MyCardBlog

I applied for an American Express card (starwood preferred guest card) on Aug 15, 2007. Then several days later, I received a letter from American Express to verify my Annual Income. I contacted my Human Resources Office immediately who sent out a verification letter for me. Then I called back to American Express today. They told me that they contacted the person who wrote the letter twice to verify my information. (Oh my god!) They couldn’t reach the person! Finally they canceled my application. They need the person call American Express to verify my information! I don’t know what they are doing! We are all very busy. I don’t want to knock Naomi’s door and ask her to help me again. I am so sorry I have to give up a perfect card. An official letter is not enough? As some friends said I should reply with “NO WAY!!!”. I am not applying for my mortgage. it’s just a card….The process is so complicated….. No more American Express card from now on. The only way I can get that card is to convert my blue card to Starwood Preferred guest card. sad………………………….^^^^^

Online services provided by amex credit card are now more credible and reliable than ever. The focus of amex is customers having strong credit history. Conversely, the bank of america has launched new bank of america card service for the customers who are facing difficulty in getting regular credit cards due to their bad credit history. Now these customers can apply for credit card for bad credit and they can activate their credit card or manage their accounts by using the bank of america credit card online services. Online resources are available in the form of comparison guides and experts?reviews that help potential customers in making comparison of different american credit cards.

I have a chase freedom card for about 6 months. The initial credit limit is $200. (don’t laugh at me) Then I asked for increasing credit limit twice. Both were got rejected! Emm…I don’t know what happened. Then today I called in to close this account. The credit analyst talked with me for about 30 min. She told me that I could move credit limit with any chase cards. I have chase freedom card, chase amazon.com card and sony card. She said I could move any amount among the 3 cards. Then I moved $1000 from sony card. (I even didn’t activate that card!) The fact is I got 2 hard pulls in my credit report.(sad) I hope I can do it better next time. The credit analyst told me that sometimes the total credit limit I can get is not only base on chase but also consider other credit card issuers. Through the talk I can see the household income is very important. And this is a fact, right? If you have a high household income, you probably will spend more…..then you know what will happen…

update on Sep 20: I forgot to mention that the credit analyst gave me $10 rewards for my lost.

Hilton HHonors Platinum Credit Card from American Express: Earn 10,000 bonus points after your first purchase. Then you can get extra 2,500 points for your first 4 stays at Hilton family hotels. You can get 5 points for every dollar spent at Hilton family hotels and 3 points for every other purchase. 5 points for spending at US supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations and wireless phone services. No annual fee for this card.

Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express: See my previous post.

Citi Hilton HHonors Visa Signature Card: You can get 15,000 bonus points after you first purchase—enough for 2 free stays at Hilton family hotels. You can get 6 points for every dollar spent at Hilton family hotels. 3 points for spending at US supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations and 2 points for every other spend. No annual fee.

Marriott Rewards Visa Signature Card (chase): You can get 15,000 bonus points after your first purchase plus a free night stay certificate upon account opening. Earn 3 points for every dollar spent at Marriott hotels. Get 1 point for other purchases. Annual fee is free for the first year. After that $30 per year.

Priority Club Rewards Visa Signature Card (chase): 15,000 bonus points after your first purchase. 10,000 bonus points for spending 15,000 annually. Get 3 points for every dollar spent at Priority Club hotels and 1 point for other purchases. Annual fee is $29 after first year.

Choice Privileges Visa Card (bank of America): 8,000 bonus points after your first purchase—free one night stay at over 1,000 locations. No annual fee.

TripRewards Visa Platinum Plus MasterCard (bank of America): Earn 13 points for every1 dollar spent at hotels. 2 points for every other purchase. No annual fee.

Discover card: You will get 5% once a year (3 months) for hotel staying.

Bank of America

US Airways Visa Signature Card: 25,000 bonus Dividend Miles after first purchase. Annual fee is $90.

Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Card: 20,000 bonus miles after first purchase. One round-trip $50 companion ticket each year! Annual fee is $75.

Hawaiian Airlines Visa Platinum Card: 10,000 Bonus Hawaiian Miles after first purchase. Up to 50% discount for travel between US Mainland and Hawaiian. Annual fee is $50.

Asiana Visa Platinum Plus: 5,000 bonus miles after first purchase. Annual fee is $80.

Mexiana Airlines Visa Platinum Plus: Get a free companion ticket! Annual fee is $45.

Citi Bank

Citi Platinum Select/AAdvantage(R) World MasterCard (Citi Select/AAdvantage American Express Card): Each card can give you 20,000 bonus miles if you spend $750 in 4 months. Annual fee is $85 after first year.

Citi Gold/AAdvantage(R) World MasterCard (Citi AAdvantage American Express Card): Each card gives you 15,000 bonus miles if you spend $150 in 2 months. Annual fee is 75 after first year.

Citi Bonze/AAdvantage(R) MasterCard: 2,500 bonus miles with no annual fee.

Citi PremierPass Card (Citi PremierPass American Express Card): Each card give you 10,000 bonus miles without annual fee.

Citi PremierPass Card-Elite Level (Citi PremierPass American Express Card-Elite Level): The first card is giving out 20,000 bonus miles if you spend $500 in 2 months with $85 annual fee. The second card give you 15,000 bonus miles and a $75 annual fee.

Discover Card

Discover Miles Card: You will get 12,000 miles for the first year (1000 miles each month). No annual fee.

CapitalOne Card

You really need one card from CapitalOne? I don’t like CapitalOne. If you want ot check it out, plese go to capitalone.com. Kind remind: Don’t touch capitalone! It will pull your credit report from 3 bureaus. You might keeping receiving the ivitations from capitalone, however, the invitations from it mean nothing! Again don’t touch capitalone.

These days I summarized some airline mileage rewards cards. It seems most of airline companies are offering bonus but most are with annual fees after first year. I will post the airline mileage rewards credit cards by company (personal cards).

American Express

GOLD Delta SkyMiles Credit Card: 15,000 bonus miles with your first purchase. Extra 5,000 bonus miles for adding an authorized user. First year fee free, $85 after that.

PLATINUM Delta SkyMiles Credit Card: 20,000 bonus miles with your first purchase. Extra 2,500 bonus miles for adding an authorized user. Annual fee: $135.

Skypoints Credit Card: 7,500 bonus miles after first purchase. Annual fee is waived for the first year, after that $49 per year.

Jet Blue Card from American Express: 5,000 Award Dollars=25 TrueBlue points (200 Award Dollars=1 TrueBlue point and 100 TrueBlue points=1 round trip flight) after first purchase. You will earn 1 reward dollar for every 1 dollar spent. Annual fee is $40.

Blue Sky from American Express: NO bonus! Earn points good for airline, hotel, cruise and more. NO annual fee.

Don’t forget Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card. You can transfer starpoints for airline mileages.

Chase

United Mileage Plus Visa Signature Card: After your first purchase you will receive 20,000 bonus miles, one $25 United Discount Travel Certificate, and one One-way, 1,000 mile, One-class Upgrade Certificate. Annual fee is $60.

SouthWest Airlines Rapid Rewards Visa Signature Card: Get 8 Rapid Rewards credits that’s half way to a round trip flight ticket. You can earn Rapid Rewards credits for balance transfer. Annual fee is $59 for signature card and $39 for classic card. If you apply on SouthWest.com, you can get $20 credit today!

Continetal WorldCard MasterCard: Earn 15,000 OnePass miles after your first purchase. Annual fee is $85 for a World card and $65 for a classic card.

British Airways Visa Signature Card: Earn 15,000 bonus miles with your first purchase. Annual fee is $75.

US Bank

WoldPerks Vias Signature Card: You can get 10,000 bonus miles after first purchase.Annual fee is $55.

I am really tired for typing so many words…..Take a rest and I will be right back for the mext post—Citi and Bank of America.

To be brief, the App-O-Rama (AOR) is a credit card application strategy—submitting many credit card applications in a very short time. And then enjoy the sign-up bonuses, free hotel stays and mileage bonus. At the same time, you can also get the 0% Apr promotion offers from the major credit card issuers by choosing right cards. After transferring the credit lines to your personal bank accounts, you can earn interests. The trick here is the credit card companies won’t report the inquiries immediately after your submissions. So when you apply for credit cards all at a very short time, the card issuers won’t see the inquiries from each others. In this way, you have more chance to get the credit card. You should have to remember four things: find the right cards; have a good credit history; have high credit limits on other cards; prepare to see the consequences from AOR. There is a website help you find the right cards for you and teach you how to get the bonus—www.app-o-rama.com.

It’s also interesting to see the report from the Wall Street Journal. The credit card issuers have noticed this problem. Them are beginning to put higher transfer fees on your balance transfer. The End of Profit from AOR is coming!

I think I should mention that try to use business cards for your AOR! Main reason is: the business card is hidden from you personal credit report! Your credit score cas stay higher adn you can still get good offers from major credit companies even after AOR. And usually business cards offers better 0 Apr promotions and have higher credit limits (business needs money). Please pay attention on Advanta which is a good business card issuer.

Today I am writing about 2% cash back card from HSBC bank. There are two sub-banks from HSBC—Household Bank and Orchard Bank. The two banks issue the 2% cash back card separately. As we can see, most credit cards give up to 1% cash back except for certain purchase. However, the 2% cash back card can give you straight 2% cash back on everything. If you can manage your cards, i.e. use different cards to at certain place, you can get the maximum cash back. You can redeem $25 once your cash reward is higher than $25. The drawback is you can only get $25 even though you have $25.05 cash reward. But it doesn’t matter. You can use them as long as you want to keep them. I should mention that it seems that HH and Orchard are offering credit cards for bad credit. If you have a very good credit history, it’s quite possible that you can’t get the offer.

Following is the link for Orchard issued credit card application links:

https://www.hsbcapply.com/start/orchardbank

In fact this is the pre-application process. After you submit your application information, you can see the offers from the Orchard 2% cash back card. usually you will get: 1. offered card with 2% cash back and without an annual fee; 2. offered card with 2% and with an annual fee; 3. offered card without 2% cash back and annual fee; 4. offered card without 2% and with an annual fee. In some cases, you can get 0% Apr on purchase promotion. I should point out that the first step is not a hard pull in your credit report. It a soft pull. (I have confirmed by myself—I have 20 soft inquiries on Experian from HSBC). Go ahead and try your luck!

Emm… Le’s talk about the credit card from Household Bank.

You can get the similar result from Household Bank by following the link: https://www.hsbcapply.com/start/householdbank?hbpath&

Usually the HH and Orchard will send out invitations by mail. I got the invitation from HH in July and by inoutting th information at www.acceptourcard.com/master or www.acceptourcard.com/visa you will get instantly result. Don’t expect to get high credit limit from HH and Orchard. Even though you have >$10,000 credit limit on other cards, you can still get $750 credit limit from those two cards. It seems they are managed by space monkeys, right??? I got the HH card in July. Then in Auguest, I got the no annual fee with 2% cash back offer from Orchard when I was playing the pre-approve process. But when I submitted the application, I got denied! The reason was I have already got the maxium cards from HSBC! Oh, man! I got only one card! Then back to the middle of Aug, somebody said they got the invitation from HH with the visa version of the 2% cash back card (all I mentioined above is mastercard) and got the card immediately! If we are lucky, we can get the visa version! But who knows!

This post is particularly useful for those spend a lot of money on their gasoline. Hereby I recommend several gasoline credit card from several major card issuers.

1. BP Visa Rewards Card from Chase USA. This card was rated as the “best gasoline credit card of 2006″. It will give you 10% rebate at all BP locations for the first 60 days. At the same time, you can get 4% rebate on all eligible travel and dining. And you can continue to get 5% at BP gas stations after the promotion period and 2% rebate on all other eligible purchase. You can also get 1% rebate on other purchase. This is really a good card for BP users.

2. Discover Open Road Card from Discover. This card can give you 5% cash back on gas pumps and auto maintenance. You can enjoy 0% Apr on purchase and balance transfer for 12 months. I have this card for many months. I really enjoy the cash back from the pumps.(I’m spending more!) If you are not a green card holder or US citizen. You might try your luck. I got this card luckily by talking to a credit analyst. She wanted to do business with me! And she never asked me to fax the green card to her. Emm… Good luck!

3. Citi Driver’s Edge Options Platinum Select MasterCard from Citi Bank. At the first year, you can get 6% rebates on the purchase you make at supermakets, drugstores, and gas stations. After that you can get 3% for the above eligible purchase. Another feature is you can get $1 for every 100 miles you drive! Awesome! When you’re driving, you are making money!!! It’s also qulified for a Citi photocard. You can put your picture and signature at the fromt of this card.

4. American Express SimplyCash Business Credit Card from American Express. This card can give you 5% cash back on gas, office supplies and wireless services. You can still earn 1% cash back on other purchase. This card will automatically give the cash back to your card every month. With this card, you can get open saving at the most business expense. This is an perfect card for business owners. If you want to get it as an individual, put your name as the business name and the SSN as the ITIN.

5. Washington Mutual Platinum MasterCard from Washington Mutual. The feature of this card is you can get 10% on gas purchase for 6 months and up to 5% on everyday purchase. Another attractive feature is you an get free credit score through this card!

6. Visa Platinum Gas Cash Reward Card from Pentagon Fedral Credit Union. You can get 5% cash back on gas purchase and 1.5% cash back on other purchases. The cash back will be credited onto your account every month.

7. TrueEarning Business Card from American Express and Costco. You can get 55 cash back on gas purchase, 3% for dining out and 1% on everywhere else. You can also enjoy the Open Savings program from American Express.

8. Shell MasterCard from Citi Cards. You can get 5% cash back on gas purchase at Shell gas stations.

There are many other cash back cards for gas purchase.

Sinclair Platinum MasterCard from Barclays Bank Delaware, Lukoil Platinum MasterCard from Barclays Bank Delaware, Marathon Pltinum MasterCard from Chase USA, Hess Visa Platinum Card from Chase USA.

Well I hope we can have more cards included in this post. If you have any good ideas please feel free to leave a comment. I appreciate your advice.