MyCardBlog

Now most credit card issuers are not offering sign up bonus. I have several posts on recent opportunities to get sign up bonus from credit card issuers. Right now Bank of America is offering $75 bonus for opening a new account with the BankAmericard Cash Rewards Visa Signature Card and meeting required activities.

The promotion page can be found here.

Through the promotion page, we can find that you can get $75 bonus from this credit card through Add It Up program with qualified transactions.

To qualify for the $75 statement credit offer, your new BankAmericard Cash Rewards™ account must be used to make a purchase(s) totaling at least $50 on the Add It Up® website within 60 days of the account open date. Limit (1) credit per new account. Allow 8-12 weeks from qualifying for the statement credit to post to your account. Participating retailers and offers are subject to change. You must have either a Bank of America debit card or credit card and be enrolled in Online Banking to be eligible for participation in the Add It Up program. Redemption of accrued cash back rebates occurs in accordance with program Terms and Conditions, generally monthly when a minimum of $5.00 cash back has been earned. Program is not available to Online banking customers in WA or ID and select military bank customers. Select MyExpression® credit cards, co-brand debit cards, Business credit cards and other accounts are not eligible for participation in the program. Additional restrictions apply. For complete Add It Up program Terms and Conditions visit www.bankofamerica.com/additup.

This BankAmericard Cash Rewads Visa Signature Card also offers 0% introductory APR on purchases, balance transfers, and direct deposits for your first 7 or 10 billing cycles. Annual Fee is $0.

Other additional features are:

• Earn 3% cash back on gas, grocery and drugstore purchases for the first 6 months and 1% on all other purchases
• Get a 25% bonus for all cash rewards redemptions of $300 or more
• Get redemptions starting at $25, with the capability to set up automatic redemptions
• Redeem rewards for a check, account credit, direct deposit or pay down your eligible Bank of America^® mortgage

Overall I think is an OK credit card under current situation.

I’m writing this post because I find that many of you might be not aware that if your apartment is listed at Rent.com (an Ebay company), you are eligible to get $100 visa Rewards Card from Rent.com. I just received this $100 visa rewards card today so this promotion should work.

The process to get the $100 rewards card is pretty easy. All you have to do is using Rent.com to find your new apartment. If you find an apartment that features the $100 Reward Card and tell the leasing office that you found the property on “Rent.com” when you visit. After you lease, just report your lease on the Rent.com website. And then Rent.com will take care of everything!

But please be advised that not all of properties listed at Rent.com will award $100 rewards card. You have to find the ones that features the $100 Rewards card. That how they work:

Some properties featured on our site pay us a fee only when their Rent.com advertisement results in a lease. When a renter reports their lease at one of those properties to us, we know to contact that property to collect our advertising fee. So for those properties, we reward renters for telling us about their lease by offering a $100 prepaid Visa® debit card!

More information about this $100 visa rewards card is here. According to the rule, you have to report your lease to Rent.com within 60 days of move-in. It takes about 6~9 weeks to receive the $100 rewards card after you report your lease to Rent.com. Good Luck!!!

I got an email from Chase titled “Get Free debit rewards with your Chase checking account”. Form this email, I can tell that simply enrolling your Chase debit card at Visa Extras (WaMu debit cards are also eligible) and you can  get 5,500 bonus points which can be redeemed as a $10 gift card. SO if you are free for about 5 min, you can enroll you debit card at Visa Extras and get an easy $10 gift card .

The link to enroll your Chase Visa Debit Card is here. (You must have to enroll before September 30, 2009 by above link to get 5,500 bonus points.) That link will bring you to visaextras.com to get enrolled. Once you finish the enrollment process, all you have to do is wait until the bonus points appear in your account. You might be also interested in using your debit card to get more points (which I do not suggest—simply because your need 5,500 points for a $10 gift card at visaextras compared to 6,000 points for $50 gift card at Citi thankyou network.).You need to know what kinds of “qualifying purchases” are eligible to earn points.

• Purchases for which you are required to sign
• Internet purchases (except for gambling)
• Phone or mail order purchases
• Bill payments
• Contactless blink_® purchases (purchases made by holding your card or other device up to a secure reader instead of swiping your card)
• Small dollar purchases for which you are not required to sign, made with your enrolled debit card, unless any of such purchases are authorized with a Personal Identification Number (”PIN”) or are non-qualifying purchases.

To earn points, if prompted for “Debit or Credit,” always select “Credit” and sign for the purchase.
Your $10 gift card will be awarded by posting 5,500 bonus rewards points to your Chase Extras account following the expiration of this promotion.

I just reviewed the New Sony PlayStation Visa Credit Card which is a great credit card for PlayStation players to show their own loyalty. World of Warcraft is another popular game with millions of players. I was luckily found out that there is a special World of Warcraft Visa Credit Card for the World of Warcraft players.

When I saw this credit card, I was shocked by the astonishing card design. As a matter of fact, there are 13 difficult card designs that the cardholders can choose from. Each card design has an actual character on it, thus everyone can choose the favorite one easily.

Another great feature of this credit card is the rewards program that it offers. In fact, the first purchase on the credit card yields a month of free World of Warcraft subscription time. This is the only credit card that lets cardholders earn playing time with every qualifying purchase. Every dollar in qualifying purchases earns the user one reward point. Points can be redeemed for World of Warcraft game time. Points earned post to your account each monthly billing cycle. Plus This credit card offers introductory 0% APR which is good on all purchases and balance transfers for the first 6 billing cycles after your account is opened.

There is no annual fee associated with this World of Warcraft Visa Credit Card. You can complete a quick and easy online application. Applications for the World of Warcraft Visa are processed and supported by the First National Bank of Omaha.

There are so many credit card products in the market nowadays. And of course, there are many different credit card names. We have Platinum Credit Card, Platinum Select Credit Card, Visa Signature, Gold Card, or many others. Can you imagine that there is a diamond credit card? Yes, the Eurasian Bank from Kazakhstan is issuing a new diamond Visa credit card to ultra-rich people who can afford a diamond credit card.

It’s really strange to see banks issuing super-expensive credit cards recently. We all know that almost all organizations around the world have succumbed to recession. How can they attract new customers to try this new credit card product?

According to the report, the newly launched visa credit card by Eurasian Bank, Kazakhstan is encrusted with a shiny 0.02 carat diamond and laced with an elaborate gold pattern. This luxury credit card is designed for a private club of VIP clients.

This luxury Visa credit card is issued to customers with an annual income of $300,000 or above (the average monthly wage is about $500 in Kazakhstan.). And it’s not limited to the rich people in Kazakhstan only. Super-rich people from other countries can also apply for this credit card.

This credit card is similat to the other Diamond-Studded Dubai First Royale MasterCard. If you look carefully, it seems that this credit card is named as the “Visa Infinite”. I’m wondering how long it takes till the Diamond falls off. And whether the Eurasian Bank would offer free replacement.

I have introduced a lot of promotions from our credit card issuers like Chase, Discover Card and American Express. Actually, there are many more promotions from other credit card issuers. PayPal is running huge promotions via corporate with other online merchants like buy.com. This is a summary of holiday promotions from many credit card issuers and other payment processing providers.

Discover Card

The most famous and popular promotion from Discover Card is the Discover Mall Promotion. I first reported this promotion in September. You can take the chance to save with a  $20 Discover Gift Card for every $200 you spend on your Discover credit card at over 160 shopping malls nationwide through Jan. 4, 2009. According to the terms and rules, there is a limit of five gift cards per account with a total of $100 value. No enrollment is necessary. The process is quite simple, take your receipts with you to the customer service at each participating mall and the officers there will issue a $20 Discover Gift card for every $200.

Chase

First of all, the famous Chase Rewards Plus program is offering cash back for shopping online through the Chase Rewards Plus. Chase Freedom Cardholders are automatically enrolled in the program. You can get up to 20% cash back from top online retailers.

Chase is also running the Holiday Bonus Rewards promotion. This seems to be a targeted offer, every registered cardholder can receive a $25 Target Gift Card for purchases exceeding certain threshold amounts in preset categories made from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31. The promotion website is here. You can visit the website to see whether you are eligible or not and how to get the $25 gift card. If you register you credit card at the chase bonus website, you can see other wonderful promotions like: 500 bonus points for adding an authorized user to your account, 1,000 bonus points for enrolling at Chase Online, and 2,500 bonus points for signing on for Chase Fraud Detector.

Bank of America

Bank of America is offering $10 for every $100 you spend getting around the New York City. The promotion website is here. You have to enroll your Bank of America visa credit card to be eligible to get the $10 cash back. Maximum amount you can get is $100.

Visa

Visa is running discount promotions with many top merchants. The promotion details can be found at visa.com. Visit the visa.com and find out the promotion details at each merchant. Print out valuable coupons with 20% or more savings. The promotions cover all you need for the holiday season. But you have to have a Visa credit card to use those coupons.

MasterCard

MasterCard is also running a wonderful promotion with Home Depot. You can get the details of the promotion by visiting the MasterCard Overjoy of Giving website. The promotion offers every MasterCard cardholder a chance to win two identical prizes — one to keep and the other to give. Winners will have the chance to receive two identical cars, trips, shopping sprees or home makeovers courtesy of The Home Depot. The rule is very simple: every time you use your MasterCard to make a purchase during the promotion period ( Nov. 1 and Jan. 2, 2009) you will automatically get a chance to win that week’s sweepstakes.

You can also visit MasterCard website to find the latest discount information for using your MasterCard credit card.

The rare and mysterious black cards have now been thought to be the ultimate status symbol by super-wealthy. There are many banks issuing many black cards in the world. Of course, the most famous one is the American Express Centurion Card with an annual fee of $2,500 and minimum yearly spending of $150,000. Recently, the Barclays Bank just added a new black card into the back family—the new Visa Black Card.

The Visa Black Card is produced in stunning black carbon graphite (patent pending), making it the most durable fake money around. The annual fee of this black card is $495 which is not much compared to other black cards. At the black card website (www.blackcard.com), the issuer clearly indicates that this credit card is not for everyone. It is limited to only 1% of U.S. residents to ensure the highest quality of service to its cardmembers. Not everyone can apply for this credit card.

Overall, the features of this new black card:

• Limited Membership
• 24-Hour Concierge Service
• Exclusive Rewards Program
• Luxury Gifts
• Patent Pending Carbon Graphite
• Annual Fee $495

Maybe the most attractive feature of this card is the 24-hour concierge service. The Black Card team is offering the Concierge Service catering to entertainment, travel, business, shopping and lifestyle needs. With a phone call or email to our world class Concierge professionals, Black Card members can tap into an effective time management tool designed to improve quality of life, allowing you to focus on what is truly important.

More information can be found at here.

Other Black Cards you may want to know are listed below:

5 Black Card Designs You Should Know

American Express Centurion Card

The Diamond Studded Dubai First Royale MasterCard

Today a reader sent me an email about “Verified by Visa” service. He obviously didn’t know anything about the Verified by Visa and thought it was a phishing site. I think it is necessary to talk about what the Verified by Visa is for and how it works. My friend actually placed an order at Newegg.com to purchase the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 digital camera and he didn’t know what the Verified by Visa was, as a result, he placed the order twice at Newegg.com.

So what is Verified by Visa?

Verified by Visa is free to Visa cardholders and was developed to help prevent unauthorized use of Visa cards for online shopping. The cardholders can choose a password at through activation of the Verified by Visa service. Only the cardholders remember the password. Thus Verified by Visa protects Visa cards with personal passwords, giving cardholders reassurance that only they can use their Visa cards online. Once your Visa card is activated, your card number will be recognized whenever it’s used at participating online stores (Click here to see the participating stores.). A Verified by Visa window will automatically appear and your Visa card issuer will ask for your password. You’ll enter your password to verify your identity and complete your purchase.

For the online stores that are not participated in the Verified by Visa service, you can use your Visa card as normal.

The Verified by Visa is an attempt by Visa to reduce online fraud and identity theft. However, there are some problems associated with it. Because the Verified by Visa step comes as a pop-up window and general shoppers usually think pop-up windows are from phishing sites. Actually, if you look at the domain of the pop-up window, you will find that the domain is not from the site where the user is shopping, not from the card issuing bank, or visa.

Actually, Verified by Visa is a 3-D Secure protocol which is an XML-based protocol used as an added layer of security for online credit and debit card transactions. The 3-D Secure protocol was developed by Visa to improve the security of Internet payments and offered to customers as what we now know Verified by Visa service.

How does Verified by Visa work?

• Activate your Verified by Visa service in the Verified by Visa program now or while shopping online. You have to provide your visa card account number and last 4 digits of your social security number along with other information. It’s easy and only takes a few moments to activate your card. You can do it right here on the secure Visa site or when prompted during the checkout process at one of our participating online merchants. Either way, your information is protected. (link to activate the service: https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partner=default)
• Shop at participating online merchants with Verified by Visa symbol.
• Use your Visa credit card or debit card at the checkout and then put in your Verified by Visa password. Once your password is recognized by the transaction system, your order will be successfully placed.
• There is no charge — Verified by Visa is free to Visa cardholders.

Verified by Visa used to pop up at many online merchants which participate in the program. Right now, this service seems not so popular and not all online retailers are using it. But the Verified by Visa still is an important and effective way to reduce your risk when you place an order at the websites that out of US. Many payment network might still require you to use Verified by Visa service.