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I have a post about PayPal Plug-In ($10 off $50 from PayPal Plug-In) which is offering $10 off for using this new online shopping assistant. Today I received an email from American Express which is offering 2500 membership rewards bonus points for using their Online Assistant.

The Online Assistant is a new product from American Express aimed to make your online shopping even easier. Right now, if you download the American Express Online Assistant and register the Online Assistant (enter your American Express Card information), you can get 2,500 bonus Membership Rewards points. What’s the new online shopping service can do for you? Basically, the Online Assistant remembers passwords, automatically fills forms, and even saves receipts. It can store your credit card information and at the checkout it can automatically fill in the form for you. The Online Assistant can even store your receipts after each transaction! You can edit your credit card information at the Online Assistant at any time.

There are several features of the Online Assistant that will offer you convenience when you shop online.

• Websites: Use this option as a “favorites”. Websites will automatically be stored here for your convenience as you save receipts on the related sites.
• Passwords: Manage Passwords or link to websites where you have saved login information.
• Fill Form: Instantly access your eWallet to fill registration and payment forms online.
• Receipts: View saved purchases and reports.

You can store any or all of your American Express Card products, as well as information such as different addresses for billing or shipping.

Your information at Online Assistant is encrypted using 128 Bit AES encryption. And all of the information in your eWallet is encrypted and stored locally on your PC. If you don’t like it, you can uninstall the Online Assistant software and/or cancel your Online Assistant account at anytime.

You can download the Online Assistant at http://www.americanexpress.com/onlineassistant

According to the fine print:

To receive this offer, the download of the Online Assistant is required by 09/30/2008. This offer is good for solicited Cardmembers only. Bonus points will be credited to your account 6-8 weeks after the promotion period ends. To earn bonus points, prior enrollment in the Membership Rewards program is required at time of the Online Assistant download. One download per Cardmember only. Bonus ID 1696. POID K939:000.

It seems this bonus offer is targeted to my Blue from American Express Card. My friend who has the Preferred Rewards Gold Card also received the email.

To learn how to use the Online Assistant, you can click this link. Remember: Only Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Internet Explorer 6.0 & 7.0 are supported

There is not doubt that credit card is one of the most powerful purchasing tools in the world. You can use a credit card to buy groceries at your local grocery stores, pay bills online, purchase electronics like MP3s, HDTVs, laptops etc., and fill your tank at pumps. Billions of transactions are done through credit card each year at US. Credit card companies even offer sign-up bonuses and promotional rates now and then. If you are a smart credit card user, you can save a lot of money by choosing a right credit card for you. However, there are still some common basics about credit card that you might not know.

1. Merchants can’t require a minimum transaction amount!

There are many grocery stores or Chinese restaurants that require you to pay by cash if your purchase is under a minimum amount pre-set by the store. This is obviously violate the credit card issuer’s merchant agreement. Under no conditions that a merchant can refuse to accept a credit card transaction because of a minimum.

Visa indicates that: Always honor valid Visa cards in your acceptance category, regardless of the dollar amount of the purchase. Imposing minimum or maximum purchase amounts in order to accept a Visa card transaction is a violation of the Visa rules.

MasterCard indicates that: A Merchant must not require, or indicate that it requires, a minimum or maximum Transaction amount to accept a valid and properly presented Card.

Anyway the merchants can not establish minimum or maximum amounts as a condition for accepting a Card. You can find similar requirements from Discover card and American Express.

2. Merchants have the right to refuse the unsigned credit card.

When you receive the welcome package from your credit card issuer, you can see “Not Valid Unless Signed” at the back of your credit card. This is quite understandable. The reason why the credit card companies require you to sign at the back of your credit card is to minimize the risk of credit card fraud.

Visa indicates: While checking card security features, you should also make sure that the card is signed. An unsigned card is considered invalid and should not be accepted. If a customer gives you an unsigned card, the following steps must be taken: 1). Check the cardholder’s ID. 2). Ask the customer to sign the card and then compare the signature on the card to the signature on the ID. “See ID” or “Ask for ID” is not a valid substitute for a signature.

3. Merchants can not charge a surcharge for using a credit card.

I know some Chinese restaurants always charge extra amount of money for using a credit card as payment. $0.5 is very typical for them. This violates the merchant agreement!

Visa requires: Always treat Visa transactions like any other transaction; that is, you may not impose any surcharge on a Visa transaction. You may, however, offer a discount for cash transactions, provided that the offer is clearly disclosed to customers and the cash price is presented as a discount from the standard price charged for all other forms of payment.

MasterCard requires: A Merchant must not directly or indirectly require any Cardholder to pay a surcharge or any part of any Merchant discount or any contemporaneous finance charge in connection with a Transaction. A Merchant may provide a discount to its customers for cash payments. A Merchant is permitted to charge a fee (such as a bona fide commission, postage, expedited service or convenience fees, and the like) if the fee is imposed on all like transactions regardless of the form of payment used, or as the Corporation has expressly permitted in writing.

4. Merchants cannot require you to present ID

I have two posts about how to deal with “Show ID with Credit Card” problem. (post 1 and post 2) Some merchants may require you to present your ID at  checkout but it’s a violation of the rules.

Visa: When should you ask a cardholder for an official government ID? Although Visa rules do not preclude merchants from asking for cardholder ID, merchants cannot make an ID a condition of acceptance. Therefore, merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to
provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures. Laws in several states also make it illegal for merchants to write a cardholder’s personal information, such as an address or phone number, on a sales receipt.

5. Merchants are not allowed to place a hold for the estimated tip

The estimated tip is really common nowadays at restaurants. For example, if you go to dinner and final amount is $200 and you pay with a credit card, the restaurant might  try to “authorize” your card for $230–a 15% tip. Believe it or not, it’s a violation! What will happen if you don’t like their services and want to offer only 10% tip? Or you may want to leave cash tip! There is no way that a merchant can hold an extra amount of money to estimate your payment!

Visa requires: For restaurant, taxicabs, limousines, bars, taverns, beauty/barber shops, health/beauty spa merchants transactions with a Visa credit or debit card, authorize only for the known amount, not the transaction amount plus estimated tip. Cardholders now have the ability to check their credit or checking accounts almost instantaneously via phone, the Internet, or an ATM. Consequently, an authorization that includes an estimated tip can reduce a cardholder’s available funds or credit by an unrecognizable or unexpected amount.

If you meet any of above mentioned circumstances, you can call Visa, MasterCard, Discover Card or American Express. Or you can call the numer at the back of your credit card.

I have been using T-Mobile for two years and never got any discount from them. I searched on the web for a while and found that there are many opportunities out there to help you save a lot at T-Mobile either for keeping your current service or adding a new line. I summarized some of them and hoped that this will be of help to MyCardBlog.Com readers.

10% off of your current T-Mobile Monthly service fees from Freelancersunion.org

This is the one that I’m using and it’s free to anyone because anybody can be a member of Freelancers Union (no membership fee).

Here’s how:

Register an account at Freelancersunion.org and get a member number (free and easy!)

Go to Freelancersunion.org and click “Discounts” at the top of the home page

Go down to “Life” and click “T-Mobile” and you will see “T-mobile offers cellular calling plans, messaging and wireless internet service as well as a wide range of phones, handhelds, PDAs, and accessories to help you stay in touch with friends, family and clients.” Offer: Freelancers Union members are eligible for a 10% discount off their monthly recurring fees, equipment discounts on new activations, and more!

Click on “more information” and login your account and you will be redirected to T-Mobile website to fill in a migration form.

Click on the “Click here for Discounts” link

Scroll down to “Current Customers” and click on the “Complete migration form” link

Enter your information, phone number, T-Mobile account number

After you enter everything they need, click on the “submit” button. You should get a note telling you all is well and you will see your discount in 1 to 2 billing cycles.

The discount will show up after 1 billing cycle. This 10% off is available to both new and old customers and will not affect your current plan. The only thing that will change is the billing cycle since as everyone attached to this organization needs to have the same billing cycle.

12% off your current T-Mobile Monthly service fees from MGM Mirage

This is a similar corporate discount from T-Mobile for MGM Mirage employees. You can do this because T-Mobile doesn’t need any employment verification.

Here’s how:

Go to www.t-mobile.com/mgm and click”Click here for Discounts”

If you are new to T-mobile, you can choose the plan there and activate a new line online.

If you are a current T-Mobile customer, you can click ” Complete migration form” and fill in your current phone number etc.

OR you can call T-Mobile at 866-464-8662 (877-453-8824 for current member) and mention code 999TMOFAV to do the same thing!

The benefit for using the corporate discount is you can easily get activation fee waived and sign up for a one-year contract. At the same time, most of the phones are much cheaper and some are free!

More discounts are available:

JetBlue discount code: 1240. Call T-Mobile at 866-464-8662 and choose option 3 and mention that you are an employee of JetBlue with code 1240. You will get 12% off monthly fees without activation fees.

Phillip Morris discount code: 2609. You will get 8% off your bill. No activation fees. Call T-Mobile at 866-464-8662.

Avon discount code: 5871TMOFAV. Call T-Mobile at 866-464-8662 and choose option 3 and mention that you are an Avon family member or friend of an Avon Sales Representative. You will get 12% off of your monthly service fees, no activation fee, and 1 year contract on most plans. You may also go to www.tmobile.com/avon to get discount!

Starbucks: Call T-Mobile at 866-464-8662 and identifying yourself as a Starbucks employee. You will get 15% off monthly fees and free activation on all orders. You may also go to www.tmobile.com/starbucks to get discount!

Overall:

If you are a current T-Mobile customer, you can get up to 15% off your monthly fees.

If you are new to T-Mobile, you can get up to 15% off your monthly fees without activation fees and huge discount on T-Mobile phones. And some of the plans require only one-year contract! The reason why you can get the discount is they don’t request your emplyment verification! Good luck!

Today I was notified by a reader about the new promotion from HSBC. According to the promotion page, you can get up to $100 MasterCard gift card for opening a Plus checking account and an HSBC credit card. Although I personally think this promotion is not attractive to all of us, I’d like to mention this promotion at MyCardBlog together with another checking account bonus offer from Wells Fargo.

HSBC usually offers banking bonus for their savings account. But it’s really rare to see the bonus offer for their checking account. To take the chance to get $100 gift card, you have to:

1. Open a Plus Checking Account at HSBC with initial deposit of $4,000 in new money into any HSBC Deposit Account (not include OSA and OPA accounts). If your account is still at good standing after 180 days, a $75 gift card will be sent to you. This offer expires on September 12, 2008.

2. You can get an additional $25gift card if you apply for an HSBC Cash or Fly MasterCard when you open the Plus Checking Account. You have to make the first purchase before September 30, 2008.

The reason why I don’t like the Plus Checking Account offer is: To avoid a $15 monthly maintenance fee, you need to maintain $15,000 in total combined balances including personal deposit, investment and qualifying credit balances.

The HSBC Platinum MasterCard with Cash or Fly Rewards is a decent credit card offer which allows you to choose cash back rewards or fly miles rewards. Currently, this card offers 0% APR on purchase and balance transfer for up to 12 months.

HSBC also offers $25 sign-up bonus for opening a Premium Money Market Plus Savings Account by 9/30/2008. This account features no monthly fees.

Another banking offer is from Wells Fargo. This promotion is available only at local Wells Fargo branches. Although there is no online advertisement about this offer, I was confirmed by the CSR at Wells Fargo at the phone. According to my “Hard Pull and Soft Pull” post, Wells Fargo typically pull your credit report at the process of opening a new banking account. The minimum deposit to open the checking account is $100. My previous post about Wells Fargo can be found here. This one should be similar to that one.

I have two posts about Advanta recently: Ideablob from Advanta and Small Business Network from Credit Card Issuers. Both of them introduced the pretty cool website from Advanta—Ideablob.com. Today I’m going to introduce the latest and most special credit card product from Advanta which is a dedicated credit card company for small business in US.

Advanta and Kiva.org just launched a new project named KivaB4B. Kiva.org is recognized as the world’s first peer-to-peer lending organization giving people the opportunity to help small businesses and entrepreneurs in developing countries through microfinancing loans. You should note that the purpose of the Kiva.org (nonprofit) is not to make money from the lending process but rather to lift the people at the developing countries from poverty. With the participation of Advanta, one of the largest business credit card issuers at US, I believe more and more people at developing countries will get the chance to get the money they need.

What’s the uniqueness of the KivaB4B project?

According to Jess at Advanta:

In recognition of their participation in the Project, Advanta provides the small businesses with resources to market their philanthropic activities to their community. Advanta also provides a financial incentive. If a small business owner uses an Advanta BusinessCard to make a grant to Kiva for an entrepreneur, Advanta matches the grant, dollar for dollar (up to $200 per account, per month).

This is amazing! If you are a small business owner and offer a loan through the KivaB4B program, Advanta will match your lending dollar for dollar up to $200 per month! It costs you nothing and the small businesses at developing countries will get doubled amount of what would get in the past!

Here is the details on how it works:

1. Select an inspiring business owner
2. Make a grant to Kiva using your Advanta business card
3. Advanta makes a matching grant through Kiva
4. Kiva distributes funds
5. As your funds are prepaid to Kiva, they are deposited into your Kiva account
6. Funds go to the people who need them

At the same time, Advanta released a new credit card product—the Kiva Business Card. We know that business card market is very competitive. Many big credit card issuers like Chase, Bank of America, Citi, American Express and Discover are promoting their business credit card products. However, most of their products are just regular-offer cash back, discount or sign-up bonus. The appearance of the Kiva Business Card gives you a chance to change the life of a people at the planet. It offers you an opportunity to help other people in the world as a business owner at US. This is a really smart strategy and will attract many business card members.

This Kiva Business Card also offers a 5% rebate on the first $1,200 of Bonus Qualifying transactions, and up to 1% on other purchase. The $1,200 is not that much but really a chance to help others and earn cash back.

If you are a small business owner and willing to help on this planet, the KivaB4B is a great chance.

Compass Bank just released another promotion offer from which you can get up to $150 bonus for opening a Compass Build-to-Order Checking account online and then use their Visa Check Card in 45 days. My previous post “Free Apple iPod Shuffle from Compass Bank” introduced the latest banking promotion from Compass Bank. But it was ended on June 30, 2008.

This time the $150 bonus is much better than the previous iPod Shuffle bonus which only costs about $50 now. How to get the $150 bonus?

1. Register at https://www.compassbank.com/special/200808/150offer. This is the first and a must step before you apply for the Build-to-Order account at compass bank and get the promotion bonus. A claim code will delivered to you email address with which you can get promotion bonus when you apply for the Build-to-Order checking account in the near future.

2. Go to the application page at compassbank.com and apply for a new Build-to-Order checking account with the claim code previously mentioned. Minimum opening deposit of $25 is required at the time of account opening.

3. After you receive the Compass visa check card, make at least 10 qualifying check card purchases within 45 days of registering for this offer.

4. Return to this site www.compassbank.com/go/150offer and claim your cash gift within 45 days of registering for this offer.

Note: You will earn a $3 bonus for each qualifying Check Card transaction (up to 50) made during the first 45 days your account is open. Minimum of 10 qualifying transactions to receive bonus. Minimum transaction amount of $10 for purchase to qualify.

A “qualifying purchase” is any signature-based purchase, Internet purchase, phone or mail-order purchase, bill payment, contactless purchase (purchases made by holding your Visa card or other device up to a secure reader instead of swiping your card), or small dollar purchase for which you are not required to sign, which is processed or submitted through the Visa U.S.A. Inc. payment system. A “PIN” based purchase is not eligible to receive  the promotion offer.

The Build-to-Order checking account features:

• Free online banking and bill pay
• Free E-mail alerts
• Free personalized Visa® Check Card
• Free Visa® Extras Rewards
• No minimum balance requirements or direct deposit requirement
• $25 cash on your account anniversary
• No fee to use another bank’s ATM

You gotta take the chance to earn $150!

We all know that a credit card issuer will look at your credit score, usually referred as the FICO score, before issuing you a credit card. Actually, business lenders use a similar approach or credit scoring system to determine your business credit performance and decide whether or not to give you credit.

Although there are many business credit reporting agencies entered in the market in the past decade, including Experian, the Paydex score from Dun & Bradstreet remains the primary source for business credit scores and reports. A Paydex score is a number from Dun & Bradstreet that is an indicator of your business operation. The Paydex score is the business equivalent to your personal credit score. This score plays an important role in determining whether you get a loan (and loan rate & loan amount etc) and how other businesses deal with yours.

According to Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), the Paydex score is:

D&B’s unique dollar-weighted numerical indicator of how a firm paid its bills over the past year, based on trade experiences reported to D&B by various vendors. The D&B Paydex score  ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating better payment performance.

More detailed explanation about the Paydex score:

• 100 – Payments are received prior to date of invoice (Anticipated)
• 90 – Payments are received within trade discount period (Discount)
• 80 – Payments are received within terms granted (Prompt)
• 70 - 15 Days Beyond Terms
• 60 - 22 Days Beyond Terms
• 50 – 30 Days Beyond Terms
• 40 – 60 Days Beyond Terms
• 20 – 120 Days Beyond Terms
• UN – Unavailable

You can view a sample Paydex report from here.

How to establish your business credit report?

You can star to build your Paydex score by enrolling in the CreditBuilder or ScoreBuilder programs offered by D&B, but this will cost you some money. Or you can apply for a DUNS (Data Universal Numbering System) number which is an unique nine-digit numbering system that is used to identify a business. and use it to apply for a small line of credit at a company that reports to D&B regularly.

How to boost your Paydex score?

The most important thing is to keep a Paydex account active. And the best way to boost your Paydex score is to pay all of your bills early. Because this score is directly related to how you pay your bills. Or you can pay small bills later but pay large bills early. This might also be helpful but not so good as both pay them early.

How ever, you should put in mind that applying for a busines line of credit is different from the procedure for applying for a business credit card. The application process for a business card usually requires owners to provide their own ITIN or SSN, that is, credit issuers will still pull your personal credit report instead of business credit report. To get a business credit card, you have to maintain a good FICO score. That’s also why individauls can apply for business credit cards.

I received an email from Daren who is “a loyal MyCardBlog.com” reader about his newly launched App-O-Rama. Daren completed his AOR a few weeks ago, and “it’s time to report the results and some nuggets of info and techniques gleaned in the process.”

App-O-Rama is a concentrated spree of applying for new credit and higher credit limits. The most important thing to do before an AOR is to pretty up your credit scores to present the most attractive picture to potential creditors. The trick of an AOR is by applying for many credit cards in a short time period (in an hour or so), you don’t let the creditors see the new accounts and inquiries while they’re considering your applications. You chances to get approved by a credit card issuer is significantly increased in this strategy. For brief introduction of App-O-Rama, you can refer to App-O-Rama. For detailed guidance on how to prepare an AOR, you can refer to App-O-Rama (AOR): Profting from Credit.

Let’s see how Daren prepared his AOR.

Pre-AOR Preparation

1. Increase current credit cards’ limit through online account. (NO way with Chase to avoid hard pull, so I gave up with Chase Card.)

2. Pay off all of credit card balances.

3. Find out all of the credit cards that I would apply for and get the links to those credit cards.

4. Check my credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com to make sure that everything is fine.

Goal: credit card sign-up bonuses

Credit score from creditkarma.com 773 (TransUnion)

Current Accounts:

Chase Perfect Card, 5k since 01/07

Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card, 8K since 07/05

American Express Blue Cash Card, 12k since 02/06

Age: 29, HHI: 120K

AOR Result

• Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network—–Approved, $10k CL
• Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MasterCard—-Declined
• Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network–Approved, 12K CL
• Chase Freedom Visa Card—————————Approved, $8.8K CL
• AMEX Preferred Rewards Gold Card————Approved, $18K CL
• The Gold Card from American Express OPEN———Approved
• AMEX In Chicago——————————-Declined
• One from American Express——————Declined
• Gold Delta SkyMiles Card——————Declined
• AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest Card—————–Approved, $8K CL
• Chase Sony Card————–Declined (too many inquiries)
• Chase United Mileage Visa Card——Approved, 11K CL
• Discover More Card——–Approved, $7.5K CL (use code to get $100 after spending $500)
• Discover Business Card———Approved, 6K CL

Total earnings is around $1250(100 points=$1, 100 miles=$1) in about 1 hour!