Earn VentureOne Credit Card Miles

The VentureOne credit card is a travel rewards credit card, so cardholders earn miles instead of earning points, although in practice, it is the same thing. Owners of this credit card earn 1.25 miles per dollar spent on every purchase. There is also a one-time bonus for new cardholders of 10,000 miles if you spend $1,000 during the first three months you have the card.

The amount of miles you can earn each year is unlimited and the miles do not expire.

Redeem Miles for Free Travel

The best feature of the VentureOne card rewards catalog is that there is no need for a rewards catalog. Unlike getting the Capital One rewards catalog for the Miles Plus program, there is no need for this card’s reward catalog to come in the mail.

Instead, the number of miles needed to earn free travel is equal to the cost of the tickets multiplied by 100. For example, if you spend $382 on airline tickets to Las Vegas, the number of miles you have to redeem to get them for free is 38,200. That beats trying to manage the credit card reward points ranges typical on other rewards cards.

This rewards ratio is better than a one-percent cash back credit card, which is the minimum to be considered a good rewards card. Assuming all miles are earned at the 1.25 point level, travel rewards are equivalent to 1.25 percent cash back. (Check here for information on how to compare rewards credit cards.)

The great thing about this card is that there are no hoops to jump through to book your reward travel. You don’t have to book the tickets through Capital One or use a special Travelocity website or anything like that. In fact, you don’t have to redeem your miles in advance at all. Instead, you just buy your tickets using the VentureOne card. You can buy your airline tickets anywhere including direct from the airline, through a travel agent or from an online travel website like Expedia. Then, you log on to your account and redeem your miles and you get a credit on your statement.

Since you can book your airfare by any means, there are no blackout dates and no restrictions on which airline you can fly in order to get your free plane tickets.

Miles can also be redeemed for other travel expenses including hotels and rental cars.

Compare to redeeming NoHassle Miles via the Capital One rewards catalog 2011.

VentureOne Interest Rate, Terms and Conditions

There is currently no annual fee for the VentureOne card.

There is currently an introductory 0% interest rate for one year for new card holders. After that, the interest rate is a variable rate equal to Prime plus 8.65 percent, 12.65 percent or 16.65 percent, depending upon which credit rating tier you qualify for. As of today, that means the card has a 11.9%, 15.9% or 19.9% interest rate for current cardholders no longer getting the zero percent interest rate offer. The current cash advance APR is 24.9%, also a variable rate. There is also a 3 percent cash advance fee with a minimum of $10.

As with most variable rate credit cards these days, the interest rate will look absolutely TERRIBLE when interest rates go back to normal levels. A Prime rate of just 5 percent means that the best possible rate on this card will be 13.65 percent and the highest tier customer will be paying a rate of almost 25 percent interest! In other words, you do not want to be carrying a balance on this credit card.

The grace period for interest free purchases is 25 days.

VentureOne Card Perks

The Capital One VentureOne card also comes with the usual lineup of Visa Signature benefits including free auto rental insurance coverage and travel accident insurance. Also included is 24-hour roadside assistance and the Visa extended warranty program.

Venture One Card Review

So, is the VentureOne card worth it?

If you are looking for a card without a complex travel rewards catalog or a travel rewards miles chart, then the VentureOne card is worth a look. Is does have the all important no annual fee feature, but the interest rates are high and will get much higher when the Fed starts raising interest rates.

No related posts.

VentureOne Card Review from Capital One originally published at Finance Gourmet

The bank that is hardly the top of the most customer friendly list has decided that it can no long afford to be in the banking business without money grabbing fees. The company blames recent rules that limit the amount that can be charged to merchants accepting debit card transactions. However, BoA is charging everyone, regardless of whether they make a debit card (limited fee) or credit card (unlimited fee) transaction. In other words, they want to charge the fee to as many customers as possible.

Obviously, Bank of America customers who are not fools are better off opening another banking account with a credit union or less greedy bank (or one that knows how to actually make money being a bank) and using the debit card from them.

One option for those who don’t want to hassle with another brick and mortar bank is to open an online banking account. Most online checking accounts offer a free debit card. Transfers between banks such as Bank of America and Ally or ING Direct are typically free. Just transfer your funds to the online bank and use their debit card instead. You don’t even have to close your BoA account or change your direct deposit to another bank.

Customers with brokerage accounts may wish to check for checking or debit card options there as well. Fidelity, for example, offers free checking and a free debit card. Again, funds can be easily (and freely) transferred between the bank and the brokerage.

Finally, people who don’t want to pay Bank of America’s $5 debit card fee tax can also take advantage of a PayPal account with a debit card. Not only is the debit card from PayPal free, it offers one percent cash-back, paid monthly and credited directly to your account, no waiting.

In other words, you can pay Bank of America $5 per month for no reason, or you can earn 1 percent on every transaction you make. If you are sticking with using your Bank of America card, then you get what you deserve. As they always say, the markets will sort it out. In this case, the markets will separate the suckers from those who are smart enough to actually care about their money.

No related posts.

Bank of America Charges $5 Per Month For Debit Card originally published at Finance Gourmet

As regular readers know, I don’t recommend that people go chasing after credit card rewards or applying for new credit cards just to get credit card points or miles. If, on the other hand, you are currently in the market for a new credit card AND you are looking for a rewards credit card, this offer might be interesting.

First, off, be sure to read all of the fine print in the credit card agreement as well as my Citibank ThankYou Premier rewards card review. On of the big things you will want to note is that this card comes with a very steep annual fee. That should knock it out of the running for most people, but if you tend to rack up a lot of spending on a card for whatever reason, you might be able to make money by earning more rewards than you pay for the annual fee.

Second, although the ad claims that you can get $500 in gift cards with 50,000 ThankYou points, that is only true if you get certain gift cards or redeem your Thank You points for certain denominations of cards. Make sure to read my Citibank rewards catalog review form more information on how to turn miles and points into rewards.

Citi Premier ThankYou Rewards Card

Basically, the Citi Premier Thank You credit card rewards program works like this:

1. You get 1 ThankYou Point for ever $1 you spend
2. You get 1.2 Thank You points for every $1 you spend at gas stations, grocery stores, drugstores and certain parking charges.
3. You earn 1 point for each mile you fly if you buy your airline tickets using the Citibank credit card.
4. You get an anniversary bonus each year based on how long you have been a cardholder. So if you’ve had your Citi card for two to three years, you earn a 3 percent annual bonus on the points you earn charging things to your credit card.

The special offer gives you 50,000 points IF you spend $2,000 within the first three months the card is open. If you have a big purchase planned, or if you are the type of person who charges everyday things to credit cards and then pay it off every month, the target should be pretty easy to hit.

This is not a good credit card for anyone who won’t spend a lot of money on the card since it has a $125 annual fee. You have to earn those dollars back with points in order to make it a money maker. Otherwise, you’ll just be paying high bank fees for no reason. Keep in mind that it will take approximately $12,500 in charges to get $125 worth of gift cards at the rate of 1 point per dollar spent.

Remember, the 50,000 free bonus points will cover your annual fee for the first year, but after that, you’ll have a credit card with a high annual fee, so you need to make it worthwhile by redeeming your Thank You points for merchandise, cash back, gift cards or free travel.

The interest rate for this Citibank Premier rewards card is 13.99%, 17.99% or 21.99% depending upon your credit score, so this is also not a card you want to carry a balance on.

Who Is Citi ThankYou Premier Card Best For?

This card is best for people who travel a lot. You earn points for each mile flown, plus 1 point for each dollar the ticket costs. If you frequently fly business class or first-class this card should pay off well for you.

Other potential situations that would make this a good credit card are those who make big purchases a few times each year and pay them off quickly, and for those who use their cards instead of cash and then pay off the balance each month.

Customers interested in other rewards credit cards may wish to check out the Capital One Rewards catalog to see how it stacks up with this program.

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Latest Citibank ThankYou Rewards Premier Card Offer originally published at Finance Gourmet

I recently got my own PayPal debit card and have had a chance to use it and see how all the little tricks work. Technically, I got a PayPal Business Debit Card, but I don’t see any differences from the regular one.

Is a PayPal MasterCard Debit Card a Good Deal?

PayPal is no different than any other for-profit company, they want to make money. They take a commission on certain types of payments and charge fees for things like receiving international currency in your PayPal account and for letting customers or clients pay you via credit card.

The PayPal debit card is another way for PayPal to make money while giving you more ways to access the funds in your PayPal account, which the company hopes in turn will encourage you to use it more. Like other credit card companies, PayPal earns fees from the retailer every time you use your PayPal MasterCard.

The big lure of the PayPal Debit MasterCard is that you can use it to pull cash out of your PayPal account by ATM instantly. The catch is that PayPal charges you a $1 fee for each ATM withdrawal, in addition to any fees charged by the ATM itself. Unlike many bank ATM cards, the PayPal ATM card is not a member of any ATM network, so no ATM is a free ATM for PayPal debit cards unless it is a surcharge-free ATM.

Read here to learn about the Capital One rewards catalog.

In fact, when I recently started an ATM withdrawal and then changed my mind after seeing that the ATM charged $3 for a withdrawal, I clicked decline. But, since the ATM processed that as a withdrawal and then a credit, PayPal charged me the $1 fee anyway!

I am currently trying to get that refunded. Which, brings me to another drawback to the PayPal debit card.

PayPal is an eBay owned company that does everything online. That isn’t bad in itself, but PayPal sticks closely to the less if more business strategy of online business. There is no 1-800 number or anyone to call at a bank to take care of issues. You get to use the automated online links for predefined issues, but for something like an incorrect ATM surcharge, you’re stuck with emailing and waiting for an answer.

The one dollar surcharge makes the PayPal debit card a bad deal for withdrawing money. Be sure to only make large withdrawals, or if your time permits, just make the free withdrawal transfers to your bank account instead.

The other option is to take advantage of the MasterCard part of the card that lets you charge things instead.

PayPal Debit Card Features

There are some valuable benefits from using the PayPal debit card. First, as a MasterCard, you can use your PayPal card just like a credit card at any merchant, online or offline, that takes MasterCard. Good luck getting Red Robin to let you pay for your meal with PayPal without the card.

Second, the PayPal Debit MasterCard offers 1% cash-back on all purchases made with the card. However, you get this feature ONLY IF you sign-up for cash back rewards online.

The sort of PayPal debit card scam here is that you have to link your PayPal account to an eBay seller account that accepts PayPal as a preferred method of payment. This is not a big deal if you already have a PayPal account and don’t mind making it a preferred method of payment, but it seems like a bit of a credit-card company trick to withhold your chance to earn one-percent cashback until you do something with eBay.

For those of us that use PayPal for payments and not for online auctions, this is an unnecessary step to get one of the benefits of the PayPal debit card. However, if you plan to use your PayPal MasterCard to charge things, take the extra time to setup an eBay account and link it to your debit card to get your 1% cash back. You never have to sell anything, you just have to link the accounts. Just open an eBay seller account and then never use it.

There is another catch to PayPal Debit Card cash-back. It only counts on transactions where you do NOT use your PIN number. So, tell the cashier to use credit, or hit the cancel button on the little payment screen when it asks for your PIN number or you are throwing your cashback away.

The good news is that once you have activated PayPal cash back, it is seamless and easy. The 1% cash back gets credited to your PayPal account balance every month, so there is no waiting until the end of the year or waiting for a check in the mail.

PayPal Debit Card ATM withdrawals are limited to $400 per day and the maximum daily spending limit for the card is $3,000.00.

You can link a backup form of payment to your PayPal card if you choose. Basically, you link another credit card to your PayPal card and if you don’t have enough money in your PayPal account for your transaction, PayPal will pull in the money from your backup credit card.

Personally, I would just use the backup credit card directly, but I can see situations in which someone might want to take advantage of this feature.

PayPal Debit Card Email Notifications

One other interesting feature of the PayPal debit card is that it sends you an email confirmation for every purchase you make. On the one hand it’s great to have that notification. On the other hand, do you really need an email each time you buy a hotdog or fill your car with gas?

Obviously, email filters and such make managing the PayPal notifications easy, but it is something to know before you get the PayPal debit card and start using it everywhere you go.

I downloaded the PayPal Android app and it lets me see transactions as soon as they show up on the system and monitor my account balance and transactions from my phone. Obviously, you can also manage your PayPal account online.

Finally, the one other bad thing about the PayPal debit card is that as an accessory to your PayPal account, it only offers online statements for the last three months. Most banks and credit cards keep your statements online for much longer.

All PayPal accounts only offer the previous three months of statements online. Unless your PayPal account is seldom used, for record-keeping purposes, you’ll need to get into the habit of saving your online e-statements before they get too old and disappear from the system.

In the end, there is no reason to not have a PayPal debit card is you frequently get money in your PayPal account, just know the gotchas and be smart to avoid unnecessary fees and take advantage of your cash back rewards.

Related posts:

1. Bank of America Charges $5 Per Month For Debit Card
2. Some Banks Not Charging Monthly Debit Card Fee

PayPal Debit Card Worth It? originally published at Finance Gourmet

In addition, you can redeem your Citi rewards points for merchandise, gift cards and even get cash back from your Citibank MasterCard or Citibank Visa rewards card.  One popular card is the Citibank Rewards Premier Credit Card.

Citibank Rewards Catalog Travel

In 2009, the Citibank travel rewards were changed from flat-rate awards to awards based upon the actual cost of the airline ticket. The current rate is approximately 100 points for every dollar the plane tickets costs. So a free airline ticket reward for a round-trip fare that costs $300 would require redeeming 30,000 points.

Note that in order to redeem Citibank ThankYou rewards for free airline tickets, you must book the plane tickets through the Thank You rewards website which always seems to have fares that are slightly higher than the same airfare found on any of the major, non-affiliated travel websites like Expedia or Travelocity. That extra charge means you’ll never quite get a full 1 percent redemption value.

There are still some travel items in the 2011 Citibank rewards catalog that have a flat-rate redemption of miles or points.

Car rental certificates from Avis, for example, can be had for 3,500 points for a $25 certificate, 6,000 points for a $50 car rental certificate, or 10,000 points for a $100 certificate.

Likewise, there are major hotel rewards certificates available as well including Hyatt, Marriott Hotels, and The Ritz-Carlton. Rewards certificates can be used for free hotel stays or a discount off your rate. $100 certificates are redeemed at 1 percent, or 10,000 points for each $100, while lower value certificates are redeemed at a lower rate of 6,000 points for $50.

Citibank Rewards Catalog Gift Cards

As with the rewards travel certificates, if you redeem points for gift cards, you’ll get a much better deal if you get $100 gift cards than if you cash in less points for smaller rewards.

A $100 gift card to Barnes & Noble yields a respectable 1 percent at a rate of 10,000 points for a $100 card.

A $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble costs 6,000 points for a return of just 0.8 percent, and a $25 gift card is even worse, ringing in at 3,500 points for a 0.7 percent rate of return on your rewards points.

Good financial advice is to look for cards to retailers you should at anyways and be sure to redeem your points for higher value gift cards to maximize the value of your reward.

Compare to the Capital One rewards catalog…

Citibank Rewards Cash Rewards

Citibank cash rewards are some of the lowest value rewards thanks to an overpriced redemption rate. The smart financial move is that would be better off finding a better value gift card at a store or retailer where you would normally shop anyway. Otherwise, you’ll be getting way less than 1% cash back from your Citi rewards card.

A $50 cash reward costs 8,000 points and a $100 cash reward costs 16,000 points. That works out to a redemption rate of 0.625 percent, way below the "average" rate of 1 percent that savvy credit card users should should for.

Citibank Rewards Catalog Merchandise

Like most credit card rewards catalogs, the Citibank rewards catalog for 2011 has pages of merchandise you can redeem points for. Valuing these rewards is harder because the prices on most items can fluctuate.

The best finance advice is to find out how much you could buy the item for (including tax and shipping) from a retailer and then compare that price to the number of points required to purchase the item. If the resulting rate of return on the your credit card points is lower than 1 percent, see if you can find gift cards for a merchant that sells the item. Redeem your ThankYou points for a $100 gift card (or several) at a 1 percent redemption rate and then buy the item with the gift cards instead of overpaying with your points.

Do watch for "sales" where the Citi cards people mark certain rewards down from time to time. The lower point totals may make redeeming your miles for those rewards a good deal.

What’s your favorite reward in the Citibank rewards catalog?

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Citibank Rewards Catalog 2011 originally published at Finance Gourmet

(Note: Citibank is the official name, although some people look for City Bank MasterCard or City Bank rewards when trying to find out more information.)

Is the Citibank Premier Card a good rewards card? Let’s take a look.

First, the Citi ThankYou Premier Card comes with a $125 annual fee PLUS ANOTHER $50 fee for each authorized user. That means a husband and wife credit card account with Citibank for this card will run an eye-popping $175 per year just for the annual fee. It’s waived for the first year, but otherwise, that is a pretty solid strike against any credit card offer unless it has a lot of benefits to back it up.

Don’t look for a great interest rate to offset that big annual fee. The terms and conditions list the rates as 13.99% , 17.99% , or 21.99% depending upon your credit score. Even worse, those are not fixed rates which means that when the Fed takes interest rates back to a measly 2 percent, the interest rates on this Citi credit card will be 15.99% , 19.99%, and 23.99% respectively.

Earning Citibank Rewards Points with Citi Premier Card

The Citi Premier rewards card works like most rewards credit cards do. You earn 1 ThankYou point for ever $1 you spend on the card. You earn 1.2 points when you use your card at grocery stores, gas stations, drugstores, parking, and “commuter transportation.”

That is pretty unremarkable. Where the Premier Card tries to make it up is that you also earn one point for each mile flown when you use this Citibank MasterCard to purchase your plane tickets. For frequent travelers, those additional ThankYou Flight Miles can add up pretty fast and make the $125 fee worth it.

There is an additional anniversary bonus for cardholders based on your “membership year.”  You become a member when you get your card basically.  The first year you earn a 1 percent anniversary bonus, then 2 percent for the second year, and so on until after 4 years, you get a 5 percent anniversary bonus on the number of points you earned during the year.

For most card holders, this is an insignificant bonus. Consider if you spent $25,000 during the year on the card plus you flew 20,000 miles, that adds up to 45,000 total ThankYou Point. The first year bonus is a measly 450 points. After five years, it becomes a little more meaningful. 5 percent of 45,000 points would be 2,250 points. You can’t get much with that, but it’s better than nothing.

The good news is that there are no caps on the number of points and miles you can earn, so if you fly a lot and buy all your tickets and hotels and rental cars on this particular rewards MasterCard, you can earn a lot of miles to use for free travel later.

If you are looking to value this rewards card, don’t bother including the anniversary bonus, it won’t make up any ground over the main program.

Of course, as we often point out here, to compare rewards cards properly you have to examine not only how you earn points, but how much those rewards points are when you go to redeem your miles for an actual reward.

Redeem Citi Rewards Points

You can redeem 8,000 points for a $50 cash reward, or 16,000 point s for a $100 cash back reward. That is about half-way in between a standard 1 percent cash back credit card and the offerings from the Capital One Rewards catalog. (See here for the update to the 2011 Capital One Rewards card program.)

A flight from Denver to Dallas on Southwest Airlines showed up on the rewards travel site for 29,300 points while the same flight on Southwest Airlines website was listed at $246.80 including all fees and charges. It looks like customers booking rewards travel can expect to see that 20 percent bonus (1.2 points per dollar) from groceries and gas eaten up by the more expensive ticket rate used to redeem points. Otherwise, the ballpark redemption rate of 1 percent is what you get from this card.

Is Citi Premier Card Worth It?

The Citibank rewards program associated with the Citi Premier MasterCard is not worth it for must credit card customers. Unless you are a road warrior, the high interest rates and sky-high annual fee don’t bring any benefits you can’t get on a much cheaper credit card.

Image courtesy of Citi Cards website and promotional materials.

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Citibank Rewards Credit Card Offers: Premier Card originally published at Finance Gourmet

This year, my NoHassle rewards catalog came after the new year and is titled, “Explore.” If you upgraded to the Capital One Venture card, there is apparently a supplement or entirely different Venture card rewards catalog according to the note enclosed.

Without any further ado, let’s jump right into the current Capital One Rewards Catalog.

Capital One NoHassle Rewards 2011 Program Guide

First up is how to earn miles using my Capital One No Hassle Rewards card. The basic earning rate is 1.25 miles for every $1 spent using the card. Money spent in bookstores, video rental stores, gifts shops, card stores, florists, art supply stores, craft stores, and souvenir shops earns double miles or 2 points for every $1 spent.

The guide also notes that Capital One miles do not expire after a certain number of years, and that there is no limit on how many miles you can earn in the NoHassle miles program.

Capital One Rewards Miles Earning Chart

Perk Central for Capital One Rewards

Like pretty much every other rewards credit card and other program that offers points for spending money, you can earn even more points by shopping through a special Capital One website called Perk Central. You can earn up to 15 bonus miles per dollar spent by shopping through Perk Central.

The best way to take advantage of the bonus miles offered for shopping through the special Capital One website offer is to always check Perk Central before making big purchases online. Be sure to delete your browser cookies, or better yet, use your browser’s privacy mode if you have already been to the merchant’s website before. You don’t want your bonus rewards voided because your shopping trip didn’t count as a “referral.”

For example, Best Buy, CompUSA, and Staples are all listed as Perk Central retailers. Just drop by Perk Central first before buying your office supplies or electronics and rack up bonus points on each purchase. Those bonus points can make redeeming Capital One rewards miles for gift cards a great deal. Double dip by earning bonus miles at Best Buy, and then getting a $100 Best Buy gift certificate reward for cheap!

Other Perk Central companies listed in the Capitol One Rewards catalog for 2011 include:

• Bloomingdales
• PetSmart
• Sephora
• Starbucks
• Gap
• Macy’s
• Barnes & Noble
• Sierra Trading Post
• Foot Locker
• Dick’s Sporting Goods
• Sears / Kmart
• Walmart
• Home Depot
• Sears
• West Elm
• Dell

Earn Miles Fast On Capital One Rewards Card Plus Perk Central

Two other companies of note on Perk Central are the Apple Store and Southwest Airlines.

If you are looking to buy an iPod, iPad, or MacBook Air, you know that they are not cheap. Getting a good deal on an Apple computer or iPhone can be tough because the company doesn’t really allow big discounts. However, if you buy them and earn bonus miles on those big ticket items, the value of your miles goes up and you can get a deal on Apple electronics by combining your purchase with a statement credit or cash back reward.

Likewise, get bonus miles when you book your Southwest Airlines tickets through the Capital One rewards bonus website. Make sure you are also a member of Southwest Airlines frequent flier program and you’ll get big bonus points, plus you still get credit for your Southwest Airlines miles because the two programs are not related or exclusive.

Earn Capital One Miles Paying Bills

To really see your miles add up fast, use your card to pay bills. Pay the card off every month and you are basically getting free money.

That $300 doctor bill is a tax deduction, and it can earn you 375 miles while you are at it.

Your $100 electric bill is worth 125 miles, and so on.

A $1,000 worth of bills and groceries charged to the card each month (and paid off each month) is worth 1,250 miles. That is 15,000 miles per year without doing anything other than what you would normally do. And, that, is the key to taking advantage of rewards programs and discounts.

Up Next: Capital One Rewards redemptions catalog.

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Capital One Rewards Program 2011 Guide originally published at Finance Gourmet

These days, such offers are non-expiring specials on some credit cards. Other cards, such as some Capital One rewards cards offer a base miles earning rate other than 1 mile per dollar. My Capital One No Hassle Miles credit card, for example, has a base miles earning rate of 1.25 miles for each dollar spent, with two times miles per dollar spent when the card is used in certain types of retail shopping establishments.

Of course, comparing which card offers the highest miles earned per dollar spent is useless without also comparing what rewards those miles or points can be redeemed for.

In order to determine which rewards cards are good values and which ones are below average (or worse) it pays to keep in mind that the “average” cash back credit card offers 1 percent cash back on all standard purchases. That works out to $1 cash back for every $100 spent. If the rewards program offers a value equal to or greater than 1% of dollars spent, the program can be considered average. Bigger rewards equal bigger value.

Redeem Credit Card Miles for Free Flights

Redeeming credit card points for free flights is a long-standing tradition. With both credit card companies and airlines tightening their belts, however, there have been big changes in how to redeem points for free airline tickets.

Many credit card rewards programs require you to book your tickets through them or a designated company. Doing so allows the company to collect fees from the airlines like a travel agent does, allowing them to offset the cost of rewards tickets.

Most credit card customers were savvy enough to use their miles and points only on more expensive flights, which is why most rewards programs have eliminated tiers of rewards based on miles. Instead, many programs charge a certain number of miles for a certain price range of airline ticket.

Others, like the Citibank rewards program cost a certain amount of points to redeem for the exact cost of the ticket. A recent check showed it cost 15,700 points to to get a free airline ticket that cost $149.40 directly on Expedia for the same flights.

Redeem Credit Card Points for Gift Cards

One great way to redeem points without traveling is to get free gift cards for gifts or to merchants that you use on a regular basis. A few years ago, we furnished our baby bedroom with free Babies R Us gift cards we got be redeeming 10,000 miles for every $100 gift certificate, the equivalent of 1 percent cash back.

There are still good deals to be found redeeming credit card miles for free gift cards, but you have to do the math and keep a close eye on the details within each program.

For example, the Capital One rewards catalog shows that a $100 Babies R Us gift card requires redeeming 15,500 miles. That is a lot more than the 10,000 miles it took a few years ago. However, with a base mileage earning rate of 1.25 miles per dollar, that $100 gift card works out to $12,400 of spending. That’s still worse than 1 percent, but not as bad as it looks at first glance.

Choosing the Right Rewards Card

The best rewards programs are usually those that offer rewards at approximately a 1 percent redemption rate that have significant bonus earnings where you shop regularly. For example, if you shop a lot at XYZ Stores and they have a Miles Supreme Plus Visa card where you earn 1 point per dollar spent but earn 2 points (or more) for every dollar spent at XYZ stores, those bonus miles will add up and make your point redemptions more valuable than ever.

Whatever credit card rewards program you go with, always read everything you receive about the program and monitor both the earnings rate and the cost of redeeming rewards, as these can change frequently. What starts out as a good deal, may end up becoming less valuable with one quick little notice that the company hopes you don’t end up reading or understanding.

With a little persistence and research, you can find the right rewards card for you and your family.

Related posts:

1. Amazon Rewards Visa Credit Cards
2. Capital One No Hassle Rewards – Gift Cards

How To Compare Rewards Credit Cards originally published at Finance Gourmet

After I get a chance to look through it, I’ll post some updates to the rewards chart and any other interesting news from the Capital One rewards program updates.

Update (Jan-2011): The 2011 Capital One Rewards catalog review is here.

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Capital One Rewards Catalog 2011 Is Here originally published at Finance Gourmet

Update: Now CreditKarma.com offers free credit report monitoring. Check out the Credit Karma review of free credit monitoring service.

Credit scores are confusing to many people. This is not the result of ignorance or being naive. Credit scores are not consumer products. They were (are) meant to be used by financial institutions. These lenders are the ones who pay for the credit scores. Banks and lenders are credit score customers, not the people who are being scored.

Credit scores are not a free, open system. Rather, they are a product, sold by Fair Issac. They charge money for each credit score calculated. Fair Issac’s customers are banks, mortgage companies, and other lenders, not you. In fact, a quick look around the Fair Issac website should show you that this is not a company concerned about selling products or services to individuals as customers.

Fair Issac has a separate website and separate company face called MyFico that deals with regular people instead of lending institutions. MyFico will gladly sell you your credit score, or charge your for credit monitoring. But, make no mistake, this is an additional revenue stream for the company, NOT its core business.

Credit Score Versus Credit Report

Making things even more confusing, credit scores are calculated from credit reports. Fair Issac does not have credit reports. They use credit reports from the three major credit reporting bureaus, Experian, Transunion, and Equifax.

Experian, Equifax, and Transunion do not make credit scores. More specifically, credit bureaus do not make FICO credit scores. They don’t like missing out on all the money generated from credit scores, so they made up their own credit score, but nobody uses it. Whenever someone is talking about your “real credit score” they mean a FICO score from Fair Issac, not one of the new credit scores from Transunion, Experian or Equifax.

Different Types of FICO Scores

If that weren’t confusing enough, there are more layers of confusion. There is not just one FICO score.

Fair Issac sells more than one kind of credit score. However, each credit score is called a FICO score. That means that even if you get your FICO score, you might not have your “real credit score” which is one of many different FICO scores available.

The different FICO scores rank different things in your credit report, different ways. What makes a person more or less likely to repay a car loan, for example, differs from what makes a person more or less likely to repay a mortgage home loan. Thus, different scores. A car dealer wants the FICO score for car loans, a mortgage company wants the FICO score for mortgages.

Even if your mortgage guy or your car finance guy shows you your actual credit score that they used for a loan, it will still be different from the one based on the other two credit reports and different from the other types of FICO scores.

In other words, there is no one “real” credit score.

How Do I Get My Real Credit Score For Free?

In a recent review of CreditKarma.com we showed you how to get your credit score for free. As far as I know, Credit Karma is the only way to get a free credit score online without having to sign up for a trial offer or buy something else.

The free credit scores from CreditKarma are real credit scores. However, you have to remember all of the information above.

1. Credit scores from CreditKarma.com are based on one of three possible credit reports. All three possible scores are “real scores”, but a lender might buy a credit score based on one of the other two credit reports.
2. Credit scores can change daily. If you get a score on Monday, and a bank reports a late payment on Tuesday, then the credit score you get on Wednesday will be different (lower). The credit score you got on Monday is your real credit score FOR MONDAY. Your credit score for any other day can be higher or lower.
3. There are different kinds of FICO scores. The one you get from Credit Karma is not one of them.

After looking into it to find out if Credit Karma is a scam I feel comfortable recommending it to readers as a good way to get a credit score for free without getting ripped off. There are ads on the website and they might send you emails, although I have only gotten monthly ones that say my credit score may have changed. Getting your credit score online from CreditKarma won’t make anything less confusing, but you can see if it’s moving up or down and do something if necessary.

Otherwise, there isn’t much you can do about trying to get an “exact” number. If you are close to a credit score number you need for a loan, you can improve your credit score but it takes time. Keep making all of your payments on time. If you have the resources, pay down some balances to lower your credit utilization ratio. Then wait. There isn’t much more you can do.

Related posts:

1. Free Credit Score at My Credit Union
2. Buy Real Estate?

Real Credit Score or Fake Credit Score originally published at Finance Gourmet