Credit Card Now

The card provider has invited 30,000 retailers to partake in its scheme. These retailers will grant users ‘reward money’ at a rate of 1%, which is equal to 1p for every £1 spent in participating stores.

It announced yesterday LA Fitness, YO! Sushi, Firebox.com, Goldsmiths and Nationwide Autocentres are among the national chains to run the scheme. It stresses these are not the only nationwide chains to accept its offer; others have, it just hasn’t announced them yet.

This is important because if enough big retailers don’t sign up, there’s little point to the scheme, especially since other cashback credit cards offer better cashback rates from any retailer where the card is used.

The average rate for a cashback credit card may be 0.5%, but American Express offers 5% cash back.

Its Platinum credit card offerings 5% for three months for those with a household income over £30,000 if you spend up to £2,000.

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This card is not for everyone. In fact, only 1% of all American residents are eligible to carry The Visa® Black Card. The card is not available to non-residents nor to business entities.

This credit card carries the ultimate in rewards, gifts, and 24-hour concierge service. Even the card itself is exclusive – it’s made with carbon and the patent is now pending. When you hand this card to a reservations clerk, they’ll know you’re someone special.

The annual fee of $495 entitles you to the first 6 months interest-free, and a low 13.24% variable rate thereafter. It also entitles you to 1% cash back or points on your eligible purchases. Points can be redeemed for air travel on any airline at any time.

Your 24-hour concierge service assures you a pleasant trip, wherever you may be. Restaura Read more…

Tags: Black Card, Card, Visa® Black, Visa® Black Card

To accept credit cards at your place of business, you must agree not just to pay standard transaction fees, but to also maintain standards consistent with all other merchants in your processing network. That means covering some of the risk against fraudulent transactions, plus paying interchange fees as high as 4%. As a result, some merchants have introduced policies designed to push some transactions away from credit, or to force credit card users to cover higher overhead costs. All three of these prohibited “checkout rules” pop up from time to time:

Minimum/Maximum Credit Card Charge Amounts

It’s not uncommon to see signs at small stores and cafes proclaiming a “minimum charge card purchase” of $5, $10, or even $20. Likewise, car dealers and commercial vendors sometimes cap credit card acceptance at a few thousand dollars. Consumers

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Tags: Card, Credit Card

What’s piggybacking, you say?

A practice that once allowed parents, siblings, or friends to help individuals build their credit scores – but was discontinued due to abuse. Here’s how it works:

An individual with a stellar financial reputation, and thus a high FICO score, simply added another person as an authorized user on their credit card accounts. They didn’t add the person as a joint owner of the account – just an authorized user.

Then the activity on that credit card was reported both to the card owner and to the authorized user. Since the activity was all credit-building, the authorized user’s credit score got a boost.

Piggybacking was a useful tool for parents helping children get off to the right start with good credit scores, and was also used to help loved ones who had poor credit scores and needed help raising them.

Then someone saw an opportunity to make money and began selling authorized user status on high-ranking credit card accounts. Read more…

But some are duping consumers by offering worthless rewards that are seldom claimed, a Money Mail investigation has found.

And there are four million of us sitting on an estimated £4 billion of perks.

Our analysis revealed that an average credit card spend of £5,000 a year buys precious few worthwhile rewards.

But canny shoppers who put all spending on their card (and pay it off) can pick up some decent perks.

Tricks from card companies include:

Making it difficult to claim your reward points.

Charging annual fees if you want to earn rewards.

Slashing the value of cashback schemes after the first year.

Capping how much cashback you can earn.

Locking out peak holiday periods or making few seats available on airline schemes.

Adding taxes, charges and fees to a ‘free’ flight.

Chopping the rate at which you earn points if you shop outside their own stores. <

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Tags: Rewards