MyCardBlog

Today most retailers have their own brand credit cards (which you can use everywhere with VISA, MasterCard, or American Express logo) or store cards (which you can only use at specific stores). I was interested in this kind of credit cards now and will introduce some of them in the following posts. The NO. 1 card that I want to introduce here is the Sears Card including Sears Card and Sears MasterCard issued with Citi.

Sears Card

This is a general store issued card which can only be used at Sears stores, K Mart stores, Sears.com and Kmart.com. Sears often offer special discount to Sears Cardholders (5%~30% off by chance). One very important feature I want to mention here is the free monthly credit score access for this Sears Cardholders. It is interesting that they have a website to describe this promotion at http://www.searsscore.com/. This credit score access is counted as soft pull which does not influence your credit score. So if you want to monitor your credit score, you would like to consider this card.

Other features of this card:

• No annual fee
• Returns without a receipt
• Exclusive cardmember-only sales throughout the year with big savings on Kenmore^TM appliances, washers, dryers, Craftsman^® tools and electronics
• Frequent short-term special financing offers

Read more…

Today I received an invitation from Discover More Card which is offering $100 bonus for opening a new account at Discover Card and making required purchase amount. Discover More Card is the most popular discover credit card in the market which is consistently offering 5% cashback throughout the whole year. I have been using my Discover More Card for almost 3 years and like it a lot.

Following is some important information about this $100 bonus:

Application website: www.apply.Discovercard.com

Or Call 800-210-9022

Mention invitation code: FMSH

You have to spend over $599 to receive the $100 bonus.

This invitation code also provides 0% APR on balance transfer until September 2010. The 5% cashback changes every quarter in the year in categories like: travel, gas, groceries, restaurants and more.

Important fine print: Get a $100 Cashback Bonus when you apply by December 31, 2009 and make a total of $599 in purchases with your new card within 3 months of being approved. Promotional reward will be applied within 8 weeks. This promotional reward is in addition to the CashBack Bonus earned on all purchases.

Although credit card market is still not in a good shape, Chase seems to be the only one credit card issuer that keeps introducing more and more credit card products into the market. Other than the Chase Sapphire Card that I mentioned few months ago, Chase also brought the Chase Slate Credit Card. Unlike the Chase Sapphire Card, the Chase Slate Card does not provide any sign up bonus. One obvious benefit of this Chase Slate Card is the 0% Intro APR and $0 annual fee. All other credit card features are similar to Chase credit card products. It is said that this Chase Slate Card is introduced to replace the previous Chase Platinum Card.

There is one, however, new feature that Chase launched together with this Chase Slate Card-the Chase BluePrint. Chase BluePrint is a unique feature that unveiled by Chase recently to manage your finances on your terms. With Chase BluePrint, Chase credit cardholders are offered versatile flexibility and customization for their existing Chase credit card accounts. After enrollment in the BluePrint program, cardholders can select special financing terms for individual purchases.

There are 4 points listed by Chase about the Chase BluePrint:

Full Pay: With Full Pay, the Chase credit cardholder can choose one or more of 14 categories of purchases for which the credit card issuer will waive the interest on the interval between the date of purchase and the billing due date, even if you don’t pay it off at the end of the month. (Most credit cards have this feature.)

Split It: If the Chase credit cardholders want to put a larger purchase on his/her credit card, he can set up a payment schedule much like an installment loan, based either on how long he wishes to take to pay it off or how much he wishes to pay per month.

Finish It: Chase offers a unique way to cardholders to pay off the credit card balances. Cardholders and Chase can work out a plan to pay off the balance gradually.

Track It: This feature allow the cardholder to track expenditures and payments conveniently. (Not new to me.)

Only the Chase Sapphire Card, Chase Freedom Card, Chase Slate Card, Chase Ink Card and Chase Platinum Card have this feature.

More information about the new Chase Slate Card and Chase BluePrint program can be found at Chase.com.

Today a MyCardBlog.com reader sent me an email about this interesting but sounds possible information from Bank of America. The key point is you can really make a huge profit from Bank of America if you are a student and have a credit card issued by Bank of America. Although I provide this information to you, I have to clarify that this has not been confirmed since the original source seems to be a phone marketing.

The prerequisite is 1). You have a Bank of America credit card which enables you enroll the credit protection plan

2). You must have to enroll in the Credit protection deluxe plan (not the general plus plan)

3). You must can meet the requirement set by Bank of America thus you can activate the benefit

SO how can you get the $1000 from Bank of America? Here is the details:

The principal of this promotion is you get $500 from Bank of America for enrolling the credit protection deluxe plan and activate the benefit like you do for other credit protection plans. But you can only activate benefit twice each year.

If you enrolled in the Bank of America credit protection deluxe plan with your Bank of America credit card, and meet one of the following requirements (lief benefits):

1. Academic Excellance – a 3.6 gpa or higher for the term, not cumulative GPA, term GPA.
2. Graduating – Getting a degree .
3. Entering school – Becoming a full time student.

You can call Bank of America to activate the benefit to get $500. They will send you an envelop and clearly list the materials needed to activate your benefit. Since you can do this twice each year, you potential return is $1000 from Bank of America. The net profit is about $760 because the cost for enrolling the Deluxe plan is $20 each month. (The cost of the general credit protection plus plan is 95¢ per $100 of Your Monthly Outstanding Balance up to $25,000.)

For more information you can contact the Plan Administrator toll free at 1.888.668.6938 Monday-Friday, 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. Central Time. The webpage for the credit protection plan is here.

In the most competitive credit card market, there are thousands of credit cards products. It is not an easy job to find out which one is best for you.  From my personal experience, I have tried 13 different credit cards from different credit card issuers with different rewards and APR etc. After using them for more than 1 year, finally I stick to just 3 of them. Yes, it is hard to find out which one best fits yout lifestyle and gives your maximum rewards with convenience. There is one place, however, can help you to save your time and energy to find out the best credit card for you. That is—CreditCard321.com (The Easy Guide to Credit Cards.).

At creditcard321.com. you can pick your credit card by features like 0% APR on purchase or balance transfer. You can easily find the credit card according to the rewards type (air miles, cash back or others) you like. If you like a specific credit card issuer, you can simply go to the credit card issuer section to browse the credit card offered by the specific credit card issuer. Since most credit card issuers decide whether or not to issue you a new credit card based on your own credit performance, you can even choose a credit card by your credit! If you do not have any credit, you can choose secured credit card first to build your credit. It really save you a lot of time. This website contains more than 100 credit card products which cover the most popular credit cards issued by major U. S. credit card issuers. It really is an easy guide to credit cards for you!

Find your credit card at credit card 321 today!

I want to briefly introduce the AFT+ MasterCard which seems to be a new credit card product from HSBC Bank. Citi just launched a new credit card by partnership with MySpace.com-the new Citi Forward Card. The Citi Forward Card is an upgraded version of the Citi mtvU Card. They both offer the similar rewards thankyou points by the new Citi Forward Card offers 11,000 bonus thankyou points.

This AFT+ MasterCard seems to be different from other popular HSBC issued credit cards. We know that the Household Bank and Orchard Bank MasterCard are offering 2% cash back for everything. This AFT+ MasterCard seems to be a different version of the Blue Cash from American Express Card. Let’s see the cash rewards of the AFT+ MasterCard.

Cash Rewards are earned in tiers and the earnings period is reset annually.

• 0.5% on the first $5,000
• 1.0% on the second $5,000
• 2.0% in excess of $10,000

The cash rewards amounts will be doubled (Double Cash Rewards) on all merchants classified as the following: wholesale clubs, grocery stores, supermarkets, dairy products stores, bakeries, druge stores, pahrmacies, service stations, and automated fuel dispensers. Cash rewards may only be redeemed for the full amount available, and only in $20 increments.

But for this rewards, I would prefer the Blue Cash from American Express which only has one threshold $6,500 for each year.

This credit card claims to have Triple Plus Features: Triple Plus Value, Triple Plus Protection and Triple Plus Service which I think all other credit cards also have. The only good thing is the rates are much lower than other credit cards. There is no annual fee associated with this credit card. You can skip up to 2 regular payments a year with no harm or damage to your credit rating. This skip payment option seems cool to me.

This credit card also  offers 1.99% introductory APR on purchase for the first 6 months. You can also get 5.99% fixed APR on balance transfer for the life of the balance.

More details about this AFT+ MasterCard can be found here.

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.

In today’s times magazine, I found that there is a promotion page about Discover More Card. I personally like the discover more card very much and would like to recommend it to everyone here. Not to mention there is a $100 sign up bonus on this card right now. You can earn 5% cash back on selected categories every 3 months. If you are looking for new credit cards, you should consider this discover more card.

The offer includes:

$100 cash back bonus when you make $500 in purchase on this card within 3 months of account opening.

5% cash back bonus in popular categories which will change every 3 months.

Plus you can still earn up to 1% cash back on all other purchases

There is no annual fee with this card.

0% APR on balance transfer until March 2010.

For apply, go to www.apply.Discovercard.com and use the invitation code: DBPD. Or you can call 800-206-4960 to apply for this card.

Please remember that you have to apply for this card before May 27, 2009.

A picture about this offer is attached here.

Here I want to make a detailed description of the cash back bonus offer from Discover Card.

Full 5% CashBack Bonus on category purchases throughout the year should by signing up for each program. You have to go to discovercard.com to sign up your credit card every 3 months to be eligible to get the 5% bonus.

After you spend more than $3000 on this card, you can start to earn 1% cash back on every purchases. For the first $1500, you can only get 0.25% cash back and 0.5% for the other $1500.

But if you redeem gift card at discover card rewards program, you can actually get more cash back. For example, you can get $25 gift card for $20 or $50 gift card for $40. It depends on which card you choose.