MyCardBlog

The credit card market is very competitive nowadays. A lot of credit card issuers are promoting their certain credit card products with sign-up bonus, or high cash back rate. Of course, credit card issuers always have cards that pay 3~5% cash back at grocery stores, drug stores, restaurants, and gas stations. However, many of you may not know which card to choose from your wallet at checkout. This post is aimed to help you to choose some great cash back rewards cards to pay at checkout.

Discover More Card

This Discover More Card is for those with very good credit who want a cash reward credit card. Cardholders are able to earn a 5% cash back Bonus in categories such as travel, gas, restaurants, movies, and more (change every quarter). Up to 1% can also be earned on general purchases and 0.25% for purchases made at select warehouse clubs and discount stores. You can also earn up to a double cash back Bonus for redeeming your rebates for gift certificates from participating Discover Card Partners. What makes this card even more attractive is that there is no annual fee and a 0% introductory rate on purchases for six months. Balance transfers will be covered by a 0% introductory rate for twelve months. The newly launched ShopDiscover Program offers great cash back for shopping online.

Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card

This Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card lets you earn 5% cash back at gas stations, supermarkets and drug stores, convenience stores, and utilities including cable for 6 months and 2% thereafter. You can earn 1% cash back on everything else forever. This card also offers 0% APR on balance transfer for up to 12 months. This card is easy to get. You can redeem $50 check once you accumulate more than $50 in your account.

Citi CashReturns MasterCard

This Citi CashReturns MasterCard is an ideal card for those want to earn cash back for credit card transactions. You’ll earn a 1% rebate on purchases and cash advances. Also, for each balance transfer of $1,500 or more, five Citi Dollars will be awarded. Every time you earn $50 CitiDollars, a $50 check will automatically be issued. This is no limit on how much you can earn. You will also earn 20% bonus on cash back earned for the first 12 months. This card has no annual fee, a reasonably low interest rate on purchases, and an interest-free balance transfer offer for up to twelve months.

There are many other top posts about how to pick up a right credit card for you.

5 Grocery Rewards Cards That Can Save Money For You

5 Top Rated Gas Rebate Cards

7 Great Credit Cards You Should Know

I have a post about App-O-Rama long time ago. It seems the idea of App-O-Rama is not so popular as before. I think the main reason is the credit card issuers like Citi, Chase, Bank of America, and American Express are cut the chances of sign-up bonuses and 0% APR offers and they also added huge amount of fees (~$100) on balance transfers. However, I think it’s still necessary to write a complete introduction of App-O-Rama for those who have a good credit and want to profit from credit card applications.

App-O-Rama is a word set out by Wall Street Journal and refers to a frenzy of applications. App-O-Rama can be defined as a strategy of completing multiple credit card applications in a short time period (typically less than 45 min). App-O-Rama also commonly known as AppORama, Application-O-Rama, App-a-Rama, or AOR. The purpose of an AOR is to take advantage of the way your credit score is calculated and credit applications are processed in order to get the most free moneys from credit card issuers.

Why App-O-Rama (AOR)?

• To obtain as many credit card sign-up bonuses (airline mileages or hotel rewards points) as possible.
• To obtain many balance transfer offers and transfer to a high interest savings account or CD and earn 5%+ interest on the money borrowed at 0% APR introductory rates.
• Maximum your credit line and use it to pay off your interest-bearing loans, mortgages, and automobile payments, while paying 0% APR introductory rates on the money borrowed.
• Build a solid credit history (only after you pay of all the balances).

Consquences of App-O-Rama (AOR):

• Temporary drop of your credit score due to many new credit inquiries (Usually, credit inquiries less than 6 months will ding your credit score).
• New and existing accounts might also be closed due to sudden drop of credit score or increase of credit card balances (due to balance transfer). There are many cases of this.

Who can’t do App-O-Rama?

• Those with poor credit scores (Believe me, you won’t get many approvals.).
• Those without solid credit history (less than 2 years).
• Those always carry credit card balances or with credit card debit.

How to prepare for an App-O-Rama?

Again, before you start your App-O-Rama, please keep in mind that to take advantage of this you need a good FICO score (higher than 700) and a long history of established credit.

Step 1. Maximum your FICO score and pay down/off your credit card balances. You have to pay down as much of your credit card bills as possible. Due to the delay of reporting of your account balances, you need to do this at least a month or two before you launch your AOR. Then you should call up your current card issuers and request to increase your credit limit without a hard credit inquiry. In this way, you can get higher credit limit from your new credit card issuers which are likely to match your current maximum credit limit. You should also have to bump all of hard inquiries on your credit report (How to Get Hard Inquiries Off Your Credit Report).

Step 2. Choose the right credit cards. This is a time consuming process. You have to get a list of credit cards which will give you a certain amount of sign-up bonuses, 0% APR offers or other rewards. For example, you can choose the Starwood Prefferd Guest Card from American Express which is offering 10,000 bonus starpoints after first purchase. You can also choose the Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network which is offering 10,000 thankyou points after $250 in purchases. You might be also interested in the Blue Cash from American Express which is offering up to 15 month 0% APR on purchases and 4.99% fixed APR for life on balance transfer. You can refer to this post to choose some credit cards.

Step 3. Plan the right time and start to pull the trigger! Now you have a list of credit cards on hand. You need to plan the time a little bit better. Early in the morning and Monday or Tuesday is highly recommended for App-O-Rama. When the credit approval system can’t approve your application, your information will be delivered to a credit analyst. Before he/she looks over your credit report, you’d better make sure that he/she can’t see your other applications. So you want to let your information presented to him/her as early as possible. That’s why you should plan your AOR in the morning and Monday or Tuesday.

Card companies say only a small number of their cardholders play this game. But if you have a solid credit history and a perfect credit score, why not try this? You deserve to get those money because you have a good credit performance.

Many of you might not know that you can protect your identity with a virtual credit card number when you’re shopping or paying bills online. These one-time use credit card numbers are linked to your actual credit card number, but are unusable by others or will be expired in a certain time period. If someone was able to obtain your virtual credit card number and try to use it elsewhere, it simply would not work. In this way, you can simply protect you and your identity. You don’t have to bother your credit card costumer service and fill in some forms. Virtual credit card number actually is named as Controlled Payment Number when it came out. A Virtual Credit Card Number can also be called as a “substitute credit card number” or “one-time use credit card”. It’s usually generated through the use of a web application or a specialized program offered by your credit card issuers.

Typically, a virtual credit card number has a limit and an expiration date between 2 to 12 months chosen by the account owner and can be used for many times with the same merchant. (can’t use it with many merchants) You real credit card number will never be revealed to the merchant. There are many credit card companies (Citi, Discover, Bank of America) offer this kind of service for free to their customers. I will briefly introduce each of them below:

Citi Bank—Virtual Account Numbers

This is a security feature of Citi credit cards. Whoever has a Citi credit card is eligible to use virtual account number as long as he/she has registered his/her credit card online. Generating a virtual account number is very easy in your Citi online account. Log in to your online account and select “Get a Virtual Account Number” on your screen. You can choose to download a software or opt for the online program which requires you to log in your account each time you need to generate a virtual account number. After you enter you real credit card number, the tool will automatically generate a new number for you. You can decide when the virtual credit card will expire between 2 to 12 months but on longer than the actual expiration date of your real credit card. If you want to change the expiration date, you have to generate a new credit card number. The virtual account numbers can be used when the purchases don’t require the presence of a physical credit card. You have to allow pop-up windows when use this program.

Discover Card—Secure Online Account Numbers

The Secure Online Account Number is a free service that providing additional online security for Discover card members. Like Citi’s virtual account numbers, you can choose to download the software (PC version) or use a online web application (browser version) to generate a virtual account number every time when you need one. For the PC version, download the tool and it will automatically launch each time you go to make a purchase. Click the “Fill Form” button, and a secure account number, Valid Through (Expiration) date and CID (security code) will be generated and automatically entered into the “Credit Card Number” field(s) of the online merchant’s checkout form. For the browser version, you have to follow these steps:

1. Click “Launch Now” button on the Secure Online Account Numbers main page to get a secure number. Sign in with your Account Center user ID and password.
2. Open a new browser window so you can view both Discovercard.com and the shopping site at the same time.
3. Shop at your favorite Web sites, copy and paste the secure number into the retailer’s checkout page. When ordering via phone, give the customer service representative the secure number.

According to Discover card:

Secure account numbers always expire on the same date as your actual Discover Card account number. When your Discover Card is reissued with a new expiration date, it will be necessary to update the expiration information on any retailer’s Web site where you have stored your actual card number or any secure account numbers.

Bank of America—ShopSafe

ShopSafe is a free service that can generate a temporary credit card number every time you want to make an online purchase.This number links directly to your real credit card account number but keeps your card number completely private and completely protected. The ShopSafe number is used as another credit card number but the merchant will never know your actual account number. To get ShopSafe, sign in to Online Banking and choose “Use ShopSafe” from your Account Activity screen. You can enter desired spending limit and expiration date there. And then ShopSafe creates a temporary account number that allows you to purchase with confidence. The ShopSafe service allows you to set your “Valid Thru” date for up to 1 year in the future.

Note: American Express card is not eligible to generate a virtual credit card number from above card issuers.

When you are not confident with some online merchants, you can use virtual credit card to help you prevent any credit card fraud.

Most of us know pretty well about the 3 credit reporting agencies: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. The 3 credit reporting agencies record and maintain your personal and business credit information. Whenever you want to apply for a credit card, a mortgage, or an auto loan, you have to provide you detailed personal information to the credit grantor who will then randomly check your credit report from one or all three above mentioned credit reporting agencies. The purpose to check your credit information is to verify your personal information to prevent any potential ID fraud and check your past credit history to determine whether or not to approve your credit request. You can always get a free credit report every year from www.annualcreditreport.com mandated by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction (FACT) Act (an amendment to Fair Credit Reporting Act).

Actually, there is another check system which might contain your personal information, that is, ChexSystems. ChexSystems is a consumer information database providing deposit account verification services to its financial institution members to help determine the risk of opening a new checking or savings account. Anyone who has a history of account mishandling will be reported to ChexSystems and can be used for future reference. Obviously credit reporting agencies provide information on how a consumer handles his/her credit relationships. However, ChexSystems provides data on how a consumer handles his/her deposit accounts at banking institutions. Currently, about 80% of U.S. banks and credit unions are using ChexSystems to determine whether or not to approve your checking, savings, money market or other banking accounts application. As most of my readers will open a checking or savings account for some sign-up opportunities, I think a brief introduction of ChexSystems is necessary.

How can ChexSystems collect personal information?

Banks, credit unions and other financial institutions report incidents to ChexSystems to protect themselves and other banks in the future. Your name will be reported to ChexSystems if your banking account is closed by the bank for the following reasons:

1. Banks were unable to collect for an overdraft, ATM transaction, automatic payment, bill payment or other transactions that they honored on insufficient funds.

2. Depositing fraudulent checks or other suspicious account activities.

3. Providing false information at the account opening.

4. Savings account, debit card, ATM card abuse.

How long does the report stay on file? How do you get it deleted?

Each incident will stay on your record at ChexSystems for five years from the date the incident is reported unless there is a legitimate reason to remove it.

You should also know that any bank or credit union is under no obligation to remove an accurate report of account mishandling due to payment of money owed. However, if a collection amount is paid in full, the report would be marked as paid.

Can you order a copy of your record?

Yes, you can order a free copy from ChexSystems from this link. If you are rejected by a bank or credit union and ChexSystems was used in the decision process, you can order a copy from ChexSystems from this link.

How do you dispute a false information?

You may contact ChexSystems Consumer Relations Department to help you correct any misinformation contained in ChexSystems. You can submit you dispute to ChexSystems:

By Mail: Chex Systems, Inc.
7805 Hudson Road, Suite 100
Woodbury, MN 55125

By phone: 800-428-9623

By fax: 602-659-2197

ChexSystems is also licensed to do business as ChexSystems Collection Agency which is providing debit collection services.

A sample ChexSystem Consumer Report can be downloaded here from MyCardBlog.Com.

This afternoon when I was talking to my friend Scott, he asked:”Why do you have so many credit cards? Do you love them? Why do you love credit cards?”. I told him that I love my credit cards very much and the reason why I have so many different credit cards is to maximum the rewards I can get from credit cards. However, I didn’t say much about the reason why I love credit cards. Because I realized then that there are many reasons why you’d love credit cards.

I have generated more than $1,000 revenue from my 12 credit cards in the past two years. I use my Chase Freedom Card to pay my wireless service bill every month automatically. It’s so convenient! I also use Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express which will double the manufacture’s warranty to purchase some large electronics. I also replaced my Discover Open Road Card immediately my authorized user lost that card on the bus. All my Visa, MasterCard and American Express cards can cover the collision and theft damage waiver for my rental cars. Yes, I’m benefiting from my credit cards all the time. I have many reasons to love them!

Rewards/Bonus: I believe this is the most important factor when you choose a credit card in the market. If you are not carrying balances, then APR is not a big concern for you. Choose a good rewards card and you can easily earn cash back or other kinds of rewards as a return. The credit card market is extremely competitive these days,. In order to attract more customers to use their credit cards. Some cedit cards offer as high as $250 sign-up bonus to their customers. $100 sign-up bonus is relatively normal nowadays. For more information about sign-up bonus opportunity, please check my latest Credit Card Sign-Up Offers.

Extended Warranty/Purchase Protection: This is why I like to use credit card to purchase large electronic products like: laptops, LCD TVs, Monitors, Digital Cameras and other stuffs. Of many credit card networks, American Express is my favorite. American Express Cards can double your manufacture’s warranty which will cost you about several hundreds dollars if you want to buy from your manufacturer. Visa Signature and MasterCard also offer similar benefit to their cardholders. Purchase protection is another benefit you might use. American Express, Visa, and MasterCard all offer certain types of insurance. If the item you purchased is broken, damaged or stolen within a certain period of time, they will repair, reimburse or even replace the item. Credit card is always a top choice when you want to purchase a large electronic product.

Build Your Credit Rating: Your credit score is very important nowadays. Your employer, your bank, your insurance company and your landlord will check your credit whenever you request credit from them. If you don’t maintain a good credit rating, your life will be getting tougher. Use your credit cards smartly is a quick and easy method to build your credit rating as well as credit score. Remember to pay your bills on time and maintain your balance to credit limit in a relatively low level (<30%) .

Emergency Fund: Most credit cards offer balance transfer and cash advance services. If you are short of money, you can use your credit cards to get some cash. But please read carefully about your current APR on balance transfer and cash advance. Make sure you can pay the money back in a short time, otherwise credit cards are the gateway to the hell of debit.

Free Rental Car Insurance: You may not know this, but your credit card provides a lot of free services in addition to letting you postpone payment on purchases and earn cash back or frequent flyer miles. One of these services is rental car collision insurance. By using a credit card to rent a car from rental companies, you can always refuse to buy expensive insurance provided from rental companies. Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express all offer free of charge auto insurance (collision damage waiver, car stolen waiver) when you use their credit cards to rent a car. Some of the even offer premium insurance service. When you use your credit cards to rent a car, you’d better call above mentioned companies to make sure that your rental car is covered by them. Car accidents are really expensive now.

Bill Payment: This is a very useful feature of today’s credit cards. In our daily life, we have to pay all kinds of bills. The more you have to pay, the easier you can forget them. The automatic payment can save your time and memory. You can sign up online and allow your service providers to charge your credit cards regularly. I currently use my Chase Freedom Card to pay my cable and wireless services. After I set up recurring payment online, the company will charge my Chase Freedom Card once every month. I can save several checks every month.

0% APR Loans: This is quite easy to understand. If you pay your credit card bill in full every month, you’re actually getting a 0% APR loan on every purchase you charge. If your credit card offers 0% APR on purchases or balance transfer, you can even enjoy 0% APR up to 15 months based on your credit card terms.

I love my credit cards, and if you’re a wise credit card user, there are a couple of reasons why you should love credit cards.

“Hard inquiry” refers to a credit pull initiated by you, and it does affect your credit score. If you are curious about your credit score, you might find out that a hard inquiry might drop you credit score 5~7 points. If you have many hard inquiries in a short time period, your application for a new credit might get rejected even if you still maintain your credit score at a relatively high level. The reason is very simple, you are requesting too many credits from credit issuers such as banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions. However, “soft inquiries” will never affect your credit scoring. Because soft inquires are invisible to credit grantors. (Hard Pull and Soft Pull)

Usually hard inquires will disappear from your credit report in about 25 months in all three credit report agencies (TransUnion, Experian, Equifax). But do you want to bump off those notorious hard inquiries from your credit report earlier than 25 months? If you want to knock hard inquiries off of your credit report, there is a very easy way. I personally was able to get rid of all of hard inquiries on my credit report at TransUnion and Equifax. I applied for many credit cards in last August: Blue from American Express, Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express, Citi CashReturns Card, Discover Open Road Card, BOA Rewards American Express Card, CapitalOne No Hassle Cash Card etc. There are more than 12 hard inquires on my TransUnion and Equifax credit reports. However, right now, there is no hard inquiry on my TransUnion and Equifax credit reports!

The method is popularly named as “bumpage”—the process of pulling your personal credit report repeatedly in a short time period (usually 1 pull per 1 or 2 days or several times per week). In this way, you can generate a lot of soft inquiries on your credit report and eventually knock hard inquiries off of your credit report. The reason why you can bump off hard inquiries is credit report agencies have only limited space to store your personal information. If you throw in much new information in their system, they tend to delete older information. (Note: only works for inquiries.) However, “Bumpage” only works for TransUnion and Equifax.

How can you generate soft inquiries? There are many credit services on the market which allow you to pull your credit report in a daily manner. The most famous one is TrueCredit.Com and other credit services from TrueCredit but under other names (e.g. NationalCity Identity Protect). If you have an American Express card, you can choose CreditSecure from American Express. My “Know Your Credit Score” post have summarized some credit services on the market for your reference. However, there are many free ways to pull soft inquiries for you. For example, the pre-determination process from HSBC and BOA can generate a soft inquiry on your credit report every time you check for a credit card offer from them. The credit limit increase button in your online account at American Express can also generate a soft inquiry for you for free!

If you use only one credit service and pull your credit report daily, it will takes you about 2 months to start bump your hard inquiries. If you use multiple credit services at the same time, the bumpage process can be accelerated.

However, you might get rejected by TrueCredit or other credit service providers due to your excessive access to your credit report! But it’ highly YMMV.

Important update: This trick is not working for TransUnion now. Some one reported that the bumped inquiries came back on their credit reports again.

If you choose a right plastic and put it in your wallet, you might save hundreds of dollars a years at the pump. Following are my top-rated gas rebate cards.

Do you want to save 20 cents or 40 cents per gallon at the pump (Yes, current gas price is $4!)? Do you want to enjoy rewards other than at the pump?

Some gas-rebate cards can help you save money at everywhere. If you are still doubting the power of cash rewards that gas-rebate cards can bring to you, we can do the simple math. I assume you are driving a 20-mpg car with annual mileage at 15,000 and the gas price is fixed at $4/gallon. A 5% gas rewards card can save you $150 a year. If you are driving a SUV, truck or other cars, then a right gas-rebate card can save you even more money. Of course, the prerequisite is you are not carrying balance on your credit cards. If you carry balance every month, you top choices would be those with low interest rates.

How to pick a gas rebate card?

I think you should consider you driving habits and credit habits before you pull the trigger. If you drive the same route daily or weekly and fill your tank at the same pump, you can choose a gas store card issued by gasoline company and a credit card company. If you want to carry balance and pay off part of your monthly bills, you should consider a card with low interest rate as well as gas rewards. You might also think about how you like the cash rewards paid to you. Some rewards are credited to your account monthly (AMEX SimplyCash Card). And some rewards are issued to you at the end of the year. Following are some cards for your reference:

1. Ameircan Express SimplyCash Card: This card definitely should be on the top of this ranking although is a business card. (For tips on how to apply for a business card without a business, you can read this post.) Because it also gives you 5% cash back at wireless services and office supplies. You can get 5% cash back at pumps without limit! The cash rewards will be credited to your monthly statement (nice!). Another feature I want to point out here is this card is a business card and the usage of this card will not appear on your personal credit report. NO matter how much you spend on this card, it just won’t affect your credit score.

2. Discover Open Road Card: This card offers 5% cash back on gas and auto-maintenance purchases. This card is especially designed to drivers who want to save money on auto maintenance by using a credit card. The trick of this card is you can only get 5% from the first $100 spent on gas and auto maintenance purchases every month. However, Discover offers great rewards program. If you choose to redeem you cash as a gift card, your rewards might be doubled! Yes, this is why I like Discover card! If you like online shopping, you might also take advantage of the ShopDiscover program.

3. TrueEarnings Business Card from American Express and Costco: This card offers 5% cash back on gasoline purchases. (Note: Exclude gas purchased at warehouse clubs other than Costco, superstores or supermarkets. For example, if you fill your tank at Wal-Mart gas stations, you can’t get 5% cash back. But you can get 5% cash back at BP or Shell gas stations.) You can get 3% cash back at restaurants and 2% cash back for traveling. You can get 1% cash back for everything else. If you‘re a Costco member, you might try this card. This card has non-business version which only offers 3% cash back on gasoline purchases.

Start saving at the pumps now!

If you pay your balance off every month, choosing a credit card with rewards that match your spending profile and interests can pay. Following are a few credit cards with cool rewards programs.

Nowadays thousands of credit cards are competing for comsumers’ attention. On some occations, credit card issuers will issue some cool credit cards with cool rewards programs. In this way, that certain credit card will capture customers’ attention and become popular. Maybe they are not best, but they definitely are worthy of notice.

Free Credit Scores: WaMu Credit Card offers free credit scores to their credit card holders. The credit score is usually basedon your credit profile at TransUnion. Unlike to other credit scores (FAKO score), they offer you genuine FICO credit score which is widely used by credit grantors to judge your credit. The credit score is updated once every month. If you have a credit card from WaMu, this is the most convenient way to monitor your credit score. If you receive the invitations from WaMu, you can try to apply for it. As far as I know, over 80% people received the invitations can get approved.

Help Our Earth: Your purchase can make a difference! Every time you use your GE Earth Rewards Card from GE Money, part of your net purchase will go to climate projects (specificlly, emission reduction projects). Or you can choose to share the cash rewards between you and those climate projects. If you want to contribute to make our earth more clean and help reduce the CO2 emission, you can use this card.

Make-A-Wish: Every time you use your Bank of America Make-A-Wish Platinum Plus Card, Bank of America will make a contribution to Make-A-Wish Foundation. It’s another convenient way for you to help our society. If you are a suporter of Make-A-Wish Foundation, this card is your top choice.

Nature and Wild Life: Bank of America offers a couple of credit cards aimed to sponsor some Nature and Wild Life Organizations. For every purchase you made with Bank of America Nature Conservancy Platinum Card, BOA will donate part of your purchase (1%) to Nature Conservancy at no cost to you. If you prefer to Wild Life Foundations, you have other more choices there. Many options are available here.

Phone Discounts: The AT&T Universal Savings and Rewards Card offers 10% rewards for 12 months when you use AT&T products and you can continue to receive 5% after that. There no such a card to help you save money at AT&T. This card also offers 0% APR on balance transfer for up to 12 months. You can get 1 ThankYou Point for every dollar you spent at non-AT&T products.

Get Awarded for Being A Good Student: Citi mtvU card for college students offers bonus points for good GPA you get every semester! (2,000 bonus points if your GPA is 4.0.) If you pay your bills on time every month, you can also earn 25 bonus points for being a good customer! This card also features huge discount at Amazon.Com and restaurants. Amazon.Com is considered as a boostore, you can get 5 thankyou points for every dollars spent at Amazon.Com.

City Rewards: American Express issue a series of city rewards credit cards: IN Chicago Card, IN New York Card, IN Los Angles Card. Every time you use that card to make a purchase, you can accumulate a INSIDE rewards point which can then be redeemed to eat, drink, play in Chicago, New York, Los Angles as mentioned above. If you use that card at city essentials, your rewards will be doubled. So cool!

There are also many other opotions for you. If you are tired of getting cash back, accumulating airlime mileages, and hotel rewards points, you can try some new rewards program.