MyCardBlog

Credit score is nothing if you’re not using it. Nowadays most credit card consumers have been aware that they can meke some small money by taking the chance of credit card sign up bonuses. Due to the competition between credit card issuers, credit card issuers are always give out sign up bonuses to promote certain types of their credit card products. The most famous ones may be the Chase Freedom Card $250 Bonus offer and the University of Iowa WorldPoints Platinum Plus Mastercard Credit Card $250 Bonus offer in 2007.

Because of the severe economy situation, we are not expecting the huge promotion from our credit card issuers for a while. But the fact is there are still may sign up bonues oppportunities out there. I have a Comprehensive List of Frequent Flier/Point Sign Up Bonus. Following is a comprehensive list of cash backsign up bonus. I hope this list will be of some help for you to get some free money.

I have talked a lot about the cash back, sign up bonuses, rewards points, balance transfer offers, and low interest rates at mycardblog.com. Believe it or not, the above mentioned factors will affect how a customer choose a credit card from so many credit card products nowadays. Smart credit card issuers have now used new tricks to attract more customers in a competitive market. Many credit card issuers are creating some eye-catching credit card products to compete with other credit card products. American Express is on the track.

American Express is testing the Butterfly from American Express that folds in half and pops out of a small silver case attached to a key ring (shown in the picture). Right now the Butterfly card is only available to Gold card members and it’s free. Although the credit card number of the Butterfly card is different from your normal Gold card, the Butterfly card is linked to your Gold card account. Butterfly card charges will appear in a separate itemized section of your statement following your traditional Card charges. In this way, you can track your Butterfly card spending just like your traditional Card when you Manage Your Card Account online.

You can use your Butterfly card anywhere that accepts American Express cards. Just don’t forget to unfold the card at the checkout. The Butterfly card will expire after two years after when American Express will send a new card to you.

Using Butterfly card will also accumulate rewards points for you as long as you are currently enrolled in the Membership Rewards program. However, you can’t apply for additional cards for your authorized users at this time. The Butterfly card is only issued to some targeted card members of the Gold Card from American Express Open. (previously known as the business gold rewards card)

If you have a Gold Card from American Express Open, you probably are the first to try the new product from American Express.

Many of us may still not know that credit score actually can help you earn some free money. Some of you might be worried that if you apply too many credit cards, your credit score will be dramatically affected. My opinion is: credit score is nothing if you’re not using it. If you are not going to buy a house (or apply for a mortgage) in the next two years (Credit inquiries will disappear from your credit report after 24 months.), you are free to use your credit.

My post”Earn ThankYou Points for A Free Trip To Europe and Asia” was a very popular post (update). Actually, there are many frequent flier programs out there. You may get a free flight ticket from any airline company. Following is a comprehensive list of frequent flier mile/point sign up bonus.

The Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express is one of my favorite credit cards. With this credit card, you can accumulate starpoints for free hotel stays. You can also use starpoints to redeem a gift card from Amazon.com or Banana Republic, GAP and Starbucks etc. If you like, you can also transfer starpoints to many airline miles including AA, UA and Delta Airlines. If you apply now, you can get 10,000 bonus starpoints.

Starwood Preferred Guest program introduced the SPG Flights yesterday, a new redemption opportunity, which allows you to redeem your starpoints for a free airline ticket without any restrictions. This is the first hotel rewards program to offer airline ticket redemption option. This truly will benefit all starwood preferred guest members. Another obvious advantage of the SPG Flights over other airline rewards programs is you can redeem Starpoints for airline tickets whenever you choose, even during peak periods such as holidays.Thus you can avoid the standard restrictions that limit most frequent-flyer awards program.

With SPG Flights, you can choose hundreds of airlines over the world with no blackout dates. If there’s a seat available for purchase with cash, you can use your Starpoints. If you don’t have enough starpoints in your account, you can buy starpoints and use them for airline ticket redemption immediately.

Use your starpoints at SPG Flight is very easy:

1. Search for flights at www.spg.com/flights

2. Select your flight from many available options

3. Redeem Starpoints for an airline ticket

4. Fly

According to the SPG Flights Starpoints Chart, I think redeem airline ticket is much better option than other kinds of redemption choices.

SPG Flights Starpoints Chart (Thanks Sander for reminding me of this!)
up to $150 10,000
$150-$215 15,000
$215-$280 20,000
$280-$345 25,000
$345-$410 30,000
$410-$475 35,000
$475-$540 40,000
$540-$605 45,000
$605-$670 50,000
$670-$735 55,000
$735-$800 60,000
$800-$865 65,000
$865-$930 70,000
$930-$995 75,000
$995-$1060 80,000
Higher prices (examples)
$2,880-$3,140 235,000
$4,960-$5,220 395,000
$9,900-$10,160 775,000

Starwood Preferred Guest has been known for having the industry’s best redemption program.I hope they can keep current excellent work and offer more rewards opportunities.

In the redesigned October issue of Consumer Reports (www.ConsumerReports.org), there is a report about the American’s best and worst credit cards. This result is based on a complete study of hundreds of credit cards and actually only a small portion of them is named. In this report, consumer experts indicates 12 credit cards that are worthy of consumers’ consideration and 3 to stay away from.

Most of credit cards in the 12 named credit cards are very common at mycardblog.com. But some of them are not that good, at least, from my point of view. The best credit cards for low-rate or low-fee as rated by consumer reports were: Capital One Platinum Prestige, Clear from American Express, and Iberiabank Visa Classic (You might find a similar credit card from some credit unions). The best cash-back cards included Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards, Chase Freedom Visa, and Discover More. The best gas cards were Chase PerfectCard MasterCard, Discover Open Road, and Hess Platinum Visa (I would also put Chase BP Visa card here.).

Three cards to avoid were First Premier Bank, HSBC American DreamCard and New Millennium Visa or MasterCard. These are subprime credit cards. They usually charge very high interest rates and sky high annual fees or other kinds of fees like account setup fees, processing fees, and monthly service fees. Of course, you should avoid them.

In this report, the experts also point out that consumers should do a credit card checkup to make sure their accounts haven’t changed for the worse. “Several card issuers have doubled or tripled interest rates for some customers in recent months, even though many were current on their bills and have good credit.” said Greg Daugherty, executive editor of Consumer Reports.

According to this report, the consumers’ credit card balances are up from $825 billion at the end of 2005 to $962 billion in May. Some credit card issuers are beginning to tighten their credit limits and charge higher interest rates for many borrowers. We also often hear that someone’s credit cards are closed by the credit card issuers these days. This is a sign that credit card issuers are going to make some changes to minimize their risks.

The most interesting part of this report is the consumer experts give out some useful tips on how to get most from a credit card.

1. Find a low interest rate or even 0% APR credit card if you carry balance on your credit cards.

2. Check your mails from credit card issuers to see whether they are about changing your credit card terms like lower credit limit or increase interest rate.

3. Try to contact credit issuer if you find anything that you feel uncomfortable.

4. Be aware of some “dirty tricks” from your credit issuers.

5. Choose the right credit cards according to the type of borrowers you are.

The full report can be found at ConsumerReports.org with paid subscribers.

Consumer Reports is an American magazine published monthly by Consumers Union. It publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory.

Sam is a subscriber of mycardblog.com. He just finished an AOR (App-O-Rama) and wanted to share his results with mycardblog.com readers. He sent an email to me and listed all the credit cards that he applied for within one day. He told me that he was inspired by my post “MyCardBlog Reader Daren’s AOR Result”.

I believe the AOR trick is pretty easy to mycardblog.com readers. I have some posts about how to perform an AOR and what you should know about AOR. (App-O-Rama, App-O-Rama: Profiting from Credit) You must remember that 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. And you must reduce your accounts at a single credit issuer if you have many accounts there. You chances to get approved by a credit card issuer is significantly increased if you submit your applications in a short time period.

Sam’s case:

Inquiries within last 12 months: TU = 1, EX = 1, EQ = 0
Inquiries within last 24 months: TU = 21, EX =9, EQ = 5

HHI: $225K (Includes investment income and wife’s income)

Chase Flexible Rewards 9,000 CL
Citi Mastercard 3,000 CL
Citi Diamond Preferred 16,000 CL
Discover More 8,000 CL
HSBC GM Flexible Earnings 6,500 CL
BOA Financial Rewards Visa 21,000 CL
WAMU ESPN Total Access 21,000 CL
GE Money Cash Rewards Card 15,000 CL
AMEX True Earnings (Costco) 23,000 CL
AMEX Hilton Honors 22,000 CL

AOR Result

• Chase Freedom Visa Card—————————Approved, 16,000 CL
• Chase United Mileage Visa Card——Approved, 8,600 CL
• AMEX Preferred Rewards Gold Card————Declined
• The Gold Card from American Express OPEN———Approved, 13,000 CL
• AMEX In Chicago——————————-Declined
• One from American Express——————Declined
• Gold Delta SkyMiles Card——————Declined
• AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest Card—————–Approved, 7,000 CL
• AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card—————Approved, 10,000 CL
• Discover Business Card———Approved, 10,000 CL
• Citi Business Card with ThankYou Network—–Approved, 12,000 CL
• Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MasterCard———-Declined
• Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network–——Declined
• Advanta Platinum Business Card with Rewards Options————Approved, 22,000 CL
• Advanta Life-of-Balance Platinum Business Card——————Approved, 8,000 CL

According to sam, he thought he would make his AOR much better if he can eliminate the credit inquiries within 24 months or wait until them disappear.

Happy labor day!

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This is my monthly updated list of credit card sign-up bonus. I have a special page for credit card sign-up bonus where you can find a complete list of credit cards which will offer you a certain amount of sign-up bonus. I hope this list will be helpful for those App-O-Rama planners. I think it’s necessary to keep a tidy list of credit cards with some fulfillment requirements. The aim is to keep you updated with sign-up bonus offers. There are two main requirements for a specific credit card entering in this list: minimum $50 sign-up bonus and must be a mainstream brand like American Express, Discover, Citi, Chase, BOA, etc. Thus all the credit cards on this list are available to everyone.

All the credit cards are listed in order of value and I will try my best to keep this list updated in a monthly manner. Basically, I assume 100 points/miles=$1. Because you can always redeem your points or miles for certain gift cards.

Chase and Amazon.com have worked together to launch the new Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card. Compared to the old Amazon.com visa card, the new rewards card offers more rewards options, higher cash back rate at the first 90 days of account opening, and better look of card design. For some Amazon Kindle fans, the best news is you can get $100 off Amazon Kindle with a new Chase Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card!

The Amazon Kindle has been out in the market for a while and received great reviews both from consumers and experts. The Amazon Kindle sets out to change the way we read books, newspapers, weblogs, and more and is developed by Amazon itself. With the Amazon Kindle, you can have instant wireless access to 115,000 books sold by Amazon just like an electronic book reader, an audiobook player, and a wireless Web browser. Kindle uses a cellular data network to deliver books, newspapers, magazines and weblogs to you immediately. This network is called “Whistler” and is free for you to use. Amazon provides the data connectivity free of charge as part of Kindle’s purchase. Sweet!

The price of Kindle is $359.00 right now at Amazon.com. The Kindle was very popular: Amazon’s initial manufacturing run sold out in just five hours, and it took Amazon six months to get it back in stock. (Somehow, I think this is kind of a marketing strategy.) But if you read carefully, you can find that:

Get the Amazon Rewards Visa Card and Get $100 Off Kindle

Thanks to Chase, you get $100 off Kindle when you get the new Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card. Limited time only.

Here’s how this works: 1) Apply online. Get a response in as little as 30 seconds. If you’re approved, we will instantly add the card to your Amazon.com account and you’ll get $30 back on your credit card statement after your purchase. 2) Add a Kindle to your cart. 3) Place your order using the Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card and enter this promo code: VISACARD to get the additional $70 savings at checkout.

The question is whether the new Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card is better than its previous version?

Following is the details of the cash back rate:

From what I can tell, the new Amazon.com Rewards Card is really an upgraded version of rewards card. The old Amazon card gives 3 points for every dollar spent on Amazon and 1 point for other purchases. The new card add two new reward categories—restaurants and gas stations from which you can get 2 points for everyday $1 spent there. At the same time, the new Amazon credit card comes with an introductory double points offer! You will get 6 points for every dollat spent at Amazon.com within the introductory period. The new card also gives you airline miles, cash, or flight tickets in addition to gift certificates for redemption.

Overall, the new Amazon Visa Rewards Card is a better credit card product and if you are a fan of Amazon Kindle, it’s the right time to grab it!