MyCardBlog

Citi just launched a new credit card product days ago-the new Citi Forward Card. This credit card is called “A credit card designed to meet the specific financial needs and interests of today’s consumers. Specially built to help consumers maintain healthy credit, Citi Forward is the only credit card that lowers the purchase interest rate by a quarter percent when cardmembers use credit wisely and rewards them with ThankYou Points each billing period for paying on time and staying under the credit line.” I am very tempting after knowing more about this new Citi Forward Card.

This Citi Forward Card is a new credit card product issued by Citi by partnership with MySpace. The information about this credit card can be found at www.myspace.com/citiforward.

This credit card offers up to 11,000 bonus thankyou points for new credit card members. Here is how:

• 6,000 bonus points after $50 in purchases are made within 3 months of account opening.
• 5,000 bonus points when you sign up for paperless statements within 3 months of account opening.
• 5 Reward points for every $1 you spend on dining, books, movies and music. 1 reward point for every $1 you spend on other purchases. (It seems similar to the Citi mtvU Card.)
• Up to a 2% purchase APR reduction when you make a purchase, stay under your credit line and pay on time 3 billing periods in a row.
• 100 bonus points each billing period when you pay on time and stay under you credit line.
• No Annual Fee.
• 0% APR for 6 months on purchases and balance transfers.
• 4 beautiful card designs to choose from.

The first 6,000 and 5,000 bonus points seem not difficult to get. $50 purchase and signing up paperless statement is a piece of cake for any of us. What I like most is the 5 thankyou points for the money spents on dining, books, movies and music. This is similar to the rewards program offered by the Citi mtvU Card which is the best student credit card out there in the credit card market. Now it tells me that the Citi Forward Card is another great student card offered by Citi.

Citi Forward includes free membership in Citi’s ThankYou Rewards Network. You can redeem your accumulated thankyou points for millions of items at thankyou.com.

More details can be found at http://www.citiforward.com.

Under current economic situation, Citi and American Airlines AAdvantage program is still offering 25,000 bonus miles for signing up their Citi Platinum Select/AAdvantage® World MasterCard, or Citi Select/AAdvantage® American Express Card or CitiBusiness/AAdvantage MasterCard. If you want to get a Citi credit card, you still have the chance to get 25,000 AAdvantage miles.

The features of the credit cards are:

As a cardmember, you’ll benefit from:

• 25,000 AAdvantage^® bonus miles after $750 in purchases within the first 4 months of cardmembership – enough for a travel award
• No annual fee for the first 12 months
• One AAdvantage^® mile for every dollar spent on purchases
• No blackout dates on AAdvantage^® award travel

Special benefits for Citi Select^® / AAdvantage^® American Express^® cardmembers available through the entré^® program:

• Access to the Premium Hotel Program, which includes special offers such as room upgrades, early check-in, late check-out and more
• Car rental, cruise, spa offers and more

CitiBusiness^® / AAdvantage^® cardmembers can also enjoy:

• Savings on an Admirals Club^® membership or renewal
• Additional employee cards at no extra cost

This definitely is a great message for most Citi credit card holders. Citi just launched a gift card design contest for its members with thankyou network. This event is sponsored by Citi ThankYou Network which is the headquarter for redeeming Citi gifts. The winner of this contest will also have the chance to spread their own design to the people all over the world. Since citi thankyou network members will take the gift card in their wallet.

The most exciting part of this contest is as follows (According to the report by PRNewswire):

The winning design will become the face of a ThankYou Gift Card redeemable by millions of ThankYou Members nationwide. The winner will join the company of internationally renowned artist and designer Karim Rashid, who designs the current ThankYou Network gift cards which will continue to be available in the rewards collection. In addition to having his or her design on a gift card, the top winner of the contest also will receive 100,000 ThankYou Points.

The contest submission period runs from February 12, 2009 through 11:00 p.m. EST on April 11, 2009, during which time you can submit their designs through a special email address provided on ThankYou.com.

Three finalists will be selected by judges who are Citi employees, and designs will be posted on ThankYou.com. Between May 1, 2009 and May 30, 2009, all Citi thankyou network members will be invited to vote for their favorite design.

The prizes are really good, at least seems to me:

If you have any idea on how to design gift card, you should give yourself a chance to win 100,000 thankyou points (equal to $1,000).

Citi Bank is advertising its new Checking, Money Market and Credit Card promotion on its home page. According to the promotion details, you can get up to $225 gift card from Citi Bank after finish required banking activities. The $225 gift card will be awarded as thankyou points which can then be redeemed as gift cards. We haven’t seen such a huge promotion from Citi for a while. I think this is a great chance for those who want to get sign up bonuses from Citi.

The link to the promotion page is here. As I mentioned at the first beginning, Citi will give you bonus thankyou points instead of cash this time. The bonus thankyou points can be redeemed through thankyou network. For example, 10,000 thankyou points can be redeemed for a $100 gift card. Following is copied from the website:

Open a qualifying Citibank checking account with ThankYou Network and get bonus ThankYou Points when you perform eligible activities. Get additional points when you open a qualifying Money Market Account. Earn even more when you apply, get approved and perform eligible activities with a qualifying Citi Credit Card. And since you can get monthly ThankYou Points for everyday banking activities, the rewards keep adding up.

It’s apparent that you have to perform all three different banking activities to get the $225 gift card. If you just finish one or two of them, you will only get part of the bonus. Here is the detail:

1. 10,000 ThankYou Points for opening a regular checking account and make $1,000 deposit before 03/31/2009. And you also have to (1) enroll your new checking account in ThankYou Network in 60 days and (2) complete one direct deposit, two eligible electronic bill payments or five signature-based debit card purchase transactions per month for 3 consecutive months.
2. 3,500 ThankYou Points for meeting the checking account offer requirements and opening a new Citibank Ultimate Money Account by 3/31/09 with a $100 minimum opening deposit and link it to the new checking account.
3. 10,000 ThankYou Points for the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card which requires making at least $100 in purchases for the first 3 months of account opening.

Over all, you can get 23,500 bonus thankyou points for completing the required activties. The deadline for this promotion is 03/31/2009. As a reminder, please save the webpage of this promotion.

There are many co-branded credit card products from Citi and other organizations or banks. I introduced the Associated Bank Platinum Credit Card which offers 0% APR on balance transfer for 12 months with no fees. This is a great credit card if you are in need of money and want to do balance transfer to cover your need. There is another Citi co-branded credit card—ADA World MasterCard which offers similar balance transfer offer to everyone.

The ADA world mastercard has two versions: travel rewards and platinum. The travel rewards has 10,000 bonus points which can be redeemed for a $100 gift card. Therefore I suggest you apply for the travel rewards version instead of the platinum card. Although this is a co-branded credit card, you don’t have to be an ADA member to be eligible to apply for this credit card.

The balance transfer fee is 3% with $5 minimum and $75 maximum. The $75 maximum is pretty good nowadays. For the 0% APR balance transfer fee, as long as first balance transfer is completed within 12 months from date of account opening, 0.00% for 12 months from date of first balance transfer. You can request a balance transfer check online after registering your credit card. Or you can wait for the mail package. There is no annual fee associated with this credit card.

Terms and conditions can be found here.

You can take $100 gift card bonus with 0% APR balance transfer offer with this Citi ADA world mastercard. I think this is a great opportunity!

ADA is the American Dental Association but as I mentioned at the first beginning of this post, you don’t have to be an ADA member to apply for this credit card.

I just introduced the best credit card offers from Kiplinger.com. As I indicated in the post, the best credit card means you should find one credit card that fits your spending styles. If you are short of some cash and want to use a credit card to consolidate your credit card balances, the Associated Bank Platinum Credit Card is a good choice for you.

This credit card features 0% APR on balance transfer for up to 12 months. Plus there is no balance transaction fees associated with the balance transaction. Note that the 5% transaction fee is typical right now in the credit card industry. This is a no-annual-fee credit card.

The details of this credit card can be found here. This credit card is actually issued and maintained by Citi. After you click the “Apply Now” button, you can go to Citi website to apply for this credit card. But it seems Citi hided this credit card from its website.

As indicated on its own website, this credit card is aimed to save money for you. So you can feel free to apply for this credit card and do balance transfer with it.

• You can consolidate your higher-rate balances with a low, promotional rate on Balance Transfers for the first 12 months.
• No Annual Fee and no Balance transfer fees with the offer described above.

Another feature I want to mention is the APR for purchase is only 7.99%. This is a really low rate if you are carrying balances. This credit card also provides Free Personalized Checks. Use your free supply of  personalized checks to make purchases, get extra cash or transfer balances. You can even use your personalized checks where credit cards are not accepted.

0% APR on Balance Transfer without balance transfer fees is a really great deal during current finance situation. You can also deposit those money to high interest savings accounts or CDs.

Associated Bank is the 41st largest bank holding company in the United States.

Most of Citi credit card members enrolled in the Citi Credit Protector Program. But it seems there are few people forget to cancel the Citi Credit Protector after receiving the promotion bonus. (Free Digital Picture Frame and $50 Visa Gift Card) Of course, the “few people” include myself. This post is to remind you to cancel the Citi Credit Protector because whenever there is a balance on your monthly statement, you can to pay $85 cents per $100 balance.

I enrolled in the Citi Credit Protector program early last November (for my Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard for College Students). And then I didn’t use that card for a while until recently I used that card to buy a round trip flight ticket. After the statement came out, I realized that there is a fee charged by the Citi Credit Protector. Thus I called them up and requested to cancel the service. After about several minutes, I was able to convince the customer service to cancel my Citi Credit Protector program.

The hot line for the Citi Credit Protector is 1-888-592-7344. This is a special line for Citi Credit Protector, if you call them through this number it will get you faster connection. Of course, you can use general Citi customer service number 800-347-4934 and them will transfer you to the Citi Credit Protector Program.

Just as any service cancellation process, the customer service representative will try to persuade you to stay in the program. The first time will just be a reiteration of program benefits, and make sure you aware of your benefits. Later on she/he will offer some small money of maybe lower your rate to try to keep you in the program. The cancellation process will be very simple if you insist to cancel your Citi Credit Protector Program (No, thank you!). And you have good reason to do so because in the agreement it clearly indicates that you can cancel Citi Credit Protector at any time for any reason.

You can cancel at any time simply by calling 1-888-592-7344 or in writing to Credit Protector Processing Center, at P.O. Box 901016, Fort Worth, TX 76101-2016. We may cancel your enrollment for any reason, but we will provide you with at least 30 days written notice of cancellation (except for cancellations based on account status).

Remember, whenever there is a balance shows up on your month statement you will be charged a fee of 85 cents for every $100 balance.

Citibank is running a new checking account bonus now. We haven’t seen banking bonus from Citibank for a while. The latest mention of banking promotion from Citi Checking Account is back to this May. That promotion was offering $200 checking account bonus.

The promotion code for this bonus is CY72. You can either go to the promotion page or call Citi at 800-374-9500 to open a checking account.

How to get the $100 bonus?

1. Just open a qualifying Citibank regular checking account and fund it with a minimum of $1,000 by 12/31/2008.

2. Within the first month after your account is opened, make at least one direct deposit into your account or make at least two electronic bill payments from your account each month for three consecutive months and get $100 deposited into your new account.

But you ought to look the fine print:

This offer is only available to Citi cardmembers who are the primary credit card account holders. Offer is not valid for existing Citibank checking customers. All accounts are subject to approval. Checking account must be funded with $1,000 or more by 12/31/2008 and must be in a Citibank Account, Citibank Everything Counts or Citigold account relationship package. Fees may apply to the checking account. Within the first month after account opening, customer must complete at least one direct deposit to, or at least two electronic bill payments from, the checking account each month for three consecutive months to get $100. Electronic bill payments are those you make using Citibank^® Online, Citi MobileSM or CitiPhone Banking^®, excluding bill payments made to Citibank credit cards and transfer payments made to accounts with Citibank or its affiliates. $100 will be deposited to your Citibank checking account within 120 days from the end of the statement period in which you met the qualifying requirements.

As a feature of the Citi Checking Account, you can get fee-free use at over 21,000 ATMs nationwide, including over 5,700 at 7-ELEVEN stores.

Citibank right now is the fourth largest bank in the United States and takes about 3.5% of market sahre in the United States.