Get 50,000 bonus points after first use with the Marriott Rewards Premier Credit Card from Chase which can provide you with a jump start on your next vacation with a complimentary night stay at a category 1-4 location upon approval. With every purchase you make, points are earned toward Marriott hotel stays, airline miles, Elite guest services plus more. 5 points for each $1 spent at participating Marriott locations and 2 points for every $1 made at retail establishments (those classifying their merchant location for Visa as an airline, car rental agency, or type of dining establishment) are awarded. Once the points add up, redeem them for discounted hotel stays, exchange for miles with your preferred airline frequent flyer program, buy online or purchase retail gift certificates, or perhaps gift points to another member or donate to a charity. The possibilities are seemingly endless!

Key Features:

• Get 50,000 bonus points after first use- good for 6 free nights at a category 1 Marriott hotel.
• Annual Fee Waived for the first year- an $85 savings!
• Purchase APR of 15.24%. This APR will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate
• 5 points for every $1 spent at over 3,400 Marriott locations
• 2 points for every $1 spent on eligible dining, airline and rental car purchases
• 1 point for every $1 spent on purchases anywhere else
• Unlimited point accumulation
• Achieve Elite Status Faster with Annual Credit and Everyday Purchases. 15 Nights Credit toward your next Elite membership level every year upon account anniversary. Earn 1 Elite Night Credit for every $3,000 spent
• Plus, receive an anniversary bonus of one free night stay at a category 1-5 hotel every year!
• No foreign transaction fee

If you are a frequent patron of Marriott brand hotels and resorts and The Ritz-Carlton hotels, earn points and status faster with the Marriott Rewards Premier Credit Card. With over 3,400 participating locations world-wide, the only difficult thing about having this card is deciding places to stay. Start earning Marriott Rewards today!

If you enjoy volunteering and have an American Express card, you can now get reward points with their membership rewards program.  According to their website, you could earn 500 reward points for every hour of volunteer work. Earn up to 10,000 points for doing charity work per year as long as the project is listed in the VolunteerMatch.org database. You can enter your zip code or keyword to best match your volunteering hours.

Make sure you log in membership rewards to register your hours worked to earn your points. You could also donate your points to charity.  Volunteering is a wonderful thing; earning extra points is just icing on the cake.  It’s nice to hear a feel good story with American Express instead of credit card companies taking advantage of the consumers.

Top American Express Cards:

Blue Cash® from American Express is designed for those with good or excellent credit who plan to take advantage of the cash back rewards program. This card has no annual fee and an average rate for purchases and balance transfers (for those who qualify), which makes it ideal for those who plan to occasionally carry a balance. The card also has a 0% introductory rate for the first six months of membership that can be applied toward purchases.

The TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express is designed for Costco members who have average credit and plan to take advantage of the cash back reward program. A 1% rebate is earned on general purchases, 2% is earned for travel-related purchases, and 3% is earned for restaurant and on gasoline purchases up to $3,000 (1% thereafter). There is no limit to the amount of cash rebates that can be earned. There is also no annual fee for this card with a paid Costco membership. This card also provides many common benefits and services.

Most of you know that Capital One credit cards have no foreign transaction fees, but I haven’t seen Visa or Mastercard without one. Not until I saw the PenFed Promise Visa with no foreign transaction fees.  There is also no balance transfer(BT) fee and no cash advance fee, however it’s not 0% APR.

For those that are a little credit card savvy, you can use this no BT fee to your advantage.  Lets say you have a 0% 12 months Balance Transfer offer from another issuer. You can balance transfer to the PenFed Promise card, and your credit will be negative. You can do a Cash Advance or write a check from Penfed card and there will be no fees.

From the website:

PenFed upholds an unyielding commitment to bring you quality products with outstanding features. In this spirit, we created the new PenFed Promise Card that dares to combine the freedom of absolutely no fees with one of the lowest rates for purchases in the country!

A unique, smart, no-frills card that offers you exceptional value and PenFed’s proven service. That’s our Promise to you.

Our Promise Card features:

* Absolutely no fees!
* 7.49% APR introductory purchase APR for first 36 months ! After that, the APR will vary with the Prime Rate, and is currently 9.99% APR.
* No-fee cash advances carry a 17.99% APR

The last hurdle is joining PenFed in order to apply for this credit card. You can join PenFed via:

1. SAME – Free for high school or college students.
2. Complete list – member of military, family member, etc.
3. NMFA – one time $20 membership

Quick Free FICO Score and Report

MyFico is giving your credit Score Watch and report Free Trial for thirty days. They will remind you when your free trial is up. The best part is they are making the cancellation extremely easy. Simply visit this MyFico cancellation page so you won’t ever have to pay anything! Once you login, the cancellation is quick with an easy cancellation button. No need to call customer services or dealing with them selling other financial products.

Checking your credit score and report are vital to your financial health. Visit MyFico today to get your free credit score and report.

Are you a Chase cardholder? Ever since Chase took away the $250 check for 20,000 points, there hasn’t been a good redemption for your points.  Lately, they have been running a special whereas you can get a $25 restaurant card + a $10 AMC gift card for 2500 points. Some of the restaurants include Applebee’s, On the Border, Chili’s, Maggiano’s, Macaroni Grill, Outback, and more.  Log-in your Chase credit card account to see. Offer is good until 3/14/10 on Chase Ultimate Rewards main page.

ING Business $100 Bonus

Just got an email from ING about their new business $100 bonus good until Feb. 28th. Make sure to put in BSA298 in the reference code box.

Small business savings with big time benefits

The ING DIRECT Business Savings Account pays a 1.10% Annual Percentage Yield – that’s more than 3X the national average. Plus a $100 bonus just to get started.

* No minimums, hidden fees or service charges
* Access for up to 3 authorized signers for added flexibility and security
* Manage your account online with 24/7 accessibility

Sign up for one today and remember to put in the offer code BSA298 for reference code box when filling out the application.

Open an account by February 28th, 2010 and make sure you use Reference Code BSA298 to be eligible for the $100.

How many cards do you carry? and do they give you the best cash back options? I suggest to carry around 3-5 cards in order to get the most cash back.
Here’s my list of the best Cash Back Credit Cards:

Best cash back cards for groceries/drugstores:

• 5% Cash Back from AmEx Blue Cash(after $6500 in spending)
• 3.75% Cash Back from Chase Freedom Cash

General Cashback Anywhere on Any Purchases:

• 1.25% Chase Freedom Cash Visa Card

Restaurants:

• 5% Citi mtvU **Everyone can get this card
• 3.75% Cash Back from Chase Freedom Cash
• 3% Citi Professional **$100 bonus too for signing up

Top Cash Back Gas Credit Cards:

• 10% Chase BP Visa Rewards Card, then 5% after 2 months **good only at BP gas stations**
• 5% Discover Open Road Card
• 5% AmEx SimplyCash
• 3.75% Chase Freedom Cash Visa Card
• 3% Chase PerfectCard MasterCard, 6% first 3 months

Office Supplies

• 5% American Express SimplyCash Card *5% gas and Telecom too

Hotel

• Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express
• Hilton HHonors Platinum 5 points per dollar on eligible purchases
  

Best Cashback Student Cards

• Discover Student Open Road 5% cash back on Gas and auto maintenance
• Citi Student mtvU 5% cash back on Restaurants and more
• Chase Student Flexible Rewards 1% Cash back on Everything
  

If you have one of these Costco American Express True Earnings credit card, then you might qualify for an extra 2% on cash back for all online purchases by enrolling through this AmEx link. Check to see if you qualify by putting your user id and password. If it doesn’t work, try calling 1-800-794-1308 with promo code 107400004 to see if it works. YMMV however. Valid only for the month of December.

From the website:

Enrollment required by 12/31/2007. This offer is good for solicited Cardmembers only. Through this offer you may earn an extra 2% cash back for your qualifying purchases made between 12/1/2007 and 12/31/2007 on an eligible Card. This is in addition to any rebate you may earn per the terms and conditions of this Card. Qualifying purchases are purchases made online, by phone or by mail order from eligible U.S. retail, department store, home improvement, drug store, wholesale club, consumer electronics, publishing and grocery store merchants. Charges for payments made via PayPal and other online payment intermediaries and for purchases from online auction sites do not qualify. This extra cash rebate will be awarded on up to $25,000 in qualifying purchases, for a maximum extra rebate of $500. Credits for purchase returns will result in a corresponding cash rebate reduction. To earn your reward your account must be active and not in default at time of bonus fulfillment. Please allow 4-8 weeks following 12/31/2007 for this one-time extra 2% cash rebate to post to your account as a statement credit.

You get 3% cash back because the promotion offers says earn an ADDITONAL 2% on top of the 1% you already get from your TruEarnings card.

Use any Discover Cards at Fadango for Buy 1 Get 1 Free Movie Tickets.

Here are some good Discover Cards:

1. Discover More Card – Monogram
2. Discover Open Road Card
3. Miles by Discover Card

From the website:

Buy one or more movie tickets and get one free when you use your Discover Card to order tickets from this page. Here’s how to redeem this exclusive offer:

1. Enter your ZIP code or city name above and click “Go”.
2. Select a theater and showtime for the movie you wish to see.
3. Select the number of tickets you wish to purchase (at least 2)
4. Use your Discover Card during check out and the price of one ticket will be automatically deducted from your order

I love getting free bonus miles from signing up to credit cards. Airplane tickets can cost an arm and a leg, so why not let the credit card companies pay for it. Some cards have no fee for first year, hence you can use your bonus miles and then cancel your card and pay absolutely nothing.

For those Cards that have annual fee, the bonus miles are worth way more than the fee. Once you used your bonus miles, you can cancel your card and ask them to waive the fee or pro-rate the fee since it’s less than 1 year.

Here’s a complete list of all the free miles you can get which add up for several flight tickets.

Consumer Cards:

Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card gives you 15000 bonus miles after first purchase. 2500 more bonus miles for each additional cardmember. No fee first year.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card gives you 10000 bonus points after first purchase which can be converted to travel rewards on over 21 major airlines. No fee first year.

Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express gives you 10000 Starpoints after first purchase which can be transferred to flyer programs of over 30 airlines. No fee first year.

JetBlue Card from American Express gives you 50 TrueBlue points (worth 1/2 of a round-trip ticket) after first purchase. Annual fee is $40.

Miles by Discover Card gives you 12000 bonus miles. There is no annual fee.

Citi Platinum Select/ AAdvantage gives you 15000 bonus miles after first purchase. No annual fee for first year.

Bank of America US Airway Visa Signature gives you 25000 bonus dividend miles after first purchase. $90 annual fee.

Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature gives you 20000 bonus miles upon approval. $75 annual fee.

Bank of America Hawaiian Airlines Visa Platinum gives you 10000 bonus miles after first purchase. $50 annual fee.

British Airways Visa Signature Card from Chase gives you 15000 bonus BA miles after first purchase. $75 annual fee.

Don’t just apply to the consumer cards, anybody can get the business cards. Did you know that you don’t have to be part of a corporation or LLC to apply for a business credit card? Your name is consider a sole proprietorship type of business. When filling out business credit cards, simply use your name as your business name and your Social Security number as your tax id.

How does this work? Whether you have set up a lemonade stand, a garage sale, or sold something on Ebay, your business is called sole proprietorship. This is completely recognized by the IRS with your name as your business name.

Even if you have a business, you would still put down your EIN and your social security number on your application. There will be a hard pull on your credit report. However, business credit cards will not show up on your personal credit report. Your business credit card’s balance doesn’t effect the debt-credit limit ratio. This means that you can open and close business credit cards without worrying about showing up on your credit report.

Business Cards:

Gold Delta SkyMiles Business Credit Card from OPEN^SM the small business team gives you 15000 bonus miles after first purchase. Up to 30000 bonus miles in your first year. Fee is waived first year.

Business Gold Rewards Card from OPEN^SM the small business team gives you 25000 points after first purchase which is redeemable for one domestic round-trip airline ticket. No fee first year.

Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card from American Express give you 10000 bonus Starpoints after first purchase which is transferable to 30 major flyer programs. No fee first year.

JetBlue Business Credit Card from American Express gives you $50 statement credit and 25 Trueblue points (worth 1/4 of a round-trip) after first purchase. $40 annual fee.

Citi Business AAdvantage Card gives you 20000 bonus miles after $250 in purchases. No fee first year.

If you have a home loan with Countrywide, this is truly the best card on cash back on every purchase. They are offering 2% cash back toward your home loan with Countrywide.

Here are the highlights:

Intro 0% Fixed APR for up to 12 months
Earn 1 point for every $1 spent in card purchases and interest
Each time you reach 2,500 points, redeem for:
- A $50 payment towards an outstanding mortgage principal balance with Countrywide Home Loans or,
- A $25 check made payable to you or,
- A $25 gift card/gift certificate to National merchants. Transfer higher interest rate accounts

Do you have a Citi Card? Then you must be familiar with using it rewards system whereas you earn thank you points through purchases. You then use your thank you points to get gift cards, gas card, or airline tickets.

Question is, what is the best way to use your thank you points?

Personally, with my student’s loan debt, all my points are going toward redeeming for student loan rebate. For every 2500 points, you get $25 toward your student loan. Also, I’m thinking of building up my points to get a free airline ticket in the Continental US for 25K points. Everybody situation is different, so use it to your advantage.

Check out their Thank You Network for more info.

Here are some ways to maximize your points:

• Use a multiple of Citi Cards to get the max points return.
• Go through their Thank You network when shopping online.
• Get more points from their banking products.