MyCardBlog

Brad is my lab mate and he is extremely interested in using App-O-Rama (AOR) to earn some free money. After a little bit research across the internet, he finally launched his mini business AOR last week and sent me a copy of his result.

Credit Score is around 750
Stated Income: $100k
Sole Proprietorship (using SSN# as ITIN)
Years in business: 0
Income: $0

Current Cards..................Type......Limit

Citibank Dividend Platinum.......Personal...$13k

Chase Freedom Card...............Personal...$7k

WaMu Platinum Card...............Personal...$16k

American Express Blue Cash.......Personal...$11k

Total..........................................$47k

Cards applied for...................................Status

Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network............Approved

Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network........Approved

Citi Business/AAdvantage MasterCard.................Declined

Chase Business Platinum.............................Approved

Chase Business Rebate...............................Approved

Chase Business Cash Rewards Visa....................Declined

Discover Business...................................Declined

Discover Business Miles.............................Approved

CapitolOne Visa Business Platinum...................Approved

Business Platinum with Preferred No Hassle Miles....Declined

AMEX Blue Cash for Business Card....................Approved

AMEX Starwood Business Card.........................Approved

Advanta Platinum Business Card with Rewards.........Approved

I can’t imagine how much free money and sign-up bonuses he can get for this mini business AOR. He said this AOR wasn’t well prepared but he liked results so far. He has moved much of the new credit line to his high rate saving account. Since the business report is hidden from his personal report, he is planning to launch his personal AOR soon.

Recently a lot of readers asked a lot about the best combination of credit cards to maximum the return for daily use. OK, hereby I list some great credit cards:

Gas: Discover Open Road (Student Version is also available), SimplyCash Business Card. Both of them will give you 5% cash back at gas stations. The Open Road can also give you 5% cash back for auto maintenance.

Others you may consider: BP Visa Rewards Card, Citi Driver’s Edge Options Platinum Card.

Travel: Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express. Considering the famous Starwood Preferred Guest Program, this card is truly unbeatable. Starpoints can be easily transferred to other points. It’s also offering 10,000 bonus points after first purchase. Business version is available (why use business card? see this post). Citi PremierPass Card—You can match your fly points as thankyou points if you use it a lot!

Cash Back: Citi CashReturns Card. You can get 5% cashback on everything in first 3 months (Right now, Citi offers only 1% cash back!). What can I say? Someone even tried to apply for second one after 3 months. But he failed. It seems their policy doesn’t allow you to have 2 CashReturns cards. You can save a lot, if you use credit card to pay your tuitions, rents, or other fees. For daily use, it will not give you much cash back. But you can consider Chase Freedom Card which will give you 3% cash back on 3 categories automatically every month. Right now, they are offering $50 bonus. And another good news is Chase is trying to promote Chase Freedom and make it as the best popular credit card in US. It’s easy to get!

Student Card: Citi mtvU Card—You can get 5 thankyou points at restaurants, book and music stores (including Amazon.Com). Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card for College Students—Easiest student card to get? It’s quite possible. NO credit history is OK. Discover Student Card—NO credit history? It’s OK.

Business Card: Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network—10,000 thankyou points! Believe me, it’s the easiest business card to get.

You can also check out the following posts: The 15 Most Rewarding Credit Cards, What’s In The Experts’ Wallet?

I enrolled in the Citi Credit Protector in the early November, 2007. Today I got my free digital picture frame from UPS. This digital picture frame is Coby DP-769 7-Inch Widescreen Digital Photo Frame with MP3 Player. According to Amazon.Com, the price for this one is about $75. What a great deal! (see the specific feature through this link at Amazon) The cost for enrolling in Citi Credit Protector is 0 and for only 85 cents per $100 of your New Balance shown on your billing statement for each billing period. SO if you don’t use that credit card, you pay nothing for a 7-inch widescreen digital photo frame. If you do want to use that credit card, you can pay your balance before the statement sate. In this way, they will also not charge you. If you have multiple citi credit card, you can have multiple free digital picture frames! If you don’t have a citi credit card yet, please try to get one! Easiest citi credit cards to get are: Citi mtvU card for Sollege Students, Citi Dividend Card for College Student, Citi Diver’s Edge Card for College Students, and Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network. See the posts about Citi Credit Protector at MyCardBlog.Com. (post 1 & post 2) Enroll the Citi Credit Protector for a free digital picture frame here.

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.)

Just before Christmas Eve I received an email from one of my readers who wanted to make sure that the American Express Simply Cash Business Card is a nice card and worth a hard inquiry. My reply was very simple—“This is one of my dream cards. You certainly should apply for this card! ”

According to the terms and conditions, you can:

Earn 5% Cash Back on gas, office supplies, and wireless services (3% from July 1, 2008)

Earn 1% Cash Back on virtually all other purchases

No limits to the Cash Back

you can earn 0% introductory APR on purchases for the first 12 months

Rebate will be awarded into your monthly statement every month
No annual fee

And here is a list of merchants which are in the above mentioned 5% category.

Office supplies: Staples, Office Depot, OfficeMax.

Wireless services: T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, Alltel, etc

Gas stations: Shell, Mobil, Chevron, Hess, WaWa, Valero, BP, etc (Note: Wal-Mart, Meijier and other gas stations will not be included in 5% category.)

Here is the simple cash rebate estimator, and you can calculate how much cash back you can get from this card every month. Mine is about $12 every month.

One of my friends told me that he was trying to close the American Express business gold rewards card and was convinced to convert that card to this card. He said he was happy that they can do this. The only draw back is you can’t get sign-up bonus from this card. I remember that lots of friends jumped in the Business Gold Rewards card before Oct. 15, 2007. Because they will charge a $125 annual fee on that card, you might want to convert that card to this one. I can’t guarantee you can convert another business card to this card. But, at least, you can call them up and request them to do so.

How can you apply for a business card without a real business?

If you don’t have a business and want to apply for a business card for personal use, you can put Solo Proprietorship as the business type and your name as the busines title. You can use your personal SSN as ITIN. You can put $0 revenue and 0 years in business. It won’t affect your chance to get a business card (as a start up company). The credit card issuers will pull your personal credit report.

I have a post about credit cards with $100 bonus (see here). This afternoon I dug out another credit card—Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network. This card will give you 10,000 ThankYou Points after $250 in purchase. The 10,000 bonus points is clearly stated at Citicards.Com. To see this card, please click here. At this page you have two choices—Visa version or MasterCard Version. You can choose whichever you’d like. After click the card type you want, you will enter the application page.

This card also offers 0% APR on purchases. So it’s also a great opportunity to take advantage of the 0% APR on purchases. This might help you to save a certain amount of money.

There are some reasons why you might have to think of getting a business card.

1). 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.

2). Business cards are generally giving out high credit limit. They are supposed to be used for business purposes.

3). Business cards have great 0% APR offers.

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.

How can you apply for a business card without a real business?

If you don’t have a business and want to apply for a business card for personal use, you can put Solo Proprietorship as the business type and your name as the business title. You can use your personal SSN as ITIN. You can put $0 revenue and 0 years in business. It won’t affect your chance to get a business card (as a start up company). The credit card issuers will pull your personal credit report.

Do you know a credit card with $500 annual fee? If you don’t know, please read the following introductions.

Citi has finally decided to relaunch its chairman credit card with limited promotions. The credit card is American Express Black Card which has already attracted lots of attenstion from media. As Citi stated, the card is designed to meet the specific needs of a unique group of people, including Smith Barney and Citi Private Bank clients who expect excellent service and benefits. There will be a special trained team to serve the card memebers. So what you can get from this card?

No foreign transaction fees.

Personal concierge service. Cardholders have the access to high level of concierge representatives for assistance with dinning arrangements, gift service, travel planning and so on. Of course, you can use the service for 24/7. Complimentary airport lounge access.

Rewards program. You can get 3 thankyou points for every dollar spent on purchases made at supermarkets, drug stores, gas stations, commuter transportation and parking merchants (so does every other card). Get 1 Purchase Point for every dollar spent on all other purchases. Get points for shopping with participating retailers (It’s new?).

Anything more? NO! Can you let them make a wake up calls? Can you let them handle your laundry?

Well, I just don’t understand why they put $500 annual fee on this card. You can get most of the benefits from a common card like Citi PremierPass card and CitiPremier Elite Level card. I pormise I won’t apply for this card even though I am a millionaire.