My Credit Cards Blog

Do you have a Discover More card? Discover gives you a chance to get 5% cash back on special categories. The categories change every month or so. In order to take advantage of the special promo, you must sign up through this Discover link. For the month of February, you get 5% cash back on Restaurants, Florists, Candy Shops, Bookstores, and Pet Stores. Maximum cash back is $200.

From the website:

Sign up to earn 5% Cashback Bonus on purchases at restaurants, florists, bookstores, candy shops and pet stores from 2/1/08 (or the date on which you sign up, whichever is later) through 2/29/08, subject to a cap of $200 in purchases. Restaurant purchases are those made at merchants we classify as full-service restaurants, cafes, cafeterias and fast food locations. Purchases of flowers, books, candy and pet supplies must be made at qualifying stand-alone florists, bookstores, candy shops and pet stores. These purchases must post to your account between 2/1/08 and 2/29/08. Allow up to 5 weeks for this reward to be added to your Cashback Bonus account. You will continue to earn up to 1% unlimited Cashback Bonus on all other purchases. Only Discover More Cardmembers are eligible to participate in this program. See Cashback Bonus Terms and Conditions for further details.

Discover® More^SM Card

• 5% Cashback Bonus® in categories like travel, home, gas, restaurants, movies and more
• 5% to 20% Cashback Bonus at top retailers through our exclusive online shopping site
• Up to 1% Cashback Bonus on all other purchases automatically
• Unlimited cash rewards
• Increase, even double, your rewards when you redeem for gift cards from our 100 Cashback Bonus PartnersApply Now!

My all time favorite travel rewards card is the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. By signing up, you will get an easy 10000 bonus points after first purchase. You can convert the 10K points into $100 in gift card. However, some people save the points to earn a free flight ticket once you reach the 25K points mark. Here is a quick summary with their rewards program:

1. Convert a few miles so they won’t expire and top off to get to the reward ticket level
2. Get 1.25 miles per dollar spent which is 25% more than most other airlines cards.
3. Points can be converted to gift cards, hotel nights, and airline tickets.

Top Reasons Why Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express is the best Airline Travel Card:

1) Starwood points can be easily converted to frequent flier miles

• The Starwood points convert on a 1:1 (1 Starwood point = 1 frequent flier mile) basis on major domestic airlines include Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, Northwest and US Airways/America West.

2) Get that free flight ticket by topping it off or keep your miles from expiring

• Say you want to fly free and you have only 23K delta flier miles, and you need to 2K more to make a free flight. With Starwood points, you can transfer your already earned points to Delta frequent flier program and get your free ticket. Hence, you don’t need to earn the points by doing other spending methods.
• In order to keep your miles from expiring, simply convert a few hundred miles every now and then so your account would be active with other airlines. If not, you could lose your miles for being inactive.

3) Great hotel card reward card

Don’t like gift cards or airline ticket? How about hotel stay for as little as 2000 points per night. There is no blackout date and all taxes are covered. Choose from Hotels such as Sheraton, W hotels, Westin, and St. Regis.

4) Get 25% more miles extra

• Other airline credit cards such Delta and American give out great bonuses but all give you 1 mile per dollar spent. The Starwood does the same with 1 Starwood point for $1 spent. This changes whenever you convert 20000 points, you get an additional 5000 bonus points or 20000 Starwood points = 25000 miles on all airlines flier program. This resulted in an extra 25% more miles per dollar spent.

5) Free 10000 bonus points, another 15000 possible bonus points, and first year membership fee is waived

• If you sign up now, Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express is giving away 10000 Starwood bonus points after first purchase. Your membership fee is waived for the 1st year, and $45 annual fee after that.
• Another current promotion is an additional 15000 bonus points for spending $15K in the first 6 months on top of the 1 dollar per point spent.

American Express Business Gold Rewards Credit Card is offering 5,000 Rewards points after first purchase. The 5,000 points can be exchanged for a $50 rewards gift certificate. You can choose the $50 gift certificate from stores such as Home Depot, Gap, Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble, Banana Republic, and so on. Whether you have a home-based business or that you have sold something on Ebay, you can apply for a business credit card. You can put your name as the business name and your social security number as the tax id. Your business is called sole proprietorship and it’s perfectly legal with the IRS.

This bonus is a combination of bonus points for getting the card and using it. AmEx starts you off with a $50 gift card (5000 points) after the first purchase. Get another $250 in gift cards (5000 bonus points + 20,000 regular points, 1 point per dollar spent) for reaching $20,000 in spending. Finally, you can get $500 in gift cards (20,000 bonus points + 30,000 regular points) for reaching $50,000 in spending.

At the end of your 1 year, AmEx will give you another $100 gift card (10,000 points). However, this bonus will be negated by the annual fee you will have to pay. There is no annual fee for first year.

There will be a hard pull, but business credit cards will not show on your personal credit report. Hence you can open and close accounts, open more new accounts, and max your credit limit without worrying about your credit report.

The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. If you don’t find the card worth keeping, keep in mind that you can always cancel the credit card without paying any fees.

Here’s the fine print from American Express:

Bonus points: To be eligible to earn bonus points you must be enrolled in the Membership Rewards® program at the time of purchase and charge your purchases to an eligible, enrolled American Express® Card.
5,000 welcome bonus points are available for first–time Business Gold Rewards Cardmembers only. You may be permitted to have more than one Business Gold Rewards Card account; however, you are eligible to earn welcome bonus points for only one Card account. Additional Cardmembers are not eligible. Welcome bonus points will be credited to your Membership Rewards account 6 to 8 weeks after your first purchase appears on your monthly Business Gold Rewards billing statement. Bonus ID: 9238. Spend bonus points will be awarded to your account depending on the amount of Eligible Spending* in each membership year, as follows: If your Eligible Spending in a membership year is equal to or greater than $20,000 but less than $50,000, you can earn 5,000 spend bonus points; if your Eligible Spending in a membership year is equal to or greater than $50,000, you can earn an additional 20,000 spend bonus points. Spend bonus points will be credited to your Membership Rewards account 12 to 14 weeks after your Eligible Spending reaches the $20,000 and $50,000 threshold amounts, respectively. Bonus ID: 7312; 8192. A one–time renewal bonus of 10,000 points will be awarded to your account 12 to 14 weeks after you pay the annual membership fee for the second membership year. Bonus ID: 3125.

So according to the terms, you can get an extra 5000 points bonus after $20K in spending and another 20000 bonus points after $50K in spending. is a limited time offer. Take advantage of this offer and apply right away.

My all time favorite travel rewards card is the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. Some people just want an easy 10000 bonus points to convert it to $100 in gift card for signing up. However, I think it’s best to use the points for 2 free domestic flight tickets. Before I got into the how-to details, here is a quick summary with their rewards program:

1. Convert a few miles so they won’t expire and top off to get to the reward ticket level
2. Get 1.25 miles per dollar spent which is 25% more than most other airlines cards.
3. Points can be converted to gift cards, hotel nights, and airline tickets.

Top Reasons Why Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express is the best Airline Travel Card:

1) Starwood points can be easily converted to frequent flier miles

• The Starwood points convert on a 1:1 (1 Starwood point = 1 frequent flier mile) basis on major domestic airlines include Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, Northwest and US Airways/America West.

2) Get that free flight ticket by topping it off or keep your miles from expiring

• Say you want to fly free and you have only 23K delta flier miles, and you need to 2K more to make a free flight. With Starwood points, you can transfer your already earned points to Delta frequent flier program and get your free ticket. Hence, you don’t need to earn the points by doing other spending methods.
• In order to keep your miles from expiring, simply convert a few hundred miles every now and then so your account would be active with other airlines. If not, you could lose your miles for being inactive.

3) Great hotel card reward card

Don’t like gift cards or airline ticket? How about hotel stay for as little as 2000 points per night. There is no blackout date and all taxes are covered. Choose from Hotels such as Sheraton, W hotels, Westin, and St. Regis.

4) Get 25% more miles extra

• Other airline credit cards such Delta and American give out great bonuses but all give you 1 mile per dollar spent. The Starwood does the same with 1 Starwood point for $1 spent. This changes whenever you convert 20000 points, you get an additional 5000 bonus points or 20000 Starwood points = 25000 miles on all airlines flier program. This resulted in an extra 25% more miles per dollar spent.

5) Free 10000 bonus points, another 15000 possible bonus points, and first year membership fee is waived

• If you sign up now, Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express is giving away 10000 Starwood bonus points after first purchase. Your membership fee is waived for the 1st year, and $45 annual fee after that.
• Another current promotion is an additional 15000 bonus points for spending $15K in the first 6 months on top of the 1 dollar per point spent.

Say CC Dude, what about that 40000 points = 2 domestic flights you were talking about? Lets do some math: You will get 10000 bonus points for signing up, get 15000 additional bonus points for spending $15K, and $15K spending money = another 15000 points for per dollar spent.

All together is 40000 Starwood points which can be converted to 50000 flier miles since they give out an extra 5000 points for every 20000 converted points. For every 25000 miles, you will get a free domestic flight ticket in the Continental U.S.

Say what?!! $15K in spending? You are crazy man! Here are a few ways you can get to that $15K in spending in six months.

• Open a new Bank of America account every month and fund your account with up to $1000 from a credit card. Opening and closing BOA account doesn’t hurt your credit score as long as you keep one account open. There is no fee to close and try to sign up to those BOA bonuses. Hmmm…so 6 months = 6 accounts = $6K. **You might try your luck with funding a Citibank account with a credit card too.**
• Make sure you pay everything in your personal daily life with your Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. By doing so, you would roughly spend around $1K a month for 6 months = $6K.
• Buying gift cards you know you will use. E.G. Walmart gift cards, popular store gift cards for the holidays shopping, Home depot or Lowe’s, etc etc
• Look for high cost items such as laptops and resell it on Ebay to make a profit or at least break even and ask family members to let you pay and give you cash in return.

Another easy way to get an extra 10000 bonus points is to apply for the Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card from American Express. By applying for both, you will get 20000 bonus points which is enough to convert to 25000 flier miles for a free ticket. Here’s more information on applying for a business credit card. Now if you want a plethora of free airline tickets, check out this list of best airline miles bonuses.

Most people have the Chase Freedom Cash since you can get 3% cash back on your 3 top categories. I wrote a full review on the Chase Freedom Card. If you wait until to cash out once it reaches $200, Chase will throw in an extra $50 essentially making this card 3% into 3.75% and 1% into 1.25%.

However, there is a Chase Freedom Plus Card that has been features. They include 6 bonus categories instead of 3 and no rewards cap. For new customers, you get 10000 bonus miles after first purchase instead of the regular 5000 points for the regular Chase Freedom Cash.

One drawback is the $30 membership fee. It’s waived for the first year, however you just need to purchase over $1500 in the bonus categories to make that money back. If you have the regular Chase Freedom Card, call the number in the back of your card and ask to upgrade it to the Chase Freedom Plus Card. Make sure to mention offer code BJX9.

American Express Business Gold Rewards Credit Card is offering 5,000 Rewards points after first purchase. The 5,000 points can be exchanged for a $50 rewards gift certificate. You can choose the $50 gift certificate from stores such as Home Depot, Gap, Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble, Banana Republic, and so on.

Whether you have a home-based business or that you have sold something on Ebay, you can apply for a business credit card. You can put your name as the business name and your social security number as the tax id. Your business is called sole proprietorship and it’s perfectly legal with the IRS.

There will be a hard pull, but business credit cards will not show on your personal credit report. Hence you can open and close accounts, open more new accounts, and max your credit limit without worrying about your credit report.

The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. If you don’t find the card worth keeping, keep in mind that you can always cancel the credit card without paying any fees.

Here’s the fine print from American Express:

Bonus points: To be eligible to earn bonus points you must be enrolled in the Membership Rewards® program at the time of purchase and charge your purchases to an eligible, enrolled American Express® Card.
5,000 welcome bonus points are available for first–time Business Gold Rewards Cardmembers only. You may be permitted to have more than one Business Gold Rewards Card account; however, you are eligible to earn welcome bonus points for only one Card account. Additional Cardmembers are not eligible. Welcome bonus points will be credited to your Membership Rewards account 6 to 8 weeks after your first purchase appears on your monthly Business Gold Rewards billing statement. Bonus ID: 9238. Spend bonus points will be awarded to your account depending on the amount of Eligible Spending* in each membership year, as follows: If your Eligible Spending in a membership year is equal to or greater than $20,000 but less than $50,000, you can earn 5,000 spend bonus points; if your Eligible Spending in a membership year is equal to or greater than $50,000, you can earn an additional 20,000 spend bonus points. Spend bonus points will be credited to your Membership Rewards account 12 to 14 weeks after your Eligible Spending reaches the $20,000 and $50,000 threshold amounts, respectively. Bonus ID: 7312; 8192. A one–time renewal bonus of 10,000 points will be awarded to your account 12 to 14 weeks after you pay the annual membership fee for the second membership year. Bonus ID: 3125.

So according to the terms, you can get an extra 5000 points bonus after $20K in spending and another 20000 bonus points after $50K in spending. is a limited time offer. Take advantage of this offer and apply right away.

Get $10 for every $150 you spend commuting in New York City using your Chase Card.

Enroll your Chase Debit and Credit Cards and get cash back on MetroCard® purchases at MetroCard Vending Machines and NYC Yellow Cab fares from January 1 to March 31, 2008.

Here’s how:
1. Enroll your Chase Card now
2. Use your enrolled Chase Card for MetroCard purchases at MetroCard
Vending Machines and NYC Yellow Cab fares
3. Earn $10 for every $150 you spend with your enrolled Chase Card

Chase Freedom Cash Visa Signature Card

• Receive $50 after you make your first purchase
• 3% Cash Back in your top 3 everyday spending categories
• 1% cash back for every $1 you spend on all other purchases
• Receive an extra $50 each time you save and redeem $200 in
  rewards

Apply today!

A week ago, I wrote about the Lending Club and their $25 bonus when you deposit $1. At first I was a little skeptical about signing up to Lending Club, but I found that they are legit after doing a little research. They have been featured in Business Week, Barron’s, and the Street.

The main reason I want to sign up is because of the bonus money. From the website:

When you refer friends to Lending Club and they become borrowers or lenders, we will deposit a bonus into each of your Lending Club accounts. You will each earn:

* $25 when your friend successfully submits a loan application
* $25 when your friend opens a lender account with $1-$999
* $50 when your friend opens a lender account with $1,000 or more

Here’s what to do:

1. Go though this Lending Club link
2. Fill in your name, email, password, and make up a user ID.
3. Verify your identity
4. Add your bank account and wait them to withdraw an amount less than $1
5. Wait for a few days, and verify the amount that has been withdrawn.
6. Deposit the amount you want. $1000 in order to get a $50 bonus or $1 to get $25 bonus.
7. Bonus show up 4 days after the initial deposit.

My experience has been a positive one. Since I have $1000 in my account that I don’t need, I went ahead and deposit the $1K in order to get the maximum bonus money. If you don’t have the $1K, then deposit $1 to get your $25 bonus. I’m not worry about depositing $1K because I went ahead and withdraw the $1K from Lending Club back into my bank account. I lost a week of interest, but gain $50 bonus. Not bad of a deal. The best part about Lending Club is you don’t even need to lend out any money to get your bonus money. There is also no hard pull on your credit report. Although I recommend to loan out your $50 bonus just to give them a try. You can’t lose anything since it’s free money and the average return is 12.32% (The Street).

I also got $100 bonus for referring people. Again, thanks for signing up through my referral link.

If you are interested in making another $25 bonus, check out my Prosper Review.

Delta.com is currently running a promotion whereas you can earn a 15% mileage bonus for transferring Membership Rewards points to your SkyMiles account between October 15, 2007 and November 30, 2007. You can see in more details with full terms & conditions.

Get your mileage bonus in two easy steps:

1. Register for this limited-time offer.
2. Transfer Membership Rewards points to your SkyMiles account.