MyCardBlog

I have a post on how to manipulate your Amazon.Com “Qiuck Picks” to save 5% or more. (Click here.) However, you have to wait overnight to get the relative products show up in your account and get discount. Today, I’d like to spread out one more method on using “Quick Picks” at Amazon.Com. In this way, you can get discounts instantly.

Step 1. Do not log in your amazon.com account. Just open the website and find out something related or just the specific stuff that you want. Make sure you can find the product you want at Amazon.Com.

Step 2. Register a new account at Amazon.Com with another email address. You can have the same name and shipping address.

Step 3. Tell/Fool Amazon.Com that you own that product.

Step 4. Click “Deals of the Day” and the product should be yours with discount.

Here is what I get:

Note: You can add your address later in this new account. But you have to prepare multiple email addresses in order to play this game.

Use Amaon.Com Plstinum Visa Card to save more!

I believe most of us have a lot of junk mails (e.g. credit card application invitations). Believe it or not, identity fraud is very serious in America nowadays. A very important way to prevent identity theft is to properly dispose your junk mails. Then what do you do with junk mails?Because some have our personal information (address etc.) on them. I don’t want to just throw them into the trash can. Instead, I use a Junk Mail Shredder to help me to dispose those junk mails. I got this Junk Mail Shredder last Sunday when I found it was on sale. I got lucky because it’s the last one in my local Staples store. You pay $59.98 and get $40 easy rebate, so the final cost of this powerful Junk Mail Shredder is $19.98. What a great deal! The Staples MailMate Junk Mail Shredder can shred CD/DVDs, credit cards, small paper clips, and 10-fold sheets! To see this powerful junk mail killer, you can click here.

Junk Mails

Credit Cards

I really like this little Junk Mail Shredder! I hope this post will be helpful to all of you.

Recently I made a lot of purchases at Amazon.Com. So I got some discoveries to share with my friends. Today I’d like to talk about Amazon Prime service.

Amazon Prime is a premium shipping service which you can get free two-day shipping without minimum purchase requirement. You can also add $3.99 for overnight shipping. The price of this service is $79 per year. You can share the Amazon Prime with up to 4 additional accounts! So it would be $16 each person.

• FREE Two-Day Shipping on over a million in-stock items
• $3.99 Overnight Shipping
• No Minimum Order
• Share Your Benefits

I really like this service. If you want to make large purchases, you’d better go to Amazon.Com and check the price there. I’m shopping at Amazon.Com primarily due to the tax-free feature and the nice customer service. Plus you can get 5% cash back if you use your Citi mtvU Card, or you can use your Amazon.Com card which will give you 3% cash back at Amazon.Com. Right now, if you sign up Amazon Prime, you can get 1-month free trial. You will need to provide your credit card number. But you can cancel it at any time.

For those who may be not aware of this deal, there is another test drive deal from Ford. If you test drive a 2008 Ford Focus with SYNC, you can receive a $50 Best Buy Gift Card by mail from Ford.

To get the test drive coupon:

Click here and enter your email address for the sweepstakes.

Fill out your information (name, address, etc) and answer 3 questions below. You can answer the questions like this:

A) When do you plan to purchase/lease your next vehicle? ANSWER: 0-30 DAYS
B) What type of vehicle do you plan to purchase or lease? ANSWER: CAR
C) How did you find out about this Ford /SYNC promotion? ANSWER: THRU A FRIEND

Then click “submit” and go to the next page. Answer a simple question about Ford SYNC. (You can search on the web for answers in case you don’t know.)

And then on the next page you will see the “TEST DRIVE” link in the middle of the page. After click it, you can see a test drive coupon with all your information on it. Print it out and take it to your nearest Ford dealers and ask them to fill out the necessary information for you. You actually don’t have to test drive the 2008 Ford Focus. Good Luck!

Happy New Year! I hope every mycardblog.com reader will have a very happy new year. Several days ago, my friend Steven promised me that he would send a copy of his earning of 2007 to me. Yesterday afternoon I got the email. I simply edited the email and post it below.

Credit card sing-up bonus:

Chase Freedom $250*2 (including his wife)

BOA Iowa Card $250

American Express Business Gold Rewards Card $250*2+$130*2 for delay

Citi Professional Card $150*2

Chase United Mileage Plus Visa Card $500 (25,000 miles*2)

BOA American Express Rewards Card $100 (Both of them applied for this card as I posted several days ago, but only one of them got approved.)

Discover More $40

Banking Sign-up bonus:

Chase Free Checking $100*2

BOA MyAccess Checking $100

Citi EZ Checking $200

LaSalle Bank $100

Fidelity $400

Chase Check Card promotion $50*2

ING $50

Earning from 0% APR BT offers:

Balance Transfer $35,000*5%=$1750 (actual earning may be less than $1750, say $1600)

Cash Back from Spending with Credit Cards:

Around $700

Total Earning: $5770!!!

He told me that sing-up bonuses from credit cards are generally easy to get as long as you have a long enough credit history and a nice credit score. His credit score was about 775 as indicated from CreditSecure from American Express. Currently, his credit score is about 710. In the new 2008, I hope you guys can establish a solid credit profile and earn more bonus from credit card issuers and banks!

Senate Bill (SB) 250 (Corbett) will allow consumers to redeem gift cards for cash once they falls below $10.

Consumers will get a break this holiday season thanks to a new California law – Senate Bill 250 by Senator Ellen Corbett (D – San Leandro). The new law gives consumers the right to cash in an unused or partially used gift card when the value of the card is less than ten dollars. Currently, gift cards worth less than five dollars can be subjected to dormancy fees and a store can refuse to give the remaining value back in cash no matter how small the value.

“At this time of year when so many people are purchasing gift cards it is important to know there are new laws protecting consumers,” said Senator Ellen Corbett, the author of the new law. “With the enactment of SB 250 consumers can feel more confident this holiday season that when they give a gift card that they will not be making a donation to a retailer because as of January 1, 2008, Californians will be able to cash in the remaining value of a gift card below $10.”

“SB 250 was based on the simple, common sense notion that consumers should get their money’s worth without having to buy something they don’t really want,” said Richard Holober, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California. “After all, the retail store or restaurant chain was already paid for the full value of the gift card.”

Businesses have profited mightily from millions of gift cards with small balances that are never redeemed – an undeserved bonanza for their sellers. Between 2005 and 2006, companies claiming millions of dollars in income from gift cards that remained unredeemed for two years after they were purchased included: $43 million for Home Depot; $43 million for Best Buy; $30 million for Limited Brands; $8 million for Nordstrom; and more than $7 million for Michael’s Stores.

Thanks to SB 250, come January 1st, California will lead the nation in consumer protections for gift cards users.

The positive impact the new law will have on millions of consumers is highlighted by the recent “Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll” showing nearly two-thirds (62%) of Americans plan to purchase gift cards this holiday season – second only to clothing (71%) among respondents. Nationally, Americans are expected to spend 70 billion dollars this year on gift cards alone – with billions of those dollars going unused. For Californians, that’s about to change.

You can also see the release at Consumer Federation of California.

Well, I have a post about Capital One Card Lab. This post turned out to be one of the most popular posts from the search engine. Several days ago, my blog was hit by more than 200 IPs from Google by the single keyword: CapitalOne Card Lab. Today I will briefly introduce gift card lab.

Christmas is coming and the gift card is a very popular gift during holiday season. They seem to be a perfect solution to the problem of what to give this holiday season. According to the survey conducted by ConsumerReports.org, about 62% consumers are planning to buy gift cards this year. It’s also estimated that gift-card sales will reach 80 billion in 2008. The primary driver for the growth of gift cards is that a gift card allows a recipient to choose the gift they really want. However, another question comes up. How can we make the gift cards special? Customize the gift card by yourself—choose your favorite picture and make the card design by yourself at giftcardlab.com. At gift card lab, you can choose upload your favorite picture and make a card design by yourself. In this way, you make the gift card really special. It’s second to none! I think this is really a good idea. At the same time, you can choose from thousands of card designs provided by gift card lab to customize you card designs. There are also a bunch of different styles for specific occasions like birthday, anniversary, mother’s day, father’s day, Christmas and graduation. Furthermore, the visa gift cards offered by gift card lab can be used at anywhere visa card is accepted.

Anyway, if you don’t have any idea on what to give as a special gift, gift card lab might be a choice for you. (www.giftcardlab.com)

These days the president blog (Chinese) is holding a campaign—“What do you do other than blogging?” Well, I was chosen to write a post about my life other than blogging. Actually, this idea has been in my mind for a long time. However, I have been working very hard to find out more deals and sign-up bonuses for blogging. I actually don’t have much time to think about writing something about my personal life. OK. Today I got the chance to sit down and write something about my daily life.

As a graduate student, I have to spend tons of time in research. Reading papers, doing experiments, and analyzing my data are three major activities everyday. However, when I have time, I will watch TV. My favorite TV programs are “Modern Marvels” in History Channel and “How it’s made” in Discover Channel. Meanwhile I like National Geographic Channel and Animal Planet very much! They are just wonderful! You can learn a lot of stuffs about nature. I’m also watching some dramas like the “Prison Break”, “24 Hours” and “The Closer”.

Another hobby is watching NBA basketball games. Although I don’t play basketball too much (I don’t have time to play basketball right now.), I like watching other guys playing on TV. In order to watch NBA games, I subscribe the NBA league pass which will let me essentially catch every exciting game.

In a word, TV is my favorite “pet” in my daily life. Maybe my next plan is to visit some National Parks like Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park and the Grand Canyon National Park.