Archive for the 'Credit Cards' Category
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
I promised to follow-up on the features of the Citi Forward card after getting mine, and am finally getting around to it. Read on to see how you can get a $100 gift card and also 3.45% cash back with this card at restaurants, Amazon.com, and more.
Sign-Up Bonus
New cardholders get 6,000 bonus ThankYou points after $50 in purchases made within 3 months. In addition, you get another 5,000 points for choosing paperless statements within 3 months.
The 11,000 bonus ThankYou points showed up promptly. I signed up for paperless statements immediately, and received the 5,000 points on my very first statement. I made the required $50 in purchases during the first month (showed up on the first statement), and received the 6,000 points on my second statement.
5x ThankYou Points
This card works off the same ThankYou points system as many other Citibank cards. 10,000 points = $100 gift card at stores like Sears, Macy’s, Staples, Old Navy, Gap, etc. 12,700 points = $100 towards a student loan or mortgage payment. 14,000 points = $100 prepaid Visa credit card. 14,500 points = $100 statement credit.
What makes this card unique is that you get 5 points for every $1 you spend on books, movies, music, and at restaurants. On everything else, you get the plain vanilla 1 reward point for every $1 spent. No annual fee.
5x Rewards at Restaurants
Again, at 1 penny per point with gift cards, getting 5x points is like getting 5% back when eating out. Even if you convert to straight cash, that’s still 3.45% cash back at restaurants (5/1.45). Or 3.57% back if you are okay with prepaid Visa card, which I am since they are usable anywhere that takes credit cards.
I have gotten my 5x rewards at fast food restaurants (McDonald’s), chain sit-down restaurants (Chili’s, etc), and also mom-and-pop places.
5x Rewards at Amazon.com
I can also officially confirm that Amazon.com is considered a bookstore. This is true even if your entire purchase (or any of it) did not contain books. I made one purchase with books, and one with only electronics, and got 5x points for both. So you can indeed get 3.45% cash back at Amazon, or 5% back in the form of gift cards.
The 5x points show up separately under the “Bonus Points by Category Earned” on your online statement:
I can also confirm it works at Regal movie theaters. I have this card stored online at my Amazon account so I don’t forget, and it’s in my wallet marked for restaurants only. Makes it easy to track my dining-out budget!
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 10 Comments »
Monday, June 29th, 2009
I am not a big fan of purchasing credit scores. I can understand why a lender would pay to get a calculation of your likelihood of defaulting on your loan, but if it’s based on our data, why do we have to pay just to see it? Even if I am declined for a loan, I can only see my report, not the numerical score that supposedly defines my financial life.
There are plenty of “fake” credit scores out there, but there is no way to get your real FICO scores anywhere but myFico.com. If you must order your score, use the promotional code CPPSAVINGS to get 20% off all credit report and monitoring services orders. It’s the best coupon I found that worked:
Whenever you do buy a score, I would recommend trying to correlate your score and the current information on your report. Then you can start to learn beyond the generic rules they spit out, and see how changes really affect your score. I’ve applied for 12 credit cards and canceled 5 with almost no affect to my scores - despite all the “rules” - only to have a huge balance on my mom’s credit card (with me as authorized user) show up and drop it by 30 points.
An possibly cheaper alternative is to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Scorewatch, which includes two free Equifax scores and reports. Just remember to cancel as soon as you decide you don’t need it anymore.
* Experian no longer allows Fair Isaac to sell FICO scores to consumers at all (even though lenders still buy and use them). But they’ll happily charge you money for their own attempt at a credit score.
Posted in Credit Cards | 9 Comments »
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Well, looks like I’ve squeezed all the free money out of another credit card offer. This time it is the Miles Card by Discover. It used to have a good 12-month no-fee 0% balance transfer offer, but has recently added a balance transfer fee. However, it does offer 0% on purchases for 6 months.
In addition, this card still offers a sign-up bonus of 12,000 Miles. You get 1,000 Miles each month you make a purchase for 12 months. A mindless way to get the points is to sign the card up for automatic billing of your cell phone bill (or similar bill).
Discover Miles Redemption Options
However, the Miles you earn with this card are not affiliated with any airline. So what’s one of these special Miles worth? The wording is very vague, and not until you already have the card do you get the details. So here they are…
The most efficient way to redeem is for travel credit. You can redeem 10,000 Miles for a $100 cash credit towards any travel purchase (airfare, hotel, car rental, cruise) from any vendor or website. Now that I’ve actually done the redemption with my Hotwire purchase, I am happy to report that it was hassle-free.
You simply charge the purchase to your card, and request the credit online. The system automatically checks that you have a travel purchase, and approves the request. In a few business days the $100 shows up in your account:
Other redemption options
The alternatives are not that great. If you travel at all, I would wait and go with the travel credit.
- Gift cards. 7,000 Miles gets you $50 gift card at stores such as Macy’s, Gap, or Shell gas stations. You can also redeem 4,000 miles for a $25 gift card.
- Cash. 5,000 Miles gets you $25 deposited into your bank account.
Double Miles & Other Promos
For most purchases, you get 1 Mile per dollar spent. The default feature of the card is that you get 2 Miles per dollar on the first $3,000 in travel and restaurant purchases each year. There is also a rotating category each month. For example, you get double miles on up to $500 in purchases at gas stations throughout June and July.
Even with the double miles here and there, this is not a top rewards card. However, you can still extract $100+ out of it with no annual fee, plus you get 0% interest for 6 months.
Here are additional credit cards with sign-up bonuses of $100 or more.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 7 Comments »
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Since I can now get 5x ThankYou points on restaurants and Amazon.com purchases from my Citi Forward card, I have been looking into the best way to maximize my redemption value.
The goal is to get as close to making the 5x points equate to 5% cash back by making 100 points = $1. My standard option is to redeem 10,000 points for $100 gift cards to Target and Home Depot, but since the retailer list is getting a bit thinner here are some good alternatives.
Student Loan Rebate Check
Here we can achieve 100 points = $1, but in the form of a check written towards a student loan. From their website:
With the student loan program redemption, Customers can apply their points towards any student loan program -financial institution. Please call 1-800-THANKYOU for details.
You can redeem in increments as small as 2,500 points for a $25 check. You have to call them up, no online redemption. The CSR will ask you for your lender’s name, and they’ll mail you a check written out to your lender (i.e. Citi Student Loans). You are then supposed to add in your account number or whatever else is necessary, and then send it on to your lender. Reader Chris shared that he has a workaround if you lender doesn’t take third-party checks:
I just have the check written out to my bank, Chase, and then write my checking account number in the memo space. I drop it in an ATM and they have always deposited it into my checking account just fine. I’ve been doing this for years with no problem. I would just apply the money myself to my auto-payments and keep my 0.25% rate reduction.
Mortgage Payments
Here we can get up to about 100 points = $0.80. (5x = 4% cash back.) The increments are as low as $25 for 3,300 points, and the ratio gets slightly better with larger check amounts. From the website:
ThankYou Members who redeem will receive a letter with a check issued on behalf of ThankYou Network made out to the financial lending institution to be used towards their monthly mortgage payment. To redeem, members must contact our ThankYou Service Center (1-800-THANKYOU) and must provide the Agent with the name and correct spelling of your mortgage financial lending institution.
Again, you must confirm with your mortgage servicer that they will accept checks from a third-party. I would still prefer to just cash the check and apply it to the mortgage myself.
Expedia Travel Credit
This is another method that we can achieve 100 points = $1 by booking travel directly through the ThankYou/Expedia website. It’s basically Expedia.com, except that the flight costs are shown in ThankYou points. So instead of a $200 flight, it will ask for 20,000 points*.
One benefit of this system is that there are no blackout dates or seat availability issues. If you can find the flight on Expedia.com, you can book it with points. Also, all taxes, fees, and surcharges are included in the point total. In this way, the variable redemption is actually better than the old fixed point option, where the points only covered the base cost of the tickets and you had to pay the taxes and fees separately.
* I just checked this by testing out a SFO-LAS flight on both sites. It was either 12,700 points or $119, which is a little bit off. However, this is because Expedia.com is currently running a promotion until 5/31/09 which waives their booking fees. Otherwise, it should match up almost exactly.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
I ended up applying for the Citi Forward card mentioned several days ago as part of my list of credit cards with sign-up incentives. There really wasn’t much to the decision, it was basically the only one I didn’t already have. 
Sign-Up Bonus
New cardholders get 6,000 bonus ThankYou points after $50 in purchases made within 3 months. In addition, you get another 5,000 points for choosing paperless statements within 3 months. As shown below, the 11,000 total points can get you either $100 in gift cards or about $75 towards a prepaid Visa card.
ThankYou Points & Rewards Program Summary
This card works off the same ThankYou points system as many other Citibank cards. 10,000 points = $100 gift card at stores like Sears, Macy’s, Staples, Old Navy, Gap, etc. 14,000 points = $100 prepaid Visa credit card. 16,000 points = $100 in straight cash (a check sent directly to you). If you can find a store where you can use a $100 gift card = 10,000 points, that basically a penny per point.
What makes this card unique is that you get 5 points for every $1 you spend on books, movies, music and at restaurants. On everything else, you get the plain vanilla 1 reward point for every $1 spent. There is no annual fee for the card.
5x Rewards at Restaurants
Again, at 1 penny per point with gift cards, getting 5x points is like getting 5% back when eating out. At that rate, eating out $170 a month will get me a $100 gift card every year. Even if you convert to straight cash, that’s still 3.125% cash back at restaurants (5/1.6). Or 3.57% back if you are okay with prepaid Visa card, which I am since they are usable anywhere that takes credit cards.
5x Rewards on Books = 5% back at Amazon?
Here’s an interesting question. Who’s the most popular bookstore? Amazon.com. With the Citi mtvU card for college students, the 5% back on books worked on all purchases at Amazon, even if it wasn’t 100% books, since they really have no way of telling. Can anyone verify if this is also true for the CitiForward card? (Update: A couple of readers have verified this to be true.)
Other features
There is an intro 0% APR on purchases for 6 months. You also get 100 points for each month you paid on time and don’t exceed your credit limit, as well as a highly touted 0.25% interest rate reduction each time you do this 3 times in a row (max reduction 2%). The APR on this card is only average to begin with, and I don’t carry a balance anyway, so I’m not really concerned with this. The 100 points per month works out to about an additional $12 per year in perks, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.
I’ll keep this in the wallet for the 5x rewards at restaurants and bookstores, while waiting for the Amazon answer. (Things are looking good on this front, but I will probably still make a small test purchase…)
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 49 Comments »
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
Use credit wisely. I don’t pay interest on consumer debt, and I never apply for a credit card unless I get something out of it! They still make tons of money from charging merchant fees, so those with good credit should expect a cut of the action…
Up to $250 from Starwood Preferred Guest American Express
Earn 10,000 Starpoints with your first purchase, and another 15,000 Starpoints when you spend $15,000 in 6 months, for a potential total of 25,000 Starpoints. You can exchange 10,000 Starpoints for a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate. (I ended up using my points to stay at the Westin Palace Hotel in Madrid.) No annual fee the first year, $45 after that if you don’t cancel.
$100 from American Express Preferred Rewards Gold
Earn 10,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend $500 in 3 months of Card membership- redeemable for a $100 gift card at places like Home Depot or Banana Republic. No annual fee the first year, $125 after that if you don’t cancel.
$50 from Discover More card + 5% Cashback program
Earn a $50 Cashback Bonus when you make $500 in purchases within 3 months after your account is opened. Also offers 0% APR on balance transfers for 12 months, with a 3% fee. There is a 5% Cashback program on rotating categories each quarter. No annual fee.
$25 from Costco TrueEarnings American Express + Gas / Travel / Restaurant Cashback
You get a $25 cash bonus after your first purchase. 3% cash back on gasoline, including Costco gas (up to $3,000 a year), 3% cash back at all restaurants, 2% cash back on travel, and 1% cash back on everything else. No annual fee.
Up to 11,000 ThankYou points from Citi Forward card
You get 6,000 ThankYou Points after making $50 in purchases within 3 months, and another 5,000 ThankYou points after switching to electronic statements only within 3 months. 5 points per $1 spent at movies, bookstores, and restaurants. 100 points for paying your statement on time each month.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 19 Comments »
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
The new Escape Card by Discover is a new travel rewards credit card with some profit potential. Here’s my review and analysis:
25,000 Miles Sign-Up Bonus ($250 credit towards Travel)
You get 1,000 Miles for each month that you make any purchase on this card, up to 25,000 miles. The simplest way to achieve this is to put some sort of automatically recurring charge on this card, like a cell phone or utility bill. But you may not want to use up all 25 months…
Rewards Program - “Unlimited Double Miles”
With this card, you earn two Miles for every dollar spent on any purchase. There is no cap on earning Miles. Now, a “Mile” in this program does not convert directly to any other specific hotel award or airline frequent flier program. I find it is easier to think of them as just “points”, but I’ll stick with the Miles name for now. I called an confirmed that this is the same Miles program that comes with the Miles Card by Discover*. Here are the redemption options:
Travel Credit. The best way to maximize this rewards program by far is to redeem for travel credit. Basically, you get cash, but only towards a travel purchase made with the card. 10,000 Miles = $100.
First, you just book any flight, cruise, vacation package, hotel or car rental - from any website. Then, within 90 days, you just log into your account, select the amount of Miles you want to redeem, and the credit shows up a few days later. The hardest part for me was remembering to use the card when I had travel plans. If redeemed for travel credit in this way, you can view this card as a 2% cash back on everything card.
Cash Option. If you want a direct credit or deposit into your bank account, then the minimum redemption is 5,000 Miles for $25 cash. Since you lose 50% of your potential value this way, I’d avoid this. Gift Cards. A middle ground. For example, 4,000 Miles = $25 Gift Card. 12,000 Miles = $100 Gap or Macy’s Gift Card.
Primary Car Rental Insurance
This is another big draw for me. Most credit cards only offer what is called secondary rental car insurance, which only kicks in after your own personal auto insurance. This means you’ll have to file a claim (likely raising your future rates) and pay your own deductible. In my case, that’s $1,000!
Primary car rental insurance essentially replaces the Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) that costs $10-$20 per day that they try to sell you at the rental car counter. You know, the insurance that you buy so you don’t have to worry about parking lot dings, or them finding some bogus “new scratch” when you return it. You’re covered up to $50,000, and there is no deductible.
More perks:
- Lost or Damaged Luggage Insurance - Reimbursement for lost or damaged baggage up to $2,500.
- Travel Delay Insurance - Up to $150 per day of unexpected food and lodging expenses. (My parents could have really used this over the winter holidays. Delta canceled an entire flight and made them wait another 18 hours until the next day to fly out. No compensation was offered!)
- Trip Cancellation Insurance - Up to $2,500 to travel another time should you become ill and unable to travel.
Conclusion: Annual Fee and Total Value Calculations
The Escape Card by Discover is meant to be a “premium” travel card, so this card has a $60 annual fee. At a rate of 1,000 miles per month, the intro bonus is worth ~$120 per year if you do the travel credit route. Since the bonus is only good for 25 months, I’d note when they actually charge the annual fee, as I wouldn’t want to pay for the 3rd year.
But if you time things right, you’ll net a ~$60 bonus ($120 minus $60 annual fee) for the first two years (~$120 total), during which you’ll also have two years of free primary car rental insurance.
* The Miles Card by Discover has a similar offer - 12,000 bonus Miles over 12 months. The upside is that there is no annual fee to worry about, but also no double miles and primary insurance. As outlined above, 12,000 miles = $100 Gift Card to various stores, or $100 credit towards travel.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 3 Comments »
Friday, January 16th, 2009
myFICO.com is offering a free credit score to members of their discussion forum. New visitors can register instantly and grab your score. No credit card or trial required. This is an official FICO score based on your Equifax credit file. Score only, no credit report. First 10,000 only - be quick!
Directions
Visit the main myFICO Forums page now expired, register, make sure you’re logged in, and then go back to the main page and click on the link “Get your Free FICO score now!” in the top right. For some reason, you’ll have to re-enter all your info again.
My score was 744, down 10 points from their last free FICO offer. I blame the issuers who closed my inactive credit cards! 
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 20 Comments »
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
If you haven’t heard already, several large credit card issuers (Chase, Washington Mutual, Citibank, Capital One, HSBC) are currently closing millions of consumers’ credit cards without prior warning due to inactivity. This is their legal right, but it can also negatively affect your credit score. Here’s why and some steps that you can do about it:
How Can Closed Credit Cards Affect My Credit Score?
FICO has previously revealed the following breakdown of factors considered in credit scoring. We can also read between the lines of the questions asked by the free FICO Score Estimator by myFICO.
Capacity used. This simply means how much of your available credit you are using, sometimes referred to as utilization ratio. A lower ratio is better, either by lower balances or higher credit limits. If you’re maxed out on all your cards, obviously that’s not a good sign. Logically, closing credit cards means you have less available credit.
Length of credit history and past credit applications. To be specific, not the only length of your oldest line, but also the average age of all your accounts matters. In addition, you’ll have less need for new credit applications if you can keep your existing purchasing power.
Closed by creditor or consumer? A lesser concern is whether the account is marked as “closed by creditor” as opposed to “closed at consumer’s request”. Since FICO doesn’t release the details of their scoring algorithm, it is still debated whether this matters to the numeric score. Some credit repair experts say it does, others disagree. However, if someone does a manual review of your credit report, it can raise some questions as to why the account was closed by the lender.
How To Protect Your Credit Score
Okay, so we’ve established that just waiting for our inactive cards to be canceled can be bad. So what should we do about it? Here’s an action plan:
- Gather up or make a list of all your credit cards. I have mine in a spreadsheet - it is a pretty long list! Misplaced some? Grab your free report from the official AnnualCreditReport.com, which should list them all.
- Rank them according to importance to your credit score. From above, we see that credit cards with high limits and long histories are the best. Newer credit cards with low limits are least important.
- Start using the important ones! If you have a cell phone or cable bill, chances are that they accept credit cards. Not only that, but you can use multiple charges across multiple cards. I spent 20 minutes just charging $5-$10 to my Sprint bill across about 8 different cards to put some activity on them. Start from the most important card onwards.
- Consider canceling the rest. If you have a newer card with a low limit that you don’t ever plan on using again (just wanted the sign-up bonus?), it may actually help your score to simply cancel it. This way, it will also show as “closed by consumer”.
Make sure that it has a zero balance first, otherwise you make be stuck with penalties or your credit limit will be lowered to your balance amount, jacking up your utilization percentage and hurting your score.
I was too late for two Chase accounts and one Washington Mutual account I mentioned before, but I ended up closing a few cards preemptively and put some activity on the rest. All in all, perhaps this worked out for the best. Don’t we all want less clutter for the new year? 
Posted in Credit Cards | 56 Comments »
Saturday, December 20th, 2008
The Citi PremierPass cards are rewards cards that are targeted towards people who like to travel, especially those who fly on a variety of airlines and business travelers. There is a standard version with no annual fee and the Elite version with a $75 annual fee.
Sign-up Bonus and ThankYou Points
The Citi PremierPass Elite card is offering 20,000 bonus ThankYou points after spending $600 within 3 months.
10,000 ThankYou points can be redeemed for $100 in gift cards to a variety of places like Overstock, Macy’s, Sears, or Gap. In addition if you used the fixed flight redemption option, you can convert 20,000 ThankYou points for any domestic coach flight up to $400 in value with no black-out dates. I’ve redeemed for a flight before and if it’s on Expedia.com, you can have it. So if you get the Elite card bonus, you are basically getting a free flight.
Unique Rewards Program
Most of us are familiar with credit cards linked to a specific airline. But with the PremierPass Elite card, you can earn 1 ThankYou point for every mile you fly, on any airline. Perfect for work travel. In addition, you can earn 1 point for every miles flown on any tickets purchased with your card, even friends and family. You also get 1 points for each dollar spent on anything (with double points on everyday purchases at supermarkets and gas stations). This is in addition to the usual carrier-specific miles you’d usually earn.
So let’s say you buy a $300 cross-country flight on Delta Airlines for yourself or a friend that travels 2,500 miles on the card. You’d get 300 ThankYou points for the purchase, 2,500 Delta miles, and 2,500 ThankYou points for flying. On a airline-specific branded credit card, you’d only get 300 miles for the purchases and the standard 2,500 miles.
Supposedly you can even get free unlimited companion travel on eligible fares - “Get Complimentary companion travel when you use the Citi PremierPass - Elite Level to purchase a round trip Coach Class excursion fare ticket for $299 or more in the continental United States and Hawaii.” I’m skeptical as to what “excursion fare” means, though. (See comments below.)
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 23 Comments »
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
Fidelity Investments is now offering a new American Express card that gives you 2% back on all purchases when credited directly into a Fidelity IRA*. This is nice if you have a Fidelity IRA, although it is not one of my favorite places to start an IRA since their index funds have a $10,000 minimum and their stock trades aren’t that cheap. Also, it could be confusing due to IRA contribution limits. If you’ve maxed out the limit, they say that they will automatically deferred the rebate until the next year. But what if you have a partially phased-out limit due to income, and your limit is reduced to $2,150? How would they know that?
What’s more interesting: In early 2009, according to this press release, there will be new Fidelity American Express cards that also offer 2% cash back into Fidelity brokerage and 529 plan accounts. Note that if you have the Fidelity Investment Rewards card that offers 1.5% back right now, that is a Visa card and you will probably have to apply for a new American Express card to get the 2% back. The 529 card should just be bumped up to 2% since it is already American Express.
*Update: It appears that you can deposit the 2% for this card into a variety of Fidelity accounts include their plain brokerage account, not just IRAs. From the Terms and Conditions:
You can redeem points for deposits into an eligible Fidelity account. You are solely responsible for the accuracy of the data you provide in connection with designating a Fidelity account, for ensuring that the account can accept deposits on your behalf and that the deposits comply with applicable laws and regulations. Eligible Fidelity Accounts include all Fidelity non-retirement, Individual Retirement Accounts, and Fidelity-managed 529 Plan accounts that accept ACH deposits.
From the Rewards tab on the application page:
Earn 2 points for every dollar in net retail purchases and choose to automatically sweep them as a cash deposit into your Fidelity IRA or other Fidelity account(s). Or, redeem your points for WorldPoints® rewards.
Posted in Credit Cards | 15 Comments »
Saturday, December 6th, 2008
I just got a letter from Washington Mutual / Chase telling me that they have closed my credit card account with them effective November 14th, 2008. That’s nearly a month ago! The reason stated was simply that I hadn’t used it in over 12 months. I normally wouldn’t care too much, but this is a relatively old card (back from when they were Providian) which helps your credit score and it also gave me a free FICO score update each month. Doh! I might call them and see if there is anything that can be done.
Now, it’s totally within their rights to do this, but it is kind of annoying and not the best customer service in my opinion. Last month, I got a similar letter from Citibank, but it warned me that if I didn’t use it within a month, it would be closed. So I just used it quickly and everything was fine. That seems like a more reasonable response.
The easy solution is to remember to use each of your credit cards at least once per year. I would simply use it to pay $5 towards your cell phone or cable bill online, since they let you do multiple partial payments. Then mark the card and tuck it away again.
Posted in Credit Cards | 60 Comments »
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Schwab brokerage is offering a new credit card that gives you 2% cash back on all purchases. The only catch is that the rewards can only be redeemed into a SchwabOne brokerage account. When linked to the Schwab card, the SchwabOne account has no minimum balance requirement or monthly service charges.
With no annual fee and no cashback limit, this is a very competitive card. I just hope it sticks around - many, many 2% cashback on everything cards have come and gone, from Farm Bureau to Countrywide, as that level of rewards make the issuer’s cut very slim. I’m sure they are counting on fees from the SchwabOne brokerage account to make up for the difference. Fidelity has a similar 1.5% cashback card.
Posted in Credit Cards | 11 Comments »
Friday, November 14th, 2008
I just finished calling all of the issuers for the credit and ATM cards that I plan on using internationally - Capital One, Citibank, WaMu, and Bank of America - in order to avoid my cards being frozen due to fraud concerns. I remember doing this occasionally before, but not for all of them.
Surprisingly, every single card issuer seemed to have a specific protocol to handle such concerns. I was either forwarded to some sort of Fraud Specialist or asked to fill out a form outlining where I was traveling to and the exact start and end dates. It seems like their fraud monitoring systems are getting quite advanced. All of them thanked me for calling ahead of time, which made me feel like they’ve probably had to deal with a lot of angry (stranded?) travelers.
Oh, and they also told me the international toll-free numbers to reach their customer service from abroad. Using them is easy. Go to a pay phone, reach the operator, and call the number collect. I decided to simply write these numbers on the signature panel on the back of the cards. I’m glad I called!
For more information, see my other post on this subject: Travel and Money: Best Way To Get Cash, Best Credit Cards, and Safety Concerns. It includes why I hate traveler’s checks, why I use my Capital One card exclusively while traveling, and emergency numbers for Visa and Mastercard.
Posted in Credit Cards, Travel | 36 Comments »
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
Discover Card is again running their Holiday Mall Promotion, which gives you $20 back for every $200 that you spend at limited mall locations.
Get a $20 Discover® Gift Card when you make $200 in purchases with your Discover Card at a participating mall between 11/01/08–01/04/09, while supplies last. Original receipts and the Discover Card used to make the purchases must be presented to a participating mall’s Customer Service by 01/04/09. Limit 5 Gift Cards per account, while supplies last, during the promotion period. Gift Card is valid through July 31, 2009.
Basically, you can get up to 10% back if you spend an exact multiple of $200, with a maximum $100 off $1,000 per Discover card account. (Additional cardholders seem to count as a separate “account”.) Not a bad deal if you’re gonna spend that much anyways. Mmm… Macbook…
During a previous year, a reader happened upon a loophole: If you return your purchase, there is no requirement to return the gift cards. Maybe you found something cheaper elsewhere. This brought up some ethical problems. Keep them? Or try handing them back to the Customer Service clerk? But be careful, because if you end up deciding to buy more stuff again later, you won’t be able to participate again since they don’t have any official mechanism to return the gift cards.
New Discover Card Sign-Up Promotions: $50 to $100
This would go nicely with the Discover More card which now offers a $50 cash bonus after spending $500. 1% cash back on most purchases, and 5% back on rotating special categories. 0% APR on purchases for 6 months.
The Discover Miles card also offers 12,000 Miles (1,000 miles per month with any purchase for a year). This can be redeemed for $100 cash credit towards any travel purchase put on the card (air, hotel, car rental), or you can get a $50 gift card + $25 cash.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 11 Comments »
