MyCardBlog

I believe most of friend have joined Chase Bill Pay service to receive $75 bonus several months ago. Here I digged out a new deal for those missed the bill pay bonus.

When you enroll in chase online bill pay, you will receive $50. The requirement is pay 3 new bills online before Nov 6, 2007.

Sounds easy?

1. Sign up online at here.

2. Enter promotion code: BTRVE.

3. Login to Chase.com choose “bill pay”,add 3 different payees and pay 3 bills before 11/06/2007.

4. Wait for the $50 bonus.

That’s easy!

Considering the $100 bonus for opening a new account and $50 for using Chase debit card (See here). We can get as much as $200 from Chase. I like Chase!

We should always be careful about our credit card. DO NOT simply give our card to anyone. See the video

For those who haven’t opened an account at Bank of America, you can “Get $100 from Bank of America“. With this new promotion code, I want to say you can get more than just $100 from BOA! There is another program named “Keep the Change” from BOA. It’s a free service, you don’t have to pay money for enrolling in this program. All you have to do is use the BOA visa debit card.

The process is very simple: BOA will round up every Bank of America Visa Check Card purchase to the nearest dollar and transfer the difference from your checking to your savings – automatically – for free. So, if you buy a cup of coffee for $2.2 with your BOA check card, you are actually charged $3.0. But the change is directly credited to your saving account. Then $2.2 for a cup of coffee and $0.8 for saving. In a word, they’re rounding up and refunding the change to your savings account instead of back to your checking account. This is really a neat idea! However, who will use a check card? It’s much safer to use a credit card. Don’t worry. Bank of America will let you use their keep the change program. They will match 100% of the amount of your Keep the Change transfers during the first three months after you enroll, and we will match 5% thereafter. The maximum total match is $250 per year. The matching funds will be credited to your savings account annually. It’s really a nice deal if you use little money everyday. Take the BOA check card in your wallet.

If you are not using this card for your daily use, here is a tip for you. You can pay $1.01, $2.01, $3.01, $4.01, $5.01 or $10.01……to your cable company, cell phone company or internet service company. They accept every transaction! Play this at the beginning of the first 3 months. BOA will match your payment. If you play $1.01 5 times every day, BOA will match you 5*$0.99 each day! See how much you can get from BOA! You can finish the $250 cap in about 2 months. Remember to pay in full before the due date. You can also use paypal…..(I don’t want to go in detail…BOA will hate me.) You can learn more here. You need a checking account, a saving account and a check card.

A good news for people at New York/Tri-state area. If you use Chase Blink Debit Card 10 times from now through Oct 31, you can get $10 credits. The blink technique is a kind of contactless payment which will greatly enhance the efficiency at checkout. Chase’s blink technology has moved to over 1.8 million Visa debit cards in three northeastern states, becoming the first Visa issuer to offer contactless debit cards. Over 2000 merchants in the tri-state area and over 30,000 national wide accept blink payment. The advantages of using a blink payment: 1). Eliminate the time customers spend waiting for cashiers to make change; 2). Are completed up to 25% faster than those done with cash; 3). Can be up to 40% faster than other payment methods at locations such as quick-service restaurants, drive-thrus, convenience stores and movie theaters. In order to spread this new technique, Chase offers great benefits for blink card holders:
– Zero liability for fraudulent transactions;
– Quick replacement of lost or stolen cards;
– The ability to track account details online at Chase.com;
– No need to hand over the card to a cashier;
– No risk of an accidental card reading because consumers must hold the card within 1 to 2 inches of a reader to conduct a transaction.

MasterCard and American Express Card als provide similar features for their card holders. They are Pay Pass and Express Pay seperately.

I can expect that most of us may or may not know our credit scores. Someone may even haven’t checked his or her scredit report! I think check your credit report every month or every several months is a must. You should be always careful about your identity fraud. With the development of advanced technology, the indentity fraud seems as a major concern for us. based on my own experience, I list some services that you can use.

1. You have the right to check your credit report once every year from annualcreditreport.com. You can try one credit bureau each time. You don’t have to pull credit report from 3 credit bureaus at the same time. You can check another bureau later. For example, I requested to see my credit report from TransUnion in Feb. Then I can request to see my credit report in Experian in June. Then in November, I can see the credit report from Equifax. Our law gives us the right to check our credit report once every year for free. The credit report you pulled from annualcreditreport.com can be viewed online for one month. They don’t report credit score. (Don’t confuse with freecredtireort.com! They are not free!)

2. Every time when you get rejected for an application for a credit card or checking/saving account, you have to right to request a credit report from the credit bureau. Which credit bureau you can request depends on which credit bureau they pull when you file the application. It’s free. Again they don’t provide credit score.

3. The private credit service from each credit bureau. For example, TransUnion provides the service named truecredit. Right now they offer unlimited credit score and credit report from transunion for only $9.95/mon. The first month is free. Experian and Equifax also provide similar service. IF you’d like, they also provide 3-in-1 credit report and credit score. As long as you pay them money, you can get all 3 credit reports and credit scores from them.

4. MyFico.com offers the true credit score for you. The above mentioned services give you FAKO credit score. Altough they use similar scoring system as MyFico, MyFico is the only place you can get your true credit score. Again MyFico will also provide credit report for you. But you have to pay it.

5 . National City Identity Protect. I use this service since this July. I can pull my credit report from 3 bureaus daily and it also provide the credit score from Transunion. The price is $8.95/mon. The first month is $1.

6. CreditSecure from American Express. This service provides 3-in-1 credit report. You can get FAKO from 3 credit bureaus. The price is $11.99/mon. If you call then up, you will get $99.95 per year. The system is much more beautiful than Truecredit. You need have an American Express card to sign in. The first month is free.

7. Citi Identity Monitor. I haven’ t used this service before. You can get 3-in-1 credit report and creedit score for just $12.95/mon. The first month is free. (766318 to enroll yourself)

8. Chase Identity Protection. It seems it’s similar service like Citi.

9. Costco Identity Guard. They provide 3-in-1 credit report and credit score. The drawback compared to other service is you can only update your credit report and credit score monthly. The price for Executive Members is $7.49/mon. And $9.49/mon for Gold Star & Business Members.

10. Walmart TrueCredit Service. I believe this service is actually provided by TrueCredit. But you pay through Walmart. They increase the rate recently.

11. Privacy Guard. You can try their service for just $1 for the first 2 months. And then you have to pay $129.99 per year. You can get 3-in-1 credit report and credit score.

12. Privacy Matters. Believe me, don’t use their service. The price for the first 7 days is $1 and then you have to pay $29.95/mon. You have better choices.

I believe you can find more credit services to get yourself know your credit score and credit report. The above mentione are the most popular srevices we use today. And we are not willing to provide our personal information to those private owned services. Get started to see your credit report and score! You will have better chance to get a credit card or checking/saving account.

The credit card users have a right to review their credit reports on quarterly, semi-annually or annually basis. They can send request for their credit report to credit bureau. The better credit scores extracted from these reports help debt relief for borrowers. It’s a best source for determining credit worthiness of the borrower hence helps in deciding debt consolidation rates for them. Debt financing or credit consolidation help business people in managing their business finance requirements more efficiently and more effectively.

Exciting! I received a phone call from Bank of America today! They agreed to fund $100 credit for my account! Emmm…so nice. It seems they really pay attention on BBB.org. I believe lots of readers have opened an account during that time. So if you can’t get the $100 bonus, please go ahead and use BBB.org. The phone number i received is from Florida 714-792-9031.

My story: I opened an BOA MyAccess checking account at the beginning of Aug. I funded this account as required. Then at the beginning of Sep. I sent two bank mails to BOA about the bonus. Their respones were the same: I opened this account in branch. That’s impossible! The nearest branch here is 50 miles away! Then I filed a compalin at BBB.org. It’s so quick! I hope this imformation is useful for you guys.

Every time when you use your credit card, you are making money for credit card companies. It’s obvious that credit card companies are willing to establish good relationship with their card holders. They want you to use their cards! So how can you take advantage of it? Here are several tips on how to deal with credit card companies:

Call: you can easily find the phone number at any where. You can call to ask for low interest rate, waive or reduce any fees. If you miss a payment and come up with a late payment fee, call then up and request them to reduce or waive the fee. If your APR is too high, just call them up and request to lower the rate. If they simply decline your request, you can go further and request to close the account! Tell them that you have other better choices then to use this card. Remember: the credit card market is extremely competitive. If they lose a cardholder, they lose the chance to get profit.

Consolidate credit lines: this is especially useful for those who have multiple cards from a card issuer. In this way you can lower the utilization of your credit card and boost your credit score. You can also lower the chance to get over limit fees. Increase your credit limit without credit pulls: most credit card issuers request to pull your credit report every time you ask to increase your credit lines. Talk to them directly and see what will happen. Switch your card or rewards program: usually you can change your card to another card which might be better meeting your needs. You should notice that you can switch cards within similar class. For example, a student card can’t be converted to a business card. Sometimes you find out you are not a frequent flyer but you have a mileage rewards card. What should you do? Call them up and switch to a cash back card/program.

Warranty extension: lots of credit cards now are offering extend or double manufacture’s warranty plan. Figure out which card offers such benefit and take advantage of it when you make large purchase.

Auto rental insurance: I believe most cards are offering such benefit. Keep an eye on it.
Foreign transaction fee: discover card and capital one provide on transaction fee for foreign transactions. HSBC household card and orchard card offer 2% cash back and 1% foreign transaction fee. Try to avoid the transaction. Other benefits: some credit card offer better discount trough special online shopping in their website such as VIP lounge access, free upgrade to coach or business seat, free companion ticket etc.Remember: 1. credit card companies are trying their best to make as much money as possible. 2. They have well defined rules, policies and procedures. 3. They are willing to sacrifice 2 for 1.

Today I read a paper on busineesweek. The article is written by MADLEN READ (Associated Press). Title is “JPMorgan Chase ramps up rewards program”. According to this article, JPMrogan Chase issued more than 1.5 million Freedom Cards since it launched the product last year. Notice that JPMorgan Chase has issued more than 154 million credit cards totally, Freedom card is one of the most important card in chase credit card market. We can see freedom card on the national TV programs, magazines and newspapers. (no wonder why they didn’t let me close my account) So from the data we can smell something from Chase. Chase is trying to spread this card to the market. As the second credit card issuer in US, Chase is trying to attract more card holders. Thus they launch the dynamic rewards program for chase freedom card.

Before the cardholders can get 3 points for very dollar at gas stations, fast service restaurants and grocery stores. Now our card holder can get 3 points from 15 categories wherever they spent most each month. —The truth seems our card holders just sue this card and Chase will figure out how to maximize the rewards for us. Another important information we should note from this report is: in a recent conference call with analysts, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the company was cutting back on teaser rates and balance transfers and looking instead to profit from greater growth in existing accounts. I really expect that you can get a Freedom card with limited credit history. If you can’t get instant approval, maybe they need get the verification by a credit analyst. I believe you can get the card.

BTW: From my previous posts, we can get either $50 or $100 sign up bonus from Chase Freedom card.