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Today I received a pretty nice T-Shirt from Advanta innovative team for blogging about their very special website: www.ideablob.com. (“Small Business Network from Credit Card Issuers“) As I indicated in my previous post, the ideablob is an active online community for entrepreneurs and small business owners. People can submit their ideas to the community and get some comments or advice from community members and advisers. At the same time, every month, the community votes on the best idea. The winner will get $10,000 to help their idea grow. Because of its uniqueness, I’d like to give an brief review on ideablob which I think is of great help to those small business owners.

I like the idea to share the business ideas at a social networking site. Imagine there are 30 million small businesses in the United States, but there is not a good way to bounce their ideas off each other. In a nurturing environment like ideablob, you will have the opinions from many other small business owners and entrepreneurs. They will bring their experience, insights and help to your idea. Compared to other business networks, the ideablob is without the question the most unique and helpful site.

If you are not a business owner yet, you can still participate in the online community and share your opinions with others. This is a great learning process on how to form a great idea and put it into practice. You should always remember that great ideas always come from daily life!

Let’s see previous monthly $10,000 winners and their ideas:

Elizabeth Dehart, Organic Vending Machine, July 2008 Winner

Jessica Hammock, Develop Astronomy Curriculums for Underprivileged Youth, June 2008 Winner

Alex Eaves, STAY VOCAL, May 2008 Winner

Matt Allison, Portable Personal Trainer, April 2008 Winner

John Studer, No Sweat Apparel, March 2008 Winner

Aaron Fleishman, Mashavu, February 2008 Winner

Naomi Bar-Yam, Mothers’ Milk Bank of New England, January 2008 Winner

Chris Elam, Misnomer Dance Theater, December 2007 Winner

Marci Schankweiler, Crossing the Finish Line, November 2007 Winner

Tom Krieglstein, Red Rover, October 2007 Winner

If you are an Advanta cardholder like Matt, you will receive another 1,000,000 bonus rewards points which are equal to $10,000！That’s $20,000 total bonus!

How can you participate in the online community?

First, anyone over 18 can participate in the community. No matter what’s your job! All you need is your passion and wisdom! Once you register and activate your membership, you can submit your ideas (no limit!) and leave comments on other ideas. For official Q&A, you can go to here.

According to Jennifer at Advanta innovative team, ideablob has created an RSS feed of ideas from their system. This is very considerate! You can now choose to subscribe to specific industries ideas or tags.

I seldom mention Advanta in this blog because its customers are generally small business owners. Advanta is one of the nation’s largest credit card issuers in the small business market. The two credit cards: Advanta Life-of-Balance Platinum Business Card and Advanta Platinum Business Card with Rewards Options are my top rated business cards. If you are a small business owner, you can apply for one of those.

Most of us may be not interested in store cards. Because they often don’t provide great sign-up bonuses. Some store cards even only offer cash back or other rewards programs for shopping at their stores. Not at all places! However, since they have their own costumers, credit card issuers are willing to work with they to promote credit cards to their customers. GE Money, one of six major operating divisions of General Electric, is one of the largest issuers of private label (store) credit cards for a number of U.S. retailers including Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, IKEA, and Lowe’s etc. Last June, GE Money teamed up with eBay and introduced the latest credit card product-eBay MasterCard.

Right now, if you apply for a eBay MasterCard and get approved, you can get 15% off (up to $25) on all purchases with eBay MasterCard until September 2, 2008. This new promotion is only valid if you apply and are approved for the eBay MasterCard between August 1, 2008 and September 2, 2008. 15% discount only qualifies on purchases made between August 1, 2008 and September 2, 2008, using eBay MasterCard. Qualifying purchases may be made on eBay, or everywhere else that accept MasterCard. A 15% credit on the qualifying transaction(s) (up to $25.00) will appear on your eBay MasterCard statement in the month following the transaction(s).

This eBay MasterCard will give you 1 reward point for every dollar charged on your eBay MasterCard at eBay. Of course, reward points are also earned with everyday purchases wherever MasterCard is accepted. Then, you can redeem your points for anything on eBay. Sometimes, you can even get promotional offers from eBay.

Other amazing features of this eBay MasterCard are:

• You can choose your card from 3 possible card designs at application.
• You can choose to add your eBay user ID to this card.
• The card also features Safe Shipping, which protects them if their item never arrives.
• The eBay MasterCard will be automatically linked to your PayPal account since you have to log in your PayPal account to submit your application.

The promotion page can be found through this link.

Here is how the application process goes according to GE Money.

When you apply, you will first be considered for an eBay MasterCard, which can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. If you don’t qualify for an eBay MasterCard, you will then be considered for a PayPal Buyer Credit account, which can be used on eBay and anywhere PayPal is accepted. New PayPal Buyer Credit Accounts and existing eBay MasterCard accounts are not eligible for the 15% back offer.

Personally, I think the credit cards from GE Money is not so attractive to general consumers. There are other retail credit cards out there offering better rewards and sign-up bonuses. For example, the new Amazon.com rewards visa card issued by Chase is offering $30 bonus plus 6% cash back for the first 90 days! The Buy.com platinum visa card is also offering $30 bonus.

Finally, get a store card might be helpful to your credit score. This may bring diversity to your credit report.

This Everyday Rewards Visa Card issued by National City Bank is one of my favorite rewards card. I use this card essentially everyday. I have also mentioned this card in “My Favorite Rewards Credit Cards” post. I forgot to mention that this card was selected as one of Kiplinger’s Best of the Cash Back Card. I personally use this card together with Chase Freedom Card a lot. The default APR of this card is also among national average. So this is an ideal cash back card for daily use.

This Everyday Rewards Visa Card is designed for those with average credit who would like to earn cash back on everyday purchases. You use this card for everyday purchases and accumulate rebates every month. Once your rebate accumulated in your account is more than $100, they will automatically send rebate check to you with your monthly statement. Or you can call them up and ask them to deposit the rebate check as a credit in your account.

How about the cash back compared to other rewards cards?

You can earn a certain percentage cash back on each purchase depending on where you use your card.

4% cash back on gasoline at the pump—up to $250 in eligible monthly net purchases. Although there are many 5% gas rebate card out there, 4% cash back is not that bad. Because you have many other rewards categories from which you can still earn cash back. $250 is enough for most drivers (but not business travelers).

3% cash back on cinema and movie rentals—up to $150 in eligible monthly net purchases. If you watch or rent movies a lot, this might be a right card for you. Or if you want to get more for what you spent, you can try the Citi mtvU Visa Card which gives 5 thankyou points for every dollar spent at theaters and video stores.

2% cash back on groceries, restaurants, and fast food—up to $750 in eligible monthly net purchases. This is why I love this card. With a single credit card, you can maximum you cash back from wherever you spend. You don’t have to carry many credit card in your wallet and wondering which card to use at checkout. You can even get 2% cash back from Wal-Mart (categorized at grocery).

Of course, you can earn up to 1% cash back on everything else. (only 0.25% for the first $10,000)

In addition to the rewards program, cardholders can also get up to $25,000 in travel accident insurance, auto rental insurance, and other varies travel and emergency assistance services. There is no annual fee associated with this card.

To apply for this card, you’d better go to your local branch and submit your personal information there. In this way, National City can make a decision very soon. If you submit your application online, you would probably have to wait for about several days. Their online application system seems to not make instant approvals.

Another important note for international students: If you have a checking or savings account at National City Bank, you can talk to the banker and ask him/her to apply for this card for you. According to what I know, many international students can get this card without SSN.

Today I received a credit card invitation from WaMu card services. The name of the card is WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card which offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase. I have already had a WaMu Visa Platinum Card on hand which provides free credit score monthly based on my TransUnion credit report every month (The review on this card can be found here.) . So this card is not so attractive to me (not to mention the 7000 points). However, this seems to be a new credit card product from WaMu which is currently the 9th largest credit card issuer in US. I want to briefly introduce this card here.

The basic benefits of this card

This WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card actually is previous Providian Real Rewards Card. As many of you may have already received this card, this card offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase which can be redeemed as a $50 gift card. If you request a balance transfer at the card application, you can receive a 0% fixed APR on purchases until January1, 2010! That’s equal to 18 months 0% APR on purchases. There is no minimum amount required to do the balance transfer, so if you can transfer $100 and then pay off it in 1 or 2 months, you lose nothing but a small amount of interests. However, the 0% APR on purchases is really sweet. Besides the 0% APR, you can also get 1 point for every 1 dollar spent on this card. After you accumulate a certain amount of points, you can redeem them for a gift card from BestBuy, Target, Macy’s, Hertz, Circuit City and so on.

What else?

This is a Visa Platinum Card, so you can enjoy the built-in benefits from Visa Network like $0 liability for unauthorized charges, free auto rental collision damage waiver and many others. Plus, this card also provide free online access to your FICO credit score like other credit cards from WaMu. With WaMu credit card, you can receive automatic credit line reviews every 6 months. If you don’t make any mistakes with your WaMu credit card, your credit limit will increase automatically. These benefits seem so tempting.

However, I also receive some complaints from my readers about WaMu. He told me that his WaMu Platinum Card was closed due to the following three reasons:

• Inactivity for the last several months
• Serious delinquency
• Too many accounts recently opened

My answer is: If you use your WaMu credit card regularly and manage your credit in a normal way, you can enjoy the benefits brought to you from WaMu credit card. Anyway, if you don’t have a credit card from WaMu, you can try this one or maybe other credit card products from WaMu.

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.

American Express and Costco launched the TrueEarnings Card on September 1st, 2004. This card is not new any more since most Costco shoppers have this card. (Costco only accepts American Express Cards.) The reason for this post is to briefly introduce this card. Because I know some of you are not aware that there is a very good credit card for traveling and dinning out.

This card offers:

• 3% cash back at all gas stations
• 3% cash back at all restaurants
• 2% cash back for traveling (including lodging, airline, car rental, travel agency atc.)
• 1% cash back on essentially everything else

This card is very attractive because it offer 3% for dining out. (Of course, there is another student card offering 5% cash back on dining—Citi mtvU Card.) But don’t forget the 3% cash back on gasoline! What makes me love this card more is American Express offers 2% cash back on traveling. If you want to focus on a single credit card and include all of the cash back together, this is a decent card to shot. At least this card is better for other general 1% cash back cards.

This card also features no annual fees. But you have to have a Costco membership to apply for this card. You cash back is awarded to you annually no matter how much you have accumulated on that card, i.e. there is no minimum requirement to redeem your cash back. All the cash back will be sent to you as a Costco coupon which can then be cashed out or used to buy any merchandise at any Costco warehouse.

The business version for this card is also available. The only difference here is the business version offers 5% cash back on gasoline. If you don’t actually have a business, you can refer to this post and check out how to apply for a business card without a real business.

In conclusion, the TrueEarnings Card from American Express is good for everyday purchases. And of course, it’s an ideal card for Costco members.

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

Recently, I received a lot of invitations from WaMu about their new credit card offers. This time they are offering 12,000 bonus points after first purchase which is equal to $100 gift card. I have already had a WaMu visa platinum card and have been using it for about 5 months. It’s time to write a review for this card.

The most attractive feature of this card is you have free access to your FICO credit score with this card. They also promise to automatically review your account for every 6 months and increase your credit limit if you keep great performance with your account. Let’s me briefly introduce the free FICO credit score feature.

After you set up the online account, you can see “FICO Credit Score” on the up right of the screen. Click that text, you will then be directed to your credit profile. Here you can see your Credit Report Snapshot which is provided by TransUnion. This snapshot will provide important information about your credit report. And that information is enough to know your credit profile.

You can track your credit score by using the FICO score tracking which will provide your credit score month by month. Another great feature of their credit score service is you can see find out the primary reason why your score is XXX. They also provide FICO Score Simulator to let you know what actions are needed in order to improve your credit score. Wonderful!

As I mentioned before, currently I’m using the National City Identity Protect Service which costs me $8.95 every month. Although I can access to my credit report from 3 credit bureaus every 24 hours, they don’t provide official FICO credit score. Instead, they provide FAKO credit score. With this WaMu card, I don’t need the service any longer.

WaMu Visa Platinum Card will also occasionally provide special promotion to you. For example, they will send you a mail saying you can get 10% cash back gasoline purchases in the next 90 days! They will also send you some coupons together with your monthly bill. It’s a sweet card!