Supposedly, one of the trends that may be coming up in the world of popular rewards-style credit cards, which entice consumers to spend using their card since they will get some sort of points or credit toward cash back or other purchases, may be scaling back a bit. For example, some cards that used to offer 5% cash back for their rewards program, may start to offer something more like 2% cash back, and so on and so forth.
Also, many credit card companies are deciding that now that they’ve gotten people used to using their cards at gas pumps or in certain stores buying certain things, they may scale back on their rewards system for other things like double bonus points towards future purchases or cash back for buying in a certain store, or buying certain products online, and they will now move on to another market.
This is not such a bad thing as it sounds, because they are really just winding down on some other promotions in order to gear up for others, which can offer some potentially hefty rewards at first as an incentive to stick with a certain rewards or cash rebate credit card which translates into big savings for you, the consumer. So, keep an eye out for those new credit card offers in the mail, you may just save a lot of money on these, especially in their initial intro periods, and it may be worth it!
This one was weird, really weird, and I don’t think I’ll follow this trend, although I do try to keep up with the latest trends in credit cards and debit cards as payment methods, well, because quite simply, I don’t want to fall behind in the technology sector like so many others tend to do once they pass the age of thirty!
Well, here’s the new technology, which I guess is in some of the final stages of approval at the massive credit card giant Citigroup right now, and may be ready for release as early as six months from now. You know how a lot of cards allow you to pay for thing simply by “waving” or “tapping” your card on a reader on the credit card machine now? Well, this new technology supposedly is aiming to let you use your cell phone as a tapping/waving device to pay for stuff via credit. What’s the point, I can’t help but ask?
Is this somethiing aimed the technologically savvy, the younger kids, perhaps? Because I don’t know if I’d trust this way to pay for things, much less, NEED this type of convenience. I suppose the only convenience this cell phone credit card thing would offer to me personally would be that I would be able to carry around less credit cards with me. But….I already carry a wallet anyways.
The only other convenience I could think of would be it may save a few seconds in the grocery line perhaps. Even this is slim. Hmm…I guess I just won’t get some of these new fangled technologies that don’t really save time of increase convenience. To me, they are just technology for technology’s sake, nothing more.
Well, maybe you won’t have to whip out the airfair frequent flyer miles credit card this month, if you hop on the bandwagon and enjoy one of the newly reduced United Airlines fares that they have recently introduced in their post holiday airfare sale.
The airline has apparently done this a few times in the past to rile some interest in traveling during a typically slow period in air travel, after the holidays have settled. Most of their competitors now do the same thing, but they were the pioneers in the after holiday airfare sales for the most part.
The tickets have to purchased at 14 days in advance, so it does sort of limite the element of spontaneity, and also of course limits the amount of planning time for some of us who are avid planners, but the deals are pretty hard to resist, ranging from low $150 round trip airfares within the US, to one way tickets that are dirt cheap.
Well, they’re usually bad - very bad. Chances are, if you have a credit card, a car loan or any other type of small loan, or even maybe a mortgage, you’ve probably been solicited by your lending institution to waive a month’s payment for the month of December, when everyone is financially more strapped due to the holidays.
You may have even been offered more than one month of deferrment in some cases. I know some friends who have actually done this, only to find out that they were either charged a high fee for the luxury of waiving a months payment, or “deferring” it, or they received a lot more high interest tacked on to the end of their loan, just making the loan more drawn out, so that - yes - the lender can get yet more money out of you.
Offers like these may be tempting around the holidays, but it is really best if you can just go ahead and make you payment as scheduled.
Or, maybe you can even call your lending inistitution and negotiate a lower payment for that one month with them to ease the financial burden a little, but without an exorbitant fee or additional interest being charged. The worst they can say is no, but at least then you know you tried.
My boyfriend has been a Discover credit card holder for quite some time now, and actually he is the most happy with this card out of all of his cards (he has a Mastercard, Visa and American Express also).
He likes the Discover card because of the cash back rewards program that it has, but he noticed that a few months ago his interest rate went up. He called the company to see if there was anything they’d be willing to do to keep him as a happy customer.
They responded with a new credit card offer for a 1.9% introductory rate on all purchases and balance transfers up until June of 2007, which was actually far beyond his expectations. Needless to say, he is still a very happy customer of Discover, and will continue to use their credit card for a lot of his new purchases.
Oh, I did make him check to see what the rate would go up to after the intro period, and he said that it was in writing that it would only go up to the whatever the prime interest rate for credit cards is at the time the intro period is over.
I’d say this is quite a nice deal, and I’d recommend the Discover card to others as a fair and honest credit card company. I just wish they would accept them absolutely everywhere, or maybe they do now, I just haven’t noticed because I do not yet have one (I’m actually seriously considering getting a Discover card now though).
There are some really excellent bargains around the holidays, to entice Christmas shoppers to buy more stuff, bigger stuff, and feel like they got a truly good deal on it. My problem is that many of these deals seem to hard to pass up on for clothes etc. for myself.
For instance, JCPenney’s offered a $10 off coupon if you purchased $50 or more, and $15 off if you purchased $75 or more, and since I only had one or two people I could actually buy the clothes and other items this coupon could be applied to, I ended up using the coupon on myself, all but for one present! likewise with some of my favorite stores for clothes, like Express and Limited.
They sent me coupons for $30 off a $100 order or more, and how could I pass up this great bargain? Of course, it’s Christmas sillies, but how could I not buy those clothes, when I was sure to buy those same clothes later in the year, only to pay the extra money for them? I also was enticed into opening a new store charge card for Express, since they were offering a $25 gift card as well as %15 off your current order.
Talk about a great deal! Any other time, I would have had an iron will not to pick up a new credit card, but throw a couple freebees in there, and my iron will turned to consumerism!
The mega coffee giant that is probably one of the biggest success stories in the past decade in the area of fast food/retail, has found a huge hit with it’s loyalty Starbucks card. What the Starbucks card is essentially is a prepaid credit card that can be used exclusively at Starbucks for your everyday cup of joe, and it can be recharged.
People love using it because they get points toward money off coffees of free coffees if they accumulate enough. The big draw to this is that many people get coffee every day, and they figure since they’re buying it anyways, they might as well be using a prepaid card and getting some sort of perk for using it all the time.
It is so successful that the card reportedly account for about 12% of their total business her in North America! That is absolutely crazy, and a huge marketing victory for the Starbucks chain!
Well, maybe you won’t have to whip out the airfair frequent flyer miles credit card this month, if you hop on the bandwagon and enjoy one of the newly reduced United Airlines fares that they have recently introduced in their post holiday airfare sale.
The airline has apparently done this a few times in the past to rile some interest in traveling during a typically slow period in air travel, after the holidays have settled. Most of their competitors now do the same thing, but they were the pioneers in the after holiday airfare sales for the most part.
The tickets have to purchased at 14 days in advance, so it does sort of limite the element of spontaneity, and also of course limits the amount of planning time for some of us who are avid planners, but the deals are pretty hard to resist, ranging from low $150 round trip airfares within the US, to one way tickets that are dirt cheap.
Well, apparently that’s what some credit card companies are thinking anyways. They are banking on the idea that consumers will reach for a cool, neat looking designed credit card more often than they will a blah, boring design of yesterday, so they are all trying to out do one another in the appealing design department it seems.
I have to admit, I do love how now you can usually choose the design that you want to be on your card, but do I think it’s true that I will actually reach for that card more if it is eye catching and appealing? No, I don’t. Because no matter how pretty, cute or trendy my credit card looks, the first thing I’ll think of when I whip out the plastic for a purchase is “what’s the APR on this one” or “what’s my balance on this one, and can I afford to make another purchase on this”.
Either that, or I’ll break out my trusty friend who I use the most, my treasured debit card. At least I know the money is in there, and I won’t be charged an APR on my purchase. Now there are actually cards who are trying to take the cake - literally. They are making scratch and sniff credit cards cards can you believe that?
They are also making lots of credit cards for college students which appeal because they are trendy and are “luminous” looking, or use the shimmery stuff that I used to love in grade school and have extensive amounts of in my vast sticker collection. Hmm, perhaps they are using a bit of psychology on us that we’re not even aware of?? Hmm…
I was looking online for credit deals recently and came across a credit card that has the behemoth Wal-Mart name on it, but it is issued by a bank called GE Money Bank. I wanted to find out what type of deal this Wal-Mart credit card offered, so I started to read the “fine print” and what the card would offer. I was curious, would it offer points or anything like that toward Wal-Mart merchandise, or a percentage off of Wal-Mart purchases? I thought there had to be some sort of purchasing benefit for the Wal-Mart store itself, since it carries the Wal-Mart logo on it, so that’s kind of what I was expecting to see, or something along those lines. Here’s what I found the Wal-Mart Credit Card offered :
1.) The Wal-Mart GEMB issues credit card is a Discover Card it looks like, but I can’t tell what the other Wal-Mart credit card is, which are known for their cash back bonuses, but are also known for still not being accepted everywhere (perhaps their vendor restrictions or charges are too high still for some retailers?).
2.) The Wal-Mart Discover Card offers “up to” 1% cash back on all purchases. This was kind of what I was looking for, but it looks like they actually may offer it on non Wal-Mart purchases as well perhaps?
3.) When you use it at any Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart sponsored gas station, you get $.03 off per gallon (not bad!)
4.) A deal on prepaid AT&T long distance and other small deals as well.
Overall, this credit card sound fairly decent I’d say….