Capital One has different types of Venture rewards credit cards. One of them is the VentureOne Rewards Credit Card, which is similar, but different from the main Capital One Venture card that Alec Baldwin pitches on TV. This VentureOne credit card is yellow instead of the Venture card which is blue.

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 Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

There are tons of Citibank rewards credit cards. Like most other credit card rewards programs, there are a wide range of items that you can redeem your credit card miles for, ranging from travel items like free airline tickets to discount car rental or free hotel room nights.

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?

Related posts:

1. Capital One Rewards Catalog 2011 Is Here
2. Credit Card Rewards Catalog

Citibank Rewards Catalog 2011 originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Citibank updates its credit card rewards programs from time to time and when it discontinues an old rewards program like the Citibank PremierPass rewards card, it moves those customers to one of its current Citibank rewards credit cards. One of the many cards that offer the company’s branded rewards program called Thank You Rewards, is the Citi ThankYou Premier card.

(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.

No related posts.

Citibank Rewards Credit Card Offers: Premier Card originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Not long ago, comparing rewards cards was pretty straight forward. Most credit card offers gave cardholders one point, or one mile, for each dollar spent and charged to the card. Credit card rewards programs sometimes offered bonuses for earning miles either for using the cards during specific periods of time or when shopping at certain types of stores. Often, these special offers came in the form of “double miles” or even “triple points”.

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 Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Credit cards that offer rewards, points and miles for every dollar you spend shopping are a great way to maximize your rate of return on your every day spending expenditures. However, in order to make credit card rewards pay off it is very important to get the right rewards credit card.

Finding out which reward credit card program is best takes a little bit of research. One of the most important factors in choosing the right rewards card is picking one that you will actually use both for spending and for redeeming points and miles for rewards. There is no sense in getting a Capital One Rewards credit card for free travel if you never really fly anywhere.

A top credit card rewards offer for people who don’t travel a lot is the Amazon.com Rewards Card which offers cardholders points for every dollar spent on a wide variety of purchases. Instead of redeeming points for free plane tickets, Amazon credit card users get free gift certificates to Amazon.com

Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card from Chase

The Amazon credit card rewards program comes with a lot of advantages for card holders with good credit scores. New customers looking for a credit card for people with bad credit or credit cards for people with recent bankruptcy might have to look elsewhere though.

New Amazon rewards card holders get $30 cash back with their first purchase on the Amazon Visa card.

Amazon rewards members earn points for every dollar spent on the card.

The big earnings come from shopping at Amazon.com which is not surprising. Cardholders earn 3 points for every dollar spent on amazon.com. In addition, credit card holders earn double points, or 2 points for every dollar spent at gas stations, restaurants and drug stores. All other places like grocery stores, bookstores, and clothing stores earn 1 point for every dollar spent.

Is Amazon Reward Card Worth It?

The best credit card reviews include not just the credit cards interest rate and whether or not the card has an annual fee, but also the value of the rewards offers and what is included in the credit card rewards catalog.

The Amazon.com Visa card is a great credit card to review because it is so easy to examine the card’s overall value.

The top value of Amazon Rewards Visa comes when you use the card a lot on Amazon.com.

The main item in the Amazon rewards catalog is a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate for 2,500 points. Other rewards in the rewards point chart are $50 cash back for 5,000 points. That makes the Amazon Visa a top value in credit cards issued by U.S. Banks.

If you spent all of our money on the Amazon credit card, earning 2,500 points would take spending just $833.33. That makes a best cash back value reward of $25 cash back for every $833 of purchases. The cash back percentage on the Amazon.com Visa card at this level equals 3% cash back on purchases made at Amazon.com. That is one of the highest cash back offers of any credit card. It is higher than cash back from Fidelity credit card and higher than the cash back rewards in the Citibank rewards catalog.

Of course, the cash back value declines with each dollar spent somewhere other than Amazon, but for heavy shoppers at Amazon this card is a great value.

No related posts.

Amazon Rewards Visa Credit Cards originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

It is standard lobbying practice for any industry about to come under additional regulation from Congress to shout to the press, and whoever else will listen, that any and all proposed regulations or laws of any kind would adversely affect the poor customer. Thus, any additional rules or regulations of any kind on credit card companies would make things worse for credit card customers.

More reading: Citibank Thankyou Points catalog.

Grandstanding aside, while poorly thought out regulations can hamper entire industries and harm customers, many times new government oversight can have a positive affect both on the industry as a whole, and on the experience of customers as well. In the case of recent credit card legislation, the new rules and regulations on banks and credit card issuers were thoroughly debated not just between Republicans and Democrats, but within those parties as well.

Fortunately, the by-product of real debate is often good legislation. Unfortunately, the power of lobbyists can overwhelm good debate when the sides are fractured.

What emerged from Congress in the form of newer, tougher, credit card industry regulation was indeed thoroughly debated, but was it good for customers, or did it, as the industry claimed, hurt ordinary credit card holders?

The general answer to that question remains open. Clouding the issue is the overall tightness of the credit markets, compounded by the nearly overnight end to the traditional way of doing business in the banking and finance industry. If it is harder to get a credit card there is no way of knowing whether that is the result of over-reaching rules issued by Congress, or if it is just that so many financial institutions have shaky balance sheets cluttered with “toxic assets.”

One area that keeps being mentioned in the press that has negatively affected consumers is that credit card reward programs are becoming more stingy. However, little evidence is cited other than the occasional card holder who says that they are getting less value from their credit card mileage or credit card points than they used to. The catch is that many credit card rewards programs were being trimmed before the credit card laws were even passed!

I made note in this personal finance blog that Capital One NoHassle Rewards were less valuable than they were just one year before back in 2008 when I used 10,000 Capital One miles for each $100 gift certificate to major retailers. Nobody can blame credit card laws for that!

Let me know if you see a downward revision in your credit card rewards program. If you have an old rewards catalog, don’t throw it out. Instead, keep it to compare how your rewards change over time, and if a credit card company is screwing you, don’t be afraid to open a new reward credit card or even a cash back credit card and throw that old in the shredder.

Related posts:

1. Credit Card Rewards Catalog
2. New Credit Card Laws Change the Rules in 2009

Credit Card Rewards Programs – Are New Laws Making Them More Stingy? originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Existing Capital One MasterCard holders may or may not be getting the same deals, but new credit card offers from Capital One are arriving in the mail to new credit card users. These are not reserved for highly qualified borrowers with high credit scores either.

How do I know?

One good piece of financial advice that I frequently give is to use phony names when signing up for certain things, especially promotional offers and magazine subscriptions. The reason is that these companies like to turn around and sell your name and address to other companies that then send you plenty of junk mail. These mailing lists can be more profitable than the actual business of writing a magazine or newsletter!

Nothing helps sort out a real “Urgent! Response Required,” mailing from a phony one like seeing one of the fake names that you used to sign up for something in the past. Just like the one that appears on my no annual fee Capital One No Hassle Rewards World MasterCard offer that came to my house under a name used for magazine subscriptions. Since that isn’t even a real person, let alone someone with a high credit score, we know that these offers are either going out blind, or people with low credit scores can qualify for these credit cards.

Capital One Miles Rewards

This particularly Capital One MasterCard looks like it comes with the standard NoHassle miles reward chart and earning points follows the basic Capital One miles rewards earning plan. You get 1 mile for each $1 you spend. The miles do not expire and there is no limit to the number of miles you can earn with the credit card.

A  bonus rewards points offer comes in the form of 30,000 bonus rewards miles comes with plenty of fine print. You actually get a 10,000 mile bonus reward with your first purchase. Then, if you spend at least $3,000 per year on the card, you get another 10,000 NoHassle miles reward bonus on your first anniversary and then 10,000 more No Hassle bonus miles on the second anniversary. So it might be a while before you want to use that Capital One Rewards Catalog to pick your free reward.

Also, there is no annual fee and this is a credit card with 0% interest rate APR on purchases until February 2011. After that, the regular interest rate is 17.99%, but that is not a fixed interest rate. Instead, this MasterCard from Capital One comes with a variable APR. The variable interest rate is calculated as PRIME + 14.74%. OUCH!

Folks, pay attention to these rates from banks on your credit card offers. 17.99% is not a low interest rate by any stretch of the imagination, but when the PRIME rate climbs to a measly 5%, which is still very low, by the way, this card will have an interest rate of 19.74%. That’s 20% interest on a credit card. No amount of miles is worth that.

Related posts:

1. Capital One Rewards Catalog – No Hassle Miles – Travel Rewards
2. Capital One No Hassle Rewards Catalog

Capital One World MasterCard No Hassle Rewards Miles originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

With Congress passing legislation to reign in some of the worst credit card abuses, credit card companies have been scrambling to get their terms and conditions, also known as the card contract, changed to terms more favorable to them before the new rules take affect. By changing your credit card agreement before the new credit card law takes affect, these card issuers can avoid having to play fairly as dictated by the new rules. However, this can mean bad things for customers and credit card account holders. Apparently, the banks aren’t concerned about losing business, because they are modifying terms on credit accounts left and right regardless of the person’s credit score or credit history. What can the average credit card customer do to fight back? Unfortunately, not too much, but there are some things that you can do to keep the credit card companies from cheating you out of your hard earned money.

Credit Card Interest Rate Increases

Under the old law, whenever a bank wanted to increase the interest rate it charged customers, it just sent out a letter saying that they were changing raising the interest rate. Consumers had no rights to do anything about it. The only option was to pay off the full balance immediately to avoid the higher interest rate, or transfer the balance to another credit card. In fact, when credit card companies needed to improve their balance sheets they would routinely do just this. If customers paid off their balances, then the company’s outstanding credit balance decreased. If customers didn’t pay off their balances, then their interest income from those balances increased. It was a no lose situation.

The new credit card law requires banks to give customers another option. Under this option, you can notify the credit card company that you reject the new interest rate which prevents your interest rate from increasing. In exchange, the account can no longer be used for new charges, but you may continue paying off your credit card balance under the old terms of the agreement. That means that you can still make the monthly payment, whether the minimum payment or otherwise, at the normal, sane, interest rate that you agreed to when you opened and used the credit card account. Obviously, this is not advantageous to the bank, so they are raising interest rates now, as fast as they can so that they won’t have to live by the provision once the law changes.

To fight back against credit card interest rate increases, the only thing you can do is pay off or transfer your balance before the new rate takes affect. If this isn’t practical, then continue making payments and pay off the card as quickly as possible. If you don’t carry a balance, the new rate won’t affect you until you do. The best vengeance is to never carry a balance on that card, ever. Credit card companies don’t make as much money off of customers that don’t pay interest, so keep using the card and pay it off in full every month. You’ll be fighting back against the credit card issuer and costing them profits. To really make them pay, be sure to take full advantage of their credit card rewards program to cost them even more money and make the card companies pay you!

If the way the company is treating you makes you so mad you want to close the account, don’t! At least not right away. Closing the account means you lose all of your reward points or miles. Instead, make sure you redeem every single credit card miles point you have earned before closing the account. Also, be sure you understand the effect closing an account can have on your credit score.

Finally, the most important thing is to REMEMBER. Banks are counting on their customers being mindless consumer sheep who don’t take the time to properly manage personal finances. They figure if they screw you over now, you will have forgotten all about it in six months. Don’t let them win! Remember exactly who did what and either close their accounts, or use them in a manner that makes them unprofitable for the company. If enough customers fight back, maybe next time, the banks won’t be so eager to try and cheat their customers.

Related posts:

1. Credit Card Company Tricks and How To Beat Them
2. Credit Card Rewards Programs – Are New Laws Making Them More Stingy?

How To Fight Credit Card Company Interest Rate Increases originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

The Citibank PremierPass credit cards offers higher point earnings for frequent travelers, but comes with a steep annual fee.  And, most cardholders were recently nailed with a steep increase in interest rate even if they had good credit.  Do the PremierPass pros outweigh the cons?

Earn Points Citi Premier Pass Card

The basic Citibank rewards points chart looks like this.

• 2 ThankYou Points earned for ever $1 spent at Grocery Stores, Gas Stations, Drugstores, Parking, and Public Transportation like subways.
• 1 Thank You Point earned for all other $1 spending.
• 1 Thank You Point earned for every mile flown on any airline, including other people whose tickets you bought with the card.

ThankYou Points Redeem Chart

* Since there is no fixed flight option anymore, I tested a couple of flights through the booking system and it appears that tickets are pricing at approximately 100 points per dollar.

Reward Value is average unless you maximize shopping at the 2 for 1 points locations.

Thank You Points Earned For Flying

Of course, the value of this particular card is not in its spending rewards which are mostly average, but rather in the value of getting ThankYou Points for flying on any airline.

If you few from Denver to Chicago, that is 903 miles, or 903 points earned for flying.  A round-trip ticket makes it 1806.

If you make that trip one a month for a whole year that is 21,672 ThankYou points, enough for a $210 plane ticket, and that is without using any of your points earned without flying.  In this case, the $210 reward will cover the $75 annual fee.

To put it another way, you have to fly at least 7,500 miles per year to cover the cost of the annual fee and turn this credit card from a money loser into a break-even rewards card.

Update: How to use Citibank rewards points for free thank you miles flights.

Citibank Rewards Cons

Citibank ThankYou Rewards recently ended their fixed point option for flight ticket rewards, so budgeting the points is now tougher.  In order to find out how much a flight costs, you have to log into Expedia via the ThankYou Points website and enter flight information like you were going to buy a plane ticket online through Expedia.  What you get back are trip prices in points instead of dollars.

The major drawback of this process is that the online travel agencies are well known for a scam which involves changing the price at the last minute before you buy a ticket.  They get away with this by saying that the system you are looking at is just the reservation system and that it might not be up to date.  Only when you enter your credit card information does it check the real system that has the actual fare you have to pay.  So, the price can suddenly go up once you try and actually book the airfare.

For rewards this is particularly unpleasant because after you’ve carefully crafted a travel plan that allows you to use your points for a vacation for 2 to Hawaii, you’ll suddenly be informed that the flight is going to cost you 44,000 points instead of 38,000 points.  Multiply that across 2 tickets and you can see how big of difference there is between 88,000 points and 76,000 points.

Annual FEE and Expenses

$75 annual fee is terrible on virtually all credit cards, but frequent travelers might make it up with this card.

Interest rate is quoted as 13.24% Variable, but many customers with 740+ credit scores reported getting their rate increased without cause to over 16%, so beware about the Citibank credit card interest rate quotes.

Is Citi PremierPass Credit Card Worth It?

The answer for all credit cards with an annual fee is NO.  In this case, there can be some value here but only if you travel a lot.  The extra 1 point per mile flown can add up quickly for frequent travelers.

Difference Between Citi PremierPass and Citi PremierPass Elite

There is a Citi PremierPass basic card (non-Elite).  It has no annual fee, but is a basic, no frills, reward card with a standard 1 point for $1 point earning schedule.  You do get 1 point for every 3 miles you fly on tickets you buy with the card, but that won’t add up to much unless you fly a lot, in which case you are going to be better off with the Elite card.

Find a more robust card if you aren’t going to go for the elite level on this one.

Check out more detailed credit card reviews here on Finance Gourmet.

Related posts:

1. Citibank Rewards Credit Card Offers: Premier Card
2. Latest Citibank ThankYou Rewards Premier Card Offer

Review Citibank Rewards Points Elite Level Premier Pass Card originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

One of the toughest things about comparing all the different rewards credit cards out there is that the credit card companies aren’t very good about showing you what your points can buy until AFTER you sign up. Go ahead, try and find the rewards catalog for a reward credit card without logging into the site.

Most reward programs sound the same. Earn 1 point for every $1 you spend with some specials here and there thrown in to maybe give you more points at grocery stores, gas stations or elsewhere. The catch though is that it doesn’t matter how many points you earn, what matters is what you can get with those points. Remember Chuck e Cheese and Showbiz Pizza? 10,000 tickets gets you an 8″ stuffed animal. What do 10,000 points get you from your credit card?

Less than two years ago I used 40,000 points on my Capital One Miles Reward card to get $400 worth of gift certificates to Baby’s R Us. I pretty much furnished the nursery for free. It was a great deal. I logged in at Christmas time this year (2007) looking to do the same for a pregnant friend. Imagine my shock when I found out that the rate was now 18,000 points for a $100 gift card, not 10,000. That is nowhere near as sweet of a deal. In fact, I’m looking for a new card to replace this one. But, look at the big splashy front page and all the comparison sites out there and all you’ll see is that $1 gives you 1 point.

So, in hopes of helping everyone, I am collecting rewards point catalogs from all credit card companies. I’ll try and get as many as I can, but I just explained how they can be hard to get, so I’m asking for your help. Download your rewards catalog, or scan the one they sent you in the mail and email it to me at thegourmet@financegourmet .com I’ll turn them into pdf files and we’ll get a catalog going here that anyone can use. Don’t worry, if there is any identifiable information on it, I’ll black it out before it gets posted.

Related posts:

1. Credit Card Rewards Catalog Update
2. Credit Card Rewards Programs – Are New Laws Making Them More Stingy?

Credit Card Rewards Catalog originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com