MyCardBlog

It seems we can’t make free money from balance transfer any longer. Most credit card issuers have terminated their zero fee introductory balance transfer offers with a transaction fee. For example, Citi Platinum Select Card,which used to offer 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for years, all with no fees, added 3% transaction fee with $250 cap! Discover stopped their no fee balance transfer offers on all of their cards, and added $50 or $75 cap on balance transfer. It’s very clear that the sweet age is gone. However, we can still find some cards are still offering o% APR on balance transfers without transaction fees. They all are from Citi. Here I summarized the cards from Citi Cards without transaction fees and I hope you can take the last train. The following cards are offering 0% APR on balance transfer with no fees for 12 months.

Citi Professional Cash Card

Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network (10,000 thank you point with you first purchase)

Citi professional Card (0% APR on purchase)

Citi Upromise Platinum Select MasterCard

How much can you get from Citi?
I think this is the most important question. SO I spent several hours to figure out a way to make an estimation on how much free money we can get by taking advantage of 0% APR on balance transfer. Here are some basic points I used: APY on saving or CD—5%; Start Balance—$10,000; minimum payment for each month—2% of the balance. Then how much can you get from Citi? My calculation told me that after 12 months, you can get $448.95. Other Citi cards may charge you $75 or more transaction fees. SO basically you can make a judgment on how much you can get from balance transfer. A warning is when you carry a large balance (a dramatic drop of your credit score), other credit card issuers might reduce your credit limit. And don’t forget to pay the bills, otherwise your 0% APR will be terminated by Citi.

Tips on balance transfer

1. Some friends claim that they can transfer balance to their checking accounts online from Citi professional. I don’t know. But I think is highly YMMV; 2. Use debit card to transfer balance. Although it may not succeed, it worths a try; 3. Transfer balance to another credit card and then ask for a refund check; 4. Use the balance transfer check (make sure it’s not a cash advance check) or request a balance transfer check; 5. Do balance transfer through a phone call. (this is useful when you want to pay off all or part of your car loan from your credit card)

Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards Card is offering $50 credit after first purchase. This card features a 1% cash rewards on everything plus 25% annual bonus on the cash you earned during the year. SO the average cash rewards is about 1.25% on everything. If you don’t have a 2% on everything card, this is a good choice. (You’d better have other specific cards which will give you more rewards—-like gas card.) You can redeem the rewards at anytime! There is no minimum amount required. If you’d like to get $1, then go ahead. They will send you a check! You can earn cash back as much as you can. There is no limit! To receive the $50 credit, you have to use the card before Dec 31, 2007.

Another feature is they won’t charge foreign transaction fees. Don’t like Citi, Chase and BOA which will charge about 3% transaction fees for transactions made in a foreign currency. (See http://www.capitalone.com/tv/)

My experience tells me that they will pull credit report from 3 credit bureaus.

Smoking hot! Citi Platinum American Express Card offers 5 thankyou points for every dollar spent at supermarkets, gas stations and drugstores and 3 points for other purchases. The offer is good for 24 months. There is no pre-set spend limit for this card. The annual fee is free for the first year and $99 after that (who wants to keep it?). Plus you can get 15,000 points after spending $300 in 3 months. You can get the benefits for an American Express card holder. You can have the VIP access in the airport lounge! Wait there are more benefits: Make your next trip more affordable with unlimited companion tickets on domestic and international airlines to hundreds of destinations on several domestic and international airlines including Virgin Atlantic and Mexican Airlines. Emm! A nice card! I promise I will try to get this card at least for the first year. It seems this is the second 5% rewards card. The drawback for the previous one is limited 3 months’ 5% rewards.

PS: I try to find good cards for everyone! Make sure you can visit my web daily. Another point is: this is a charge card not a credit card. You have to pay full every month. (get confused on credit card and charge card? wait for next post)

Maybe this is a very old credit card deal, and you guys might all know this deal. But I want to say it again because it’s a nice credit card. Citi professional mastercard with thankyou network is offering 10,000 thankyou points after first purchase. The 10,000 points can be redeem as a $100 gift card good for a lot of retail stores. You can get 3 points for every dollar spent at gas stations, drugstores, restaurants, car rentals and office suppliers. This card also provide 0 APR for balance transfer up to 9 months with $0 fee. It’s really a good card for those in need of money.

I applied for this card and got denied! I called in and talked to a credit analyst who told me that I need at lest one year credit history to get this card. Citi professional card is a hybrid personal/business card. It will show up on your credit report.

Hilton HHonors Platinum Credit Card from American Express: Earn 10,000 bonus points after your first purchase. Then you can get extra 2,500 points for your first 4 stays at Hilton family hotels. You can get 5 points for every dollar spent at Hilton family hotels and 3 points for every other purchase. 5 points for spending at US supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations and wireless phone services. No annual fee for this card.

Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express: See my previous post.

Citi Hilton HHonors Visa Signature Card: You can get 15,000 bonus points after you first purchase—enough for 2 free stays at Hilton family hotels. You can get 6 points for every dollar spent at Hilton family hotels. 3 points for spending at US supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations and 2 points for every other spend. No annual fee.

Marriott Rewards Visa Signature Card (chase): You can get 15,000 bonus points after your first purchase plus a free night stay certificate upon account opening. Earn 3 points for every dollar spent at Marriott hotels. Get 1 point for other purchases. Annual fee is free for the first year. After that $30 per year.

Priority Club Rewards Visa Signature Card (chase): 15,000 bonus points after your first purchase. 10,000 bonus points for spending 15,000 annually. Get 3 points for every dollar spent at Priority Club hotels and 1 point for other purchases. Annual fee is $29 after first year.

Choice Privileges Visa Card (bank of America): 8,000 bonus points after your first purchase—free one night stay at over 1,000 locations. No annual fee.

TripRewards Visa Platinum Plus MasterCard (bank of America): Earn 13 points for every1 dollar spent at hotels. 2 points for every other purchase. No annual fee.

Discover card: You will get 5% once a year (3 months) for hotel staying.

American Express offers the national wide in-store promotion enabling shoppers can get free $25 gift card when they purchase any 2 gift cards before Sep 30, 2007. The rebate form must be received by AMEX by Oct 22, 2007. The unique back-to-school card can be used at LINES*N*THINGS, GAP, BANANA REPUBLIC, and OLD NAVY.

We all are aware that the back-to-school period is one of the most busiest shopping season in a year. Every family spends about $1000 for their kids during this time period. We can buy two $25 gift cards in CVS or other retailer stores and get the $25 gift card after mail-in-rebate. Although there is an activation fee associated with each card, it’s still a good deal for RB, GAP, and ON fans. See details in AMERICAN EXPRESS and YAHOO.

Remember: this is an in-store offer.

To be brief, the App-O-Rama (AOR) is a credit card application strategy—submitting many credit card applications in a very short time. And then enjoy the sign-up bonuses, free hotel stays and mileage bonus. At the same time, you can also get the 0% Apr promotion offers from the major credit card issuers by choosing right cards. After transferring the credit lines to your personal bank accounts, you can earn interests. The trick here is the credit card companies won’t report the inquiries immediately after your submissions. So when you apply for credit cards all at a very short time, the card issuers won’t see the inquiries from each others. In this way, you have more chance to get the credit card. You should have to remember four things: find the right cards; have a good credit history; have high credit limits on other cards; prepare to see the consequences from AOR. There is a website help you find the right cards for you and teach you how to get the bonus—www.app-o-rama.com.

It’s also interesting to see the report from the Wall Street Journal. The credit card issuers have noticed this problem. Them are beginning to put higher transfer fees on your balance transfer. The End of Profit from AOR is coming!

I think I should mention that try to use business cards for your AOR! Main reason is: the business card is hidden from you personal credit report! Your credit score cas stay higher adn you can still get good offers from major credit companies even after AOR. And usually business cards offers better 0 Apr promotions and have higher credit limits (business needs money). Please pay attention on Advanta which is a good business card issuer.

I have mentioned the AMEX business gold rewards card in my second post which can give you 25,000 membership rewards points after your first purchase. Here, I’m writing about abother great card from American Express—The Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card. You can get 10,000 starpoints after your first purchase. What do the 10,000 starpoints mean??? It’s equal to 3 free night stay at the participating Starwood hotels in 95 countries! This is my dream card. Although we can get a lot of rewards cards, I think this card is beat. Let’s do the math. You can redeem 2,000-3,000 starpoints for one night stay at the starwood hotels which is about $150 dollars per night. And you can get 1 starpoint for $1 purhcase. Then you can see rate of the cash back is about 5% or more. The annual fee for the first year is waived and after that is $45. They increased the annual from $30 to $45 recently. I can imagine that a lot of friends are trying to avoid annual fee, but this card is the only one that worths paying the annual fee. If you want to try your luck, you can call in and ask for waiving the fee. Also you can convert the starpoits to other airline mileages. For example, you can redeem 20,000 starpoints for 25,000 AA miles. This is really a wonderful card! I applied this card on Aug 15th, and then I got a letter from AMEX that I have to verify my annual income. I went to the Human Resources Office to get a verification letter stating my annual income and sent out the letter yesterday. Let’s see what will happen.

Issuance of banking loans requires verification of your personal identity, annual income, etc. You should not rely completely on debt relief loans for managing your finance. You need to know the fundamentals of refinance loan. This would help you from being heavy indebted in future. You can even compare wide variety of personal and business loans online and choose the one that meets your requirements in the best possible manner. The deutsche bank is launching its new credit facility for its business customers. The customers interested in boat financing can now get low interest loans.