Keeping an eye on the best credit card offers
If you sign up for a new Shell Card by June 19, 2006, you’ll be eligible to receive a $25 gift card. New cardholders need to make three purchases within the first 60 days to receive their $25 gift card from their choice of one of the following five retailers: Shell, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Amazon.com or iTunes.
More details can be found at http://www.shellcreditcard.com or you can find this promotion directly here.
As of yesterday, Chase no longer offered their popular Cash Plus Rewards card online. The card was a direct competitor to Citi’s Platinum Select card, offering a 5% rebate on purchases made at grocery stores, drugstores and gas stations and 1% cash back on all other purchases.
Apparently Chase is pausing this offer to allow time to evaluate its performance and back end results. No indication has been made at this point whether Chase will elect to resume the program in the future.
It may still be possible to apply for the Cash Plus card over the phone, but it’s unclear how existing card holders will be treated if Chase decides to discontinue the card. The following promotion codes should allow you to apply by phone until April 30, 2006 and receive a $100 statement credit after your first purchase. Call 1-888-787-0329 and reference either offer code 94C or 94P (either should work).
Current and new Sony cardholders are eligible for a weekly sweepstakes. Every time you use your card, you’ll earn one entry into the sweepstakes. Each week, 3 winners will be chosen who can select between a $500 Sony Card Credit or a $599 Sony Style Gift Card.
In addition, there is a monthly drawing for up to $10,000 worth of Sony products.
Full details of this promotion are here. If you’re already a SonyCard holder, you can register here.
As discussed on FW:
Call 800-975-0463, mention invitation #FASZ, get approved by 6/15/06, make one purchase each month during the first 12 months, get 1,000 bonus miles credited to your account each month for a total of 12,000 bonus miles.
According to Discover, this card allows you to:
Redeem your Miles for tickets on any major U.S. airline. Plus, there are no blackout dates on flights when you use your Miles. You can get air travel rewards starting at only 10,000 Miles.*
You can also redeem your Miles for:
- Cruise and vacation packages
- Hotel and car rental certificates
- Gift cards for your favorite stores and restaurants
- Brand-name merchandise
While this all sounds good on the surface, I would actually recommend staying away from this card. Miles cards are best when they can be used to purchase tickets that would otherwise be too expensive, such as first class or business seats, or last minute flights. In contrast, most general miles cards that allow you redemption on a number of airlines, like this one, have significant restrictions on award redemptions. In fact, this card from Discover requires that all round trip coach tickets be purchased at least 21 days in advance and have a Saturday night stay, among other restrictions.
And if you look at the other redemption options, you’re getting less than a cent of value per point. At that point, you’re better off going with a standard 1% cash back card. (Did this just turn into a mini-review of the Discover Miles Card?)
This is an offer that has been around for a while, but since I was on the subject of 20,000 AA bonus miles the other day, it seemed appropriate to point out this thread on Flyertalk. The essentials of the deal are as follows:
The standard deal for this card is 17,500 miles and no waiver of the annual fee at all. So this offer represents a slight premium over that. Where the Flyertalk thread gets more interesting is when the discussion turns towards applying for the card repeatedly in order to accumulate the bonus miles each time. This is actually an approach that works for many cards, though you do run the risk of the card issuers actually enforcing their terms and conditions in which case they reserve the right to deduct the miles from your account.
It’s also important to note that churning through applications isn’t particularly healthy for your credit score. While your score will recover in the long term, if you’re looking for other credit at favorable terms in the near future, it probably isn’t the best idea to be repeatedly making these sorts of applications.
The most complete description of this offer is located in this thread at FW. Note, however, that this deal is no longer available online. You will have to call in with the invitation codes specified in this thread at FT. In short:
Due to the high levels of interest in this promotion, AMEX may attempt to validate that you indeed have a small business.
If you are eligible and can get this promotion, it is definitely one of the best credit card signup deals of all time.
This current SonyCard offer can be viewed off of the Sony Style home page or when you click through to the “Special Offers” sections at SonyStyle under any of the product categories:
Transform your ordinary purchases into extraordinary Sony Rewards – the latest electronics and the hottest CDs, DVDs and games. Complete the online application for the Sony CardSM, get instant approval and start using your card immediately to enjoy these benefits:
- $50 card credit after your first purchase.
- Sony Reward points on all your eligible purchases
- Introductory 0% fixed APR for up to 12 months.
- No annual fee.
- Earn up to 250,000 points per year.
Sony Card makes it easy for you to maximize your Sony Reward points1 :
- 5 Reward Points for every $1 – on Sony products purchased exclusively at www.sonystyle.com.
- 3 Reward Points for every $1 – on Sony products purchased anywhere.
- 1 Reward Point for every $1 – on any purchase, anywhere.
- Your Reward points are automatically credited to your Sony Card account on purchases made at SonyStyle.com.
Note that the only special part of this deal is the $50 credit. In the past, there have been promotions available for this card that issued a $100 credit, so this is a good deal if you want the SonyCard now, but if you are willing to wait, there’s probably a good chance we’ll see the $100 credit promotion reappear at some time.
The direct link to this promotion is available here. According to the terms and conditions, the offer expires April 30, 2006.
This thread at FatWallet points out the following offer for the Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage Card:
The standard offer for the Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage® card is for 15,000 miles on first purchase with no waiver of the first year’s annual fee, so this seems like a good deal if you’re in the market for this card.
The direct link to this offer is here.
Over the past month or so, Citibank has been targeting select customers for this cash back offer. If you have been targetted, you will get either a 5% or 10% statement credit for eligible purchases at home improvement and home furnishings stores through May 31, 2006 after you enroll.
To see if you’re eligible, log into your Citi Cards account online. The offer should appear either on the main page or in the ‘Special Offers’ section.
Discussion of this offer has been going on at Fatwallet and Card Ratings.
It’s that time of the year again. The tax man is calling and more than ever before, Americans are turning towards plastic to pay their tax bill. According to the IRS, as of March 31 of this year, nearly 800,000 taxpayers have paid more than $450 million in taxes with a credit card, totals representing an increase of over 40% from the same period last year.
What’s behind this shift? Well, it appears that convenience is the overriding factor. The electronic conveniences offered by the IRS of E-filing, direct deposit and credit card payments have all seen increases in utilization. As of March 31, 67% of returns had been e-filed compared to 65% at the same time last year, and 67% of all refunds have been issued via direct deposit, up from 63 percent of the total for the same period last year.
And then there are the incentives that credit card issuers are offering. In addition to the usual cash back or mileage awards that many credit cards offer, card issuers have come up with a myriad of other incentives to tempt you into charging your tax bill. (See the table at the end of this article for a list of some of the incentives being offered up.)
While it seems like a really easy way to rack up a whole load of credit card points, it turns out that it is almost never a good idea to put the tax bill on plastic. Not yet, anyway. And the primary detracting reason is because of fees. The two companies that the IRS has contracted to handle credit card transactions, Official Transactions Corp. and Link2Gov Corp., charge a 2.49% convenience fee on all tax payments. That fee, in nearly all cases, will more than wipe out any benefits accrued by using your card.
Consider, for example, the Starwood American Express Card, which earns Starpoints for every dollar spent. Many people consider each Starpoint worth in the neighborhood of two to three cents. Using that assumption, earning double Starpoints for your charging your tax bill then would essentially end up being a wash. Most people, however, would probably prefer cash in hand versus the Starpoints equivalent.
Then there is the ever present danger of accumulating more debt than you can handle. If you are having trouble paying your bills to begin with, charging your tax bill only serves to put you further in the hole. With credit cards having regular interest rates that start in double digits and quickly increasing with any sign of default or deliquency, if you are unable to make timely payment of your tax bill, you will probably be better served setting up an installment plan with the IRS rather than putting your tax bill on your credit card.
Credit Card Incentives For Charging Your Tax Bill
| Card | Incentive | Fine Print |
|---|---|---|
| American Express Business Gold Rewards | $200 credit | The offer applies only to new accounts, and payments must be made through Official Payments by June 30. |
| CitiBusiness AAdvantage | 15,000 bonus miles, one mile per dollar charged, and no annual fee the first year. | Bonus miles apply only to new accounts but not to your first purchase. The bonus expires June 30, and miles are capped at 150,000 a year. |
| Delta SkyMiles | Two miles for every dollar of federal tax charged. | You get only one mile per dollar for charging state or property taxes; rewards for SkyMiles Options accounts are lower. Rewards are capped at 30,000 to 100,000 miles, and they don’t apply to the convenience fee. Payments must be made by April 17. |
| H&R Block | One deal waives the 2.49 percent convenience fee entirely, one waives the fee on just the first $350 you pay (a maximum of $8.72), and another cuts the fee to 1.99 percent | You must complete your federal return through H&R Block Online and pay the taxes you owe through www.pay1040.com. Different deadlines and terms vary depending upon whether you use a debit or credit card or a Visa or MasterCard. |
| Hilton HHonors Platinum | Three HHonors points for every dollar of federal, state and local taxes charged. | The reward does not apply to the convenience fee. Redemption restrictions may apply. |
| Starwood Preferred Guest | Two points for every dollar of federal tax charged. | The reward applies only to personal federal tax payments, you can earn no more than 5,000 points, and the offer doesn’t apply to the convenience fee. Deadline: April 17. |
| Official Payments | The convenience fee is cut to 1.99 percent. | You must make your payment through www.officialpayments.com/mcfeeoffer.jsp and charge your federal personal tax bill on a MasterCard by April 17. |
| TurboTax | A 15 percent discount if you use TurboTax Online. | You must access TurboTax Online through www.officialpayments.com, e-file and charge your tax bill through Official Payments. The offer expires Oct. 15. |
| United Mileage Plus Signature | Two miles for every dollar of federal, state and local taxes charged, plus 30 percent off the TurboTax Online fee to prepare your federal 1040. | Delinquent customers don’t qualify. You must go through www.officialpayments.com and pay with your United card. The TurboTax discount expires Oct. 15; the mileage reward expires Dec. 31. |
| This table’s data is courtesy of the San Jose Mercury News. | ||