Entries Tagged 'Credit Cards' ↓

One of the best ways to reduce your interest rate is to simply ask your credit card. Don’t believe me? Yeah, I didn’t believe me either. However, you can get your interest rated reduced if you ask and have a good reason for them to do it - that’s where all those 0% balance transfer offers come into play. If you arm yourself with a couple card names, an idea of what they offer, then you might be able to get your credit card company to drop your interest rate.

A lot of folks scoff at 0% balance transfer offers because they feel that their credit history precludes them from considering the cards. While that may be true, it’s not something that your credit card company would necessarily know! Just by threatening to leave, they may drop the rate because they don’t want to risk losing you. You’re profitable! If you’re paying 19.99% APY on your debt, they’re more willing drop the interest rate if it means keeping you, than not dropping the rate and have you leave.

Also, those CSRs are good people, hardworking people, and they know that there are other hardworking people out there struggling to make ends meet. If you’re courteous, give them a good reason to help you, then they are more likely to give you a hand. Sometimes they just need to hear the magic words and they’ll do what they’ve been empowered to do - keep you as a customer. Give it a try!

I carry and use the Citi mtvU card because it gives me 5% cashback-equivalent in points (I convert it to a student loan check) at restaurants and bookstores, with Amazon.com counting as a bookstore. In addition to the great cash back percentage, Citi will also give you points for grades - a program I’ve written about in the past. Well, this week the deal just got a little sweeter as the points for grades at the lowest tier increased by 50 points.

There are other great features with the card, such as 25 points for on-time payment and a no fee 6 month 0% APY balance transfer.

The CitiBusiness with ThankYou Rewards has a promotion in which you can get 10,000 ThankYou points, worth $100 in gift cards, after your first purchase. What you can also get out of the deal is a 12 month 0% APY balance transfers, which you use for a balance transfer arbitrage play. (There is a 3% balance transfer fee but that is waived with this offer)

Here are some other features of the card:

• 3 ThankYou Points for each dollar spent on eligible business purchases.
• 1 ThankYou Point for every dollar you spend on other purchases.
• Additional cards for employees with credit limits you set.
• Prescription Discount Benefit Program for cardmembers and their dependents
• Manage your account online
• Manage payments, view statements, track activity, request a credit line increase and add employees.

Everyone can apply for a business card, just use your social security number as your EIN because you can own a sole proprietorship without any additional paperwork (or taxes).

If you’re getting close to a free ticket on Continental Airlines, then this particular deal involving 20,000 Continental OnePass might interest you. For a limited time, in celebration of 20 years of the OnePass program, you can get 20,000 OnePass miles after your first purchase with the Continental Airlines World MasterCard® from Chase.

It’s the 20th anniversary of OnePass® and we want to help you reach your travel goals faster! Apply now for the prestigious Continental Airlines World MasterCard.
Earn More Miles:

• 20,000 bonus miles after your first purchase
• DOUBLE miles at Continental Airlines and other popular merchants and 1 mile for every $1 you spend everywhere else
• Earn double miles at over 10,000 restaurants across the U.S. and Canada when you pay for your purchase with your Chase card. Want even more miles? Register online at onepass.rewardsnetwork.com to earn triple miles or more.
• No expiration of miles and no limit on how many miles you can earn

Exceptional Cardmember Benefits:

• 2 Presidents Club® passes every year after your cardmember anniversary
• 2 Travel Discount Certificates (up to $200 in savings) every year after your cardmember anniversary
• Earn and redeem on Continental and SkyTeam™ alliance partners
• 24-Hour Fraud Protection
• MasterRental collision damage waiver coverage
• Emergency Cash and Card Replacement

If you’re paying an annual fee on your credit card, stop. Just stop. There are so many credit cards out there vying for your business, you shouldn’t ever have to pay an annual fee on those things. Why would you pay to have the privilege to earn they merchant transaction fees? Why would you pay them an annual fee just to pay more interested if you’re not paying off your balance? It’s crazy but plenty of people do it! The only cards in which an annual fee makes a little bit of sense is with business credit cards but even then you can find cards without an annual fee (Discover Business doesn’t have a fee).

Back in the day (between 1996 and 2006), the credit card companies used to hide the foreign transaction fee in the conversion rate on foreign purchases; nowadays they have to break it out and let you know how much they’re charging. Well, the reason they break it out is because they got sued and now they’ve settled - paying a minimum of $25 to anyone who qualifies and claims it. If you had foreign travel and used a credit card, you qualify!

There are three different claims you can make, depending on how much proof you can provide, but for the full scoop check out this comprehensive article on the Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Litigation (MDL 1409) Settlement. You can take your time though, you have until May 30, 2008. You can also opt out of it if you’d like, you gotta do that by February 14, 2008.

Interested in giving yourself a brief interest free loan? If you make a purchase immediately following your credit card’s statement closing period, you won’t have to pay for a purchase for the duration of your grace period. While this doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s a small little hack that will allow you to enjoy the benefits of your purchase without having to pay for it (albeit for a little while). For example, if your statement closes on January 20th, make your purchase on the 21st and the bill won’t come due until your next statement cycle. This is more useful on large ticket items, like televisions or other fancy electronics, than smaller ticket items but it’s useful either way.

Discover is running a new promotion for $40 cashback on $500 in purchases in the first three months after opening a Discover card:

Earn a $40 Cashback Bonus when you make $500 in purchases within 3 months after your account is opened. Offer valid for new accounts only; limit one per account. We are not responsible for merchant delays in processing transactions. Promotional reward will be applied within 8 weeks. See Cashback Bonus Terms and Conditions for full details.

Many of the Discover More cards and the Discover Platinum cards apply and you will see a huge banner on application pages:

If you have never heard of the balance transfer arbitrage game, let me introduce you. Balance transfer arbitrage is the practice of getting a 0% balance transfer from a credit card, deposit it in a high yield savings account, then collecting the interest. I would explain it in greater detail but the site Balance Transfer Arbitrage breaks it all down (but essentially that’s what it is).

Sign up to the Citi Gold/AAdvantage World Mastercard and Citi will give you 12,500 AAdvantage bonus miles after your first purchase plus they’re waiving the annual fee for 12 months. In addition to the bonus miles, you’ll also earn 1 American Airlines AAdvantage mile for every buck you spend up to 60,000 miles each year and those miles never expire. To add to the bonusness, there are also no blackout dates for the miles on American Airlines, American Eagle and AmericanConnection carriers.

But wait… there’s more! You can redeem miles on a bunch of other airlines, car rental companies and hotels, twenty-five in total.