MyCardBlog

This afternoon, I was asked why I applied for business card for personal use. I think most of you may be not aware that using business credit card will bring some benefits for you. I believe we have good reasons to apply for business cards for personal use.

1. Many business credit cards offer fabulous deals. Some of those deals are much better than those of consumer credit cards. For example, The Gold Card from American Express OPEN ran a promotion in summer 2007 to give out 25,000 bonus points for new applicants, which can be redeemed for either free round-trip domestic tickets or a $250 gift card. A lot of people don’t know that they don’t need to run a business to qualify for a business credit card. Anyone can apply for business credit cards even if they are not part of a corporation or LLC. Just use your own name as the business name and use your Social Security Number (SSN) as the Tax ID to apply for business credit cards.

2. Business cards are hidden from your personal credit report. Business cards will not appear on your credit report. Therefore, your credit utilization is lower (The balance on the business cards will not appear on you credit report.) You can maintain a high credit score. In this way, you can still be able to get some great deals.

3. Business cards are generally giving out high credit limit. They are supposed to be used for business purposes.And business cards have great 0% APR offers. (This will give you more extra money.)

4. Business credit often is not included in the maximum exposure level a credit card issuer will give you. If you can’t get more credits from you personal cards, you may want to try business cards.

5. Business card issuers care less about card utilization but more about the timeliness of payment. It seems that the business credit is viewed in a different manner than is personal credit. It’s often assumed that the usage of your credit card is for you business.

Why an individual can apply for business credit cards? Because an individual can be a business too. The type of the business is called a sole proprietorship, which is the simplest business entity. Sole proprietorship is completely legit and is recognized by the Internal Revenue Services (IRS). In a sole proprietorship, your name is your business name and your SSN is your business Tax ID. For example, you can be a sole proprietor if you are doing some temporary contract work for a company, or if you are just selling items through online sites like eBay or through garage sales. (When the credit card companies ask what kind of business you are doing, this is a good excuse.)

Here are some recommendations:

Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network (10,000 ThankYou Points—check out this post. Easy to get.)

Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card from American Express (10,000 star points—up to 6 free nights stay at starwood hotels!)

Other business card don’t give you sign-up bonus but great rewards.

American Express Simply Cash Business Card (see this post)

Discover Business Card (5% cash back on office supplies, 0% APR on purchase and balance transfer. Easy to get.)

My friend sent me an email about how to save money at Amazon.Com. I’d like to share this with you. (I don’t who is the first to discover or com up with this genius idea.)

“Quick Picks” are your personal Amazon.Com deal of the day (DoD) that have been catered to your past purchase history. I hope this trick can help you save money when you are shopping at Amazon.Com.

To see your current “Quick Picks”

• Login to your account at http://www.amazon.com
• Click on “Today’s Deals” next to the gold box at the top
• Scroll down to see Your Name’s Quick Picks

Usually the deals are based on your purchase history, but maybe you don’t want to buy similar products any more. Then how can you get deals for something you want? The trick is to fool the system. Usually this will take one day + to work. Let’s say you want a Pentax K10D SLR camera. Following steps will tell you how to fool Amazon.Com and get a deal.

Step 1: What you have to do is to fake Amazon that you have something related to it. (Pentax K10D camera) For example, you have a Pentax camera lens. So search for a Pentax camera lens, and then at the details page do a search for “Rate this item to improve your recommendations” and next to Rate this item click on “I own it”. What this does is link it to your recommendations.

Step 2:

• At the top of Amazon’s page, click on “Recommendations”.
• This will list everything that is recommend broken down by category.
• Remove everything not related to Pentax camera by clicking “Not interested” this may take quite a bit of time if you’ve purchased a few items from Amazon. Another quick way to remove unwanted items is to click on “Fix This” on an item and then click on “Don’t use for recommendations”.

Step 3: Come back the next day and see what Amazon has put in your “Quick Picks”.

This should work for everything. Just do what I told you above and check in the next day. I just played this “game” two days ago. I fooled Amazon that I had a camera lens.

Terms and Conditions – Gold Box Quick Picks

• You must make at least one purchase through your Amazon.com account in order to be recognized as eligible to receive Gold Box Quick Picks offers. If you are a new customer, you should begin to see Quick Picks three business days after your first purchase.
• The Gold Box Quick Picks discount is only available for items added to the Shopping Cart from the Quick Picks section of the Gold Box page. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox]
• Only one Gold Box Quick Picks coupon may be redeemed per eligible customer per day. Once you add an item that is eligible for a Gold Box Quick Picks coupon to your Shopping Cart, the coupons for any other items that were eligible that day immediately expire.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons may only be applied to one unit of product (unless otherwise stated).
• Each Gold Box Quick Picks coupon expires 60 minutes after you add the eligible item to your cart.
• Offer good while supplies last.
• No substitutions or rain checks.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons are nontransferable, not for resale, and not redeemable for cash.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons are good only for specific products featured.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons cannot be applied to orders already placed with Amazon.com.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons do not apply to shipping and handling or taxes.
• Gold Box Quick Picks coupons cannot be combined with other promotions.
• If you return a product purchased using a Gold Box Quick Picks coupon, your refund will equal the amount you paid for the product, subject to applicable refund policies.
• The Gold Box Quick Picks coupon must be redeemed through the Shopping Cart. 1-Click® checkout may not be used in conjunction with redemption of Gold Box Quick Picks coupons.

Does not apply to any products purchased in Amazon.com’s other sites, including Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.co.jp, or Joyo.com/Amazon.cn, in Amazon Marketplace, or from third-party merchants.