MyCardBlog

We are talking about the best credit cards all the time. Actually, there is no definitive answer to which is the best credit card. Different people have different spending styles. One might be interested in playing games, one might be interested in buying books, movies or even musics, and some might want to save money on gas. The key to get the best credit card is to choose the card that fits your spending styles.

Following is a list of best credit card offers from Kiplinger.com. Let’s see what they pick as the best credit cards.

BEST FOR CASH REBATES

American Express Blue Cash

I have a review of this card. The blue cash card from American Express is a really good cash back credit card. It’s one of the top rated cash back credit cards by me. Kiplinger.com rated this credit card as the “Best Cash Rebate Card” in 2006. “Everyday Purchases” made at drugstores, gas stations, and U.S. supermarkets earn up to a 5% rebate, and all other purchases earn up to a 1.5% rebate ($6,500 threshold). You will see how much you can save by using this card.

BEST GAS CARD

Chase BP Visa

This Chase BP Visa Card is an excellent gas card in terms of the rate it offers. 5% cash back at BP stores anywhere in the United States at any time. At the fist 60 days, you can double your cash back. Plus you can earn cash back for dinning and traveling. There are other great gas rebate cards out there. For example, Discover Open Road Card is a good substitute. For more tips on choosing a gas card, you can read the 5 Top Rated Gas Rebate Cards.

BEST TRAVEL REWARDS

Simmons First Visa Platinum Travel Rewards

This is a little surprise to me. I didn’t hear anything about the Simmons First Bank and the credit card products offered by Simmons First. Anyway, it looks like a great travel card but without any sign up bonus. Usually, travel credit cards offer some sign up bonus. Like the Citi PremierPass Card Elite Level is offering 20,000 bonus points. But you need only 22,000 points for a coach ticket, worth up to $325, to any destination within the 48 contiguous states. You earn one point per dollar spent with this no-fee credit card.

BEST LOW RATES

Wells Fargo Prime Rate

Wells Fargo is a not a big credit card issuer in US. But this credit card product is indeed a great offer to American people. As Kiplinger.com describes: “Cardholders who carry a monthly balance will appreciate this card for its 5% interest rate and $19 annual fee. The rate will never exceed prime, the rate at which banks lend to their best customers. Free alerts remind you when your bill is due and notify you if you’re approaching your credit limit.”

Everyone will have different opinions on which credit card is the best one. Will you share your opinion with us?

Most of Citi credit card members enrolled in the Citi Credit Protector Program. But it seems there are few people forget to cancel the Citi Credit Protector after receiving the promotion bonus. (Free Digital Picture Frame and $50 Visa Gift Card) Of course, the “few people” include myself. This post is to remind you to cancel the Citi Credit Protector because whenever there is a balance on your monthly statement, you can to pay $85 cents per $100 balance.

I enrolled in the Citi Credit Protector program early last November (for my Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard for College Students). And then I didn’t use that card for a while until recently I used that card to buy a round trip flight ticket. After the statement came out, I realized that there is a fee charged by the Citi Credit Protector. Thus I called them up and requested to cancel the service. After about several minutes, I was able to convince the customer service to cancel my Citi Credit Protector program.

The hot line for the Citi Credit Protector is 1-888-592-7344. This is a special line for Citi Credit Protector, if you call them through this number it will get you faster connection. Of course, you can use general Citi customer service number 800-347-4934 and them will transfer you to the Citi Credit Protector Program.

Just as any service cancellation process, the customer service representative will try to persuade you to stay in the program. The first time will just be a reiteration of program benefits, and make sure you aware of your benefits. Later on she/he will offer some small money of maybe lower your rate to try to keep you in the program. The cancellation process will be very simple if you insist to cancel your Citi Credit Protector Program (No, thank you!). And you have good reason to do so because in the agreement it clearly indicates that you can cancel Citi Credit Protector at any time for any reason.

You can cancel at any time simply by calling 1-888-592-7344 or in writing to Credit Protector Processing Center, at P.O. Box 901016, Fort Worth, TX 76101-2016. We may cancel your enrollment for any reason, but we will provide you with at least 30 days written notice of cancellation (except for cancellations based on account status).

Remember, whenever there is a balance shows up on your month statement you will be charged a fee of 85 cents for every $100 balance.

Today a reader sent me an email about “Verified by Visa” service. He obviously didn’t know anything about the Verified by Visa and thought it was a phishing site. I think it is necessary to talk about what the Verified by Visa is for and how it works. My friend actually placed an order at Newegg.com to purchase the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 digital camera and he didn’t know what the Verified by Visa was, as a result, he placed the order twice at Newegg.com.

So what is Verified by Visa?

Verified by Visa is free to Visa cardholders and was developed to help prevent unauthorized use of Visa cards for online shopping. The cardholders can choose a password at through activation of the Verified by Visa service. Only the cardholders remember the password. Thus Verified by Visa protects Visa cards with personal passwords, giving cardholders reassurance that only they can use their Visa cards online. Once your Visa card is activated, your card number will be recognized whenever it’s used at participating online stores (Click here to see the participating stores.). A Verified by Visa window will automatically appear and your Visa card issuer will ask for your password. You’ll enter your password to verify your identity and complete your purchase.

For the online stores that are not participated in the Verified by Visa service, you can use your Visa card as normal.

The Verified by Visa is an attempt by Visa to reduce online fraud and identity theft. However, there are some problems associated with it. Because the Verified by Visa step comes as a pop-up window and general shoppers usually think pop-up windows are from phishing sites. Actually, if you look at the domain of the pop-up window, you will find that the domain is not from the site where the user is shopping, not from the card issuing bank, or visa.

Actually, Verified by Visa is a 3-D Secure protocol which is an XML-based protocol used as an added layer of security for online credit and debit card transactions. The 3-D Secure protocol was developed by Visa to improve the security of Internet payments and offered to customers as what we now know Verified by Visa service.

How does Verified by Visa work?

• Activate your Verified by Visa service in the Verified by Visa program now or while shopping online. You have to provide your visa card account number and last 4 digits of your social security number along with other information. It’s easy and only takes a few moments to activate your card. You can do it right here on the secure Visa site or when prompted during the checkout process at one of our participating online merchants. Either way, your information is protected. (link to activate the service: https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partner=default)
• Shop at participating online merchants with Verified by Visa symbol.
• Use your Visa credit card or debit card at the checkout and then put in your Verified by Visa password. Once your password is recognized by the transaction system, your order will be successfully placed.
• There is no charge — Verified by Visa is free to Visa cardholders.

Verified by Visa used to pop up at many online merchants which participate in the program. Right now, this service seems not so popular and not all online retailers are using it. But the Verified by Visa still is an important and effective way to reduce your risk when you place an order at the websites that out of US. Many payment network might still require you to use Verified by Visa service.

It is no doubt that you can use your credit card for an international trip. But some of you may not know that many credit card issuers will charge a certain amount of transaction fees for using your credit card aboard. The fees may be up to 8% depending on the credit card terms. So before you leave, you’d better read your credit card agreement from your credit card issuer carefully and find out the one with lowest transaction fees.

Hereby I did a little research and summarized the transaction fees from many US credit card issuers to help you choose out the best credit card for an international trip. Another thing you should be aware is your credit card account might be frozen by your credit card issuer sometimes due to fraud prevention.

Foreign transaction fees are charges added to the cost of purchases made in a foreign currency. The card issuers said the cost covers the service of translating the price of the purchase into U.S. dollars, which is the amount reflected on a billing statement. The foreign transaction fees are varied for different credit card issuers and different types of credit cards.

Whenever you make a purchase at foreign countries with a Visa or MasterCard, you will be automatically charged by Visa or MasterCard Networks. Card issuers will also add some fees for foreign transactions. For example, Chase Sony Card will charge you 3% transaction fee for an purchase made outside US. This 3% includes the above mentioned 1% fee charge by Visa Network. But there is an exception which makes it a very good credit card for using internationally. All Capital One credit cards will get 1% refund for any transactions made using a foreign currency or outside US. The HSBC Household/Orchard Bank credit card with 2% cash back used to not charge additional 2% fees. So with 2% cash back and 1% transaction fee, you can still get 1% cash back for using that credit card aboard. All American Express cards will be charged 2% transaction fee. Discover Card will not charge foreign transaction fees for your purchases made using foreign currency or outside US. So all Discover Cards are good choice for using aboard. The only downside for using Discover Card is they don’t have too many networks outside US. You can only us Discover card at limited countries. While Visa and MasterCard are widely accepted in the word.

Some picks of credit cards for international use:

Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards Card (Or Capital One No Hassle Miles Rewards Card): There is no annual fee associated with this card. There is also no foreign transaction fee for using aboard. You can accumulate cash rewards for using this card everywhere in the world. You can choose either the cash version or mile version.

Discover More Card: There is no foreign transaction fee for using aboard. You can also get rewards for shopping everywhere in the world. No annual fee. If you are a student, you should choose the Discover Student Card which is specifically designed for students. You may also consider the Discover Miles Card for accumulating miles. But you should expect the situation that you can’t use your Discover Card on an international trip.

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 posted some similar posts in the past several months. The purpose of this post is to keep you updated about the latest sign-up bonus opportunities from major US credit card issuers. 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.

I was not aware that your driver’s license can be used as a debit card until my friend Jon told me the trick today. I think it’s a very interesting idea to use our driver’s licenses as a debit card. So I did some research and found out that this idea was already put in practice for more than one year by National Payment Card LLC. And people in 24 states in the United State can use their driver’s licenses as debit card and use them at the pumps or anywhere else.

National Payment Card LLC is said to be the only Non-Bank service provider whose ACH Decoupled Debit platform has been designed exclusively for the gas station /convenience store industry. Their patented technology can turn existing cards, such as driver’s licenses, loyalty cards or membership cards, into private label debit cards. What’s a brilliant idea!

Currently, their business focus is on the gas stations. They want to spread the idea that a driver’s license can be used at the gas stations. The reason is very simple, “It’s one of the only markets price-sensitive enough that a few pennies off can count as a serious incentive for consumers.”As I mentioned previously, there are 24 states in the United States where people can register their driver’s license and use it at the pump just as a general debit card with a pre-selected PIN. (The 24 states are highlighted in yellow in the following map.)

How does this work?

First, you have to register your driver’s license at www.rollbackprice.com. You have to provide your name, address, driver’s license number, birth date, bank information and a PIN.

After confirmation, you are eligible to use your driver’s license by swiping your driver’s license (linked directly, via the existing magnetic stripe, to your bank account), and entering a PIN.

The transaction is not processed by general network but via National Payment Card network which can substantially reduce the cost for many gas station owners. And this is why many gas stations will give you a certain amount discount for using the driver’s license at the pump. (Debit cards and credit cards are forms of payment that carry large merchant fees from the banking and credit card industry. These charges are  actually indirectly charge more money for the consumer.)

I would say this is really a great move in the payment industry. The only drawback is you can only use it at the gas station right now, although they want to promote the technique to other places in the long run. If we can use the payment card at other places, we might save a lot of money each year.

I personally have 12 credit cards which are issued from major credit card issuers at the United States. My credit cards are from Citi, Chase, American Express, Discover, HSBC, WaMu, Bank of America, National City, and a local credit union. Among the above mentioned credit card issuers, I like American Express and Discover best. This is exactly fit with the result from the J. D. Power credit card satisfaction study. Then the question is which credit card issuer I hate most? The answer is Citi!

Following are some funny stories between my friends with Citi.

1. Citi will reduce your credit limit as a way of saying “thank you”!

My friend Jon has a Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard for College Students for about 3 years. The credit limit was $12,000 before Citi reduced it. He didn’t use it for a while and then received a mail from Citi several days ago regarding his new credit limit of this credit card.

Congratulations, because of your excellent history with us, we’re increasing your credit line to $6,700. It’s our way of saying thank you.

Then he checked his online account and indeed the credit line was reduced to $6,700. Next time when you receive a similat mail from Citi, you will not be surprised. This is a special way to say “thank you” from Citi.

2. Citi will reject your online application 4 times and then send you a new credit card!

This is a really funny story between my friend Dave with Citi. He applied for the Citi mtvU Platinum Select Visa Credit Card online at Citicards.com and didn’t get instant approval. He then received the first rejection letter from Citi regarding this application after one week. OK, he knew his application was turned down by the time he received the letter from Citi. However, Citi sent another 3 letters to him regarding the application. All right, Dave was thinking:” I know my application was turned down, why the hell you sent me so many letters?”

However, after some days, he received a new Citi mtvU card in the mail with a congratulation! Funny?

3. Citi will close your already closed credit cards twice!

This is a true story from my friend Jenny. She has a Citi CashReturns MasterCard for about 4 years. She closed the CashReturns card after the 3-month 5% cash back promotion ended. Last month, she received a letter from Citi stating that her CashReturns card was closed by Citi. The funny thing is Citi sent her another letter indicating that her CashReturns card was closed. One letter is not enough to let the customers know that her/his credit card is closed?

4. Citi will close all your credit cards (all means including your already closed credit cards) in one day!

Chris has a lot of credit cards like I do. He currently has 3 Citi credit cards: Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card, Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network and the Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network. He previously owned many Citi credit cards for taking advantage of the balance transfer offers and sign-up bonuses etc, although he closed many of them including (some were closed more than one year): Citi PremierPass Card-Elite Level, Citi Driver’s Edge Options Platinum Select Card, Citi AT&T Rewards Card, Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MasterCard, Citi CashReturns Card, and Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard for College Students. Two weeks ago, he received 9 letter from Citi regarding his all 9 credit cards. All of letters informed Chris that his credit cards were closed by Citi.

This is a very horrible experience. You can’t imagine that Citi will do this thing until you experience it by yourself.

Of course, similar experience will also happen from other credit card issuers like Chase. They increased the credit limit of my Chase Freedom Card from $1,500 to $1,800 and kept sending me email and mails about this really “exciting” news. So far, I have received 3 email and 3 mails about the $300 credit limit increase.

If you have any funny stories with credit card issuers, you can leave your comments below.

Everyone knows that current American economy is under a very bad situation. There are a lot of economists, politicians, financial advisors and bloggers talking about how the Wall Street finance crisis will hit our main street. The truth is the failure of Wall Street has already hit our main street. You would never believe that Lehman Brothers, AIG, WaMu and Merill Lynch will fall down some years ago. The question is how the finance crisis will affect our average Americans?

Based on current credit card and banking news, I think there are 5 aspects that the finance crisis will be directly related to your personal finance.

1. More Banking Promotions: this has been proved to be true! Before WaMu was acquired by JP Morgan Chase & Co, it was running 5% CD promotion. The 5% 1-year CD rate is pretty high considering the current banking status. Bank of America is offering $100 sign up bonus for opening a MyAccess Checking Account. Wells Fargo Bank is offering $50 bonus for its new customers. Chase is currently offering $125 to open a free checking account with direct deposit. (More banking deals.) The reason is very simple: banks are trying to attract more customers to bring more deposits!

2. Credit Card Limit is Reduced: I heard some of MyCardBlog.com readers complained that their credit card limit was reduced. The most ridiculous thing is that Citi sent a mail to my friend about his Citi Dividend Credit Card. The credit limit was $8,100 before he received the mail and the mail was stating:”Congratulation, because of your excellent history with us, we’re increasing your credit line to $3,800. It’s our way of saying thank you.” American Express recently cut the credit for 10% of its cardholders. All of these are indicating that your spending power might be reduced because of the bad economy.

3. Easier to Get a Loan with Good Credit but Harder to Get a Loan with Bad Credit: Even banks are suffering the finance crisis. They are still in business. They want to make money from you. If you can still maintain a good credit, this means that you are a responsible consumer and banks are willing to do business with you. I have heard many friends got instant approvals recently. However, if you are with a bad credit. You should face more rigorous credit check. Your credit performance will dramatically determine your loan rate as well.

4. Harder to Get A Student Loan: The bad news comes with the message that Bank of America and Wachovia is stopping issuing student loans. Because not only banks and mortgage companies are in crisis but also student loan industry is under crisis. Many private lending companies will also decrease the amount for issuing student loans.

5. More Deals and Ad Campaigns: It’s no doubt that your family budget has tightened due to the finance crisis. The price of every product seems going up day by day. Retailers are anticipating the tough holiday sales season ahead. You would see 42″ and up plasma and LCD TVs starting at $499 during the Black Friday! You might even see a laptop for only $99! Of course, retailers are going to spread their names more often than before. eBay working together with Microsoft is offering 30% cash back for buying qualified items on eBay. (Go to live.com and search for wii, wii cheap, xbox 360, PS3 etc. and you can see the offer link.)