,000 membership rewards bonus points from American Express when you invest $50,000 or more in a new Fidelity non-retirement brokerage account before May 1, 2009.

To open your account, go to Fidelity.com/bonuspoints, or call 800-814-5165.

Fine print:

Bonus points offer valid 10/15/08-9/30/09. To be eligible to earn Membership Rewards bonus points, you must be enrolled in the Membership Rewards program (”Program”) at the time of registration for the offer. Offer available to individuals who open a retail Fidelity brokerage account and who meet the following eligibility requirements. New accounts must be opened within 30 days of registering for the offer. Initial and subsequent deposits totaling $50,000 must be made within 90 days of Fidelity account opening to qualify for bonus points. Your Fidelity account must remain open with the qualifying funding for six months from the date that the qualifying assets are first received in the eligible account. Offer is not transferable or valid in conjunction with any other Fidelity promotional offer. Bonus points will be credited to your Program account within 10-12 weeks of the qualifying activity. Individual terms and conditions, as well as annual Program fees, apply for certain American Express Card products. For more information on the Program, visit membershiprewards.com/terms or call 1-800-AXP-EARN. Bonus ID-1785.

I remember that Fidelity offered bonus AAdvantage Miles and Unites Airline Miles for opening eligible accounts at Fidelity. My friends have already opened an account at Fidelity and got the bonus miles. If you do have an account at Fidelity and want to earn some bonus points from American Express, this is a good opportunity for you.

Under current economic situation, Citi and American Airlines AAdvantage program is still offering 25,000 bonus miles for signing up their Citi Platinum Select/AAdvantage® World MasterCard, or Citi Select/AAdvantage® American Express Card or CitiBusiness/AAdvantage MasterCard. If you want to get a Citi credit card, you still have the chance to get 25,000 AAdvantage miles.

The features of the credit cards are:

As a cardmember, you’ll benefit from:

• 25,000 AAdvantage^® bonus miles after $750 in purchases within the first 4 months of cardmembership – enough for a travel award
• No annual fee for the first 12 months
• One AAdvantage^® mile for every dollar spent on purchases
• No blackout dates on AAdvantage^® award travel

Special benefits for Citi Select^® / AAdvantage^® American Express^® cardmembers available through the entré^® program:

• Access to the Premium Hotel Program, which includes special offers such as room upgrades, early check-in, late check-out and more
• Car rental, cruise, spa offers and more

CitiBusiness^® / AAdvantage^® cardmembers can also enjoy:

• Savings on an Admirals Club^® membership or renewal
• Additional employee cards at no extra cost

I was shocked when I received this message! American Express would like to pay its customers (targeted) for closing their accounts and pay off the balances before April 30, 2009. If you receive a mail from American Express with RSVP code, you can go to americanexpress.com/prepaidcardoffer to register your account and get the $300 prepaid gift card!

It is understandable that customers are not willing to spend money under current economic situation. More customers are not able to pay off balances. It is reported that only a small number of American Express solicited customers can receive the invitation and close their accounts.

The program is called “Simplify Your Finances” which can be reached at here.

From the website:

Pay off your entire balance between March 1, 2009 and April 30, 2009, and we will send you a $300 value prepaid card¹ to thank you. Enrolling in this promotion will automatically cancel your account.

You have to enroll in this program by Feb. 28, 2008.

If you are an active member of the American Express membership rewards program, please make sure that you have redeemed all the points.

This definitely is a great message for most Citi credit card holders. Citi just launched a gift card design contest for its members with thankyou network. This event is sponsored by Citi ThankYou Network which is the headquarter for redeeming Citi gifts. The winner of this contest will also have the chance to spread their own design to the people all over the world. Since citi thankyou network members will take the gift card in their wallet.

The most exciting part of this contest is as follows (According to the report by PRNewswire):

The winning design will become the face of a ThankYou Gift Card redeemable by millions of ThankYou Members nationwide. The winner will join the company of internationally renowned artist and designer Karim Rashid, who designs the current ThankYou Network gift cards which will continue to be available in the rewards collection. In addition to having his or her design on a gift card, the top winner of the contest also will receive 100,000 ThankYou Points.

The contest submission period runs from February 12, 2009 through 11:00 p.m. EST on April 11, 2009, during which time you can submit their designs through a special email address provided on ThankYou.com.

Three finalists will be selected by judges who are Citi employees, and designs will be posted on ThankYou.com. Between May 1, 2009 and May 30, 2009, all Citi thankyou network members will be invited to vote for their favorite design.

The prizes are really good, at least seems to me:

If you have any idea on how to design gift card, you should give yourself a chance to win 100,000 thankyou points (equal to $1,000).

The WaMu Visa Platinum Credit Card was very popular among credit card members due to its unique free FICO credit score check. Actually, the credit card was previously owned by Providian. Now, since WaMu was acquired by Chase, all financial products provided by WaMu will be merged to Chase system. In this way. the bad news is no more FREE FICO credit score will be displayed.

I believe all WaMu credit card members have received the email sent out by WaMu titled “Important information about your credit card online access”. There will be many new important changes in the near future about the WaMu credit cards. All online access to WaMu credit cards will be moved to Chase online on March 9, 2009, including credit card account management, online payments and email alerts.

The most important point in the email is “However, please note that your free FICO credit score will no longer be displayed, and only 3 months of transaction history will be available online.” If you wish to access your historical transaction information currently available online, you will need to save, download, or print it by March 1, 2009.

Online access to wamucards.com will be unavailable from March 4-8, 2009. The new website for WaMu credit card members is www.chase.com/wamucards.

But actually all the online credit card account features keep the same:

Your credit card account number will remain the same.
Just keep using your WaMu card until it expires; we’ll send you a new Chase card before the expiration date.

You can reach us at the same toll-free number.
Continue to call the phone number on the back of your card whenever you need help from a Service Representative.

You’ll pay your credit card the same way you always have.
Simply mail your payment to the mailing address on your statement. Or, beginning March 9, you can pay by phone, online or at any of our Chase or WaMu branches. We’ll send you a new payment address when your Chase card arrives.

From my points of view, there is no need to keep the WaMu credit card since the free FICO credit score feature will be no longer available.