BillGuard is an online financial services company that monitors your credit cards for fraudulent charges. On the surface, this sounds like something you don’t need. After all, if you see credit fraud on your bill you are going to do something about it. However, in this fast-paced world, it is all too common for people to neglect to verify all of their charges, especially the smaller ones.

BillGuard Scam?

First, I like to see if something is a scam before looking further. After all, if you are throwing your money away, it really doesn’t matter how good of a job they do.

In this case, there are some concerns, but it would be hard to call the service a scam.

No credit card number or PayPal account is required, so there is no way for the company to charge you for some subscription or offer.

Second, the company never asks for your Social Security number either. It does ask for some usernames and passwords, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Finally, the company just raised $10 million from some well-known venture capitalists. That doesn’t mean, in itself, that the company is legitimate. However, there are a lot of easier ways to run an online scam than to convince some big name financiers that you are on the level while running a con.

BillGuard Secure or Not?

The whole premise of BillGuard is that the company will electronically review your credit card charges and flag items that appear fraudulent, or that at least require attention. To do so, it must access your credit card statements online, and that is where it the warm and fuzzy wears off.

BillGuard uses Yodlee to access your banking information. Yodlee is legit. They’ve been around a long time and big banks, with much more at stake than you, trust them inside their systems, so there is nothing to worry about here. Bill Guard uses Yodlee to get “read-only” access to your accounts. Once you get to that point, you are golden.

However, where it gets slippery is that, in my opinion, Yodlee doesn’t implement their platform correctly in these situations. In order to use BillGuard, and the safe Yodlee back end, you have to give your username and password to BillGuard, who then passes it on to Yodlee. Compare this to how PayPal works, where you give your credit card information to PayPal, and then PayPal passes the  information back to the original service, in this case BillGuard. In that system, you only have to trust PayPal, because the merchant never sees your information, but here, you have to trust BillGuard too. They say that they don’t save anything and just pass it along to Yodlee, but you just have to take their word for it.

For whatever it’s worth, this is the same way the popular online money management too, Mint.com works.

BillGuard Review

If you decide that you are comfortable with the way your account information is handled, Bill Guard is an interesting concept.

While it is true that you are very likely to notice an unauthorized charge for $800, it is equally true that you may overlook an unauthorized charge for a small amount. This is especially likely if you have a joint account with a spouse. You may just assume that an $8.35 charge from a merchant you don’t quite recognize is your wife buying lunch. Again, you’d almost certainly ask what the $800 was legit, but $8 is harder to remember. Maybe the $8.35 is actually a new charge for your credit card rewards program that you never wanted.

Additionally, there are those charges that are maybe partially unauthorized. For example, if you did subscribe to a service for $12 per year, but they charge you $15 for some reason, you might not notice that either. Comcast is a terrible offender in this area. You agree to pay $100 for your cable and internet and then 6 months later you are paying $104 because of some increase in a fee here or there. Heaven forbid if your promotional rate expires. Your bill shoots up $50 without any warning. Of course, you agreed to all this, but that doesn’t make it right.

BillGuard works by crowdsourcing monitoring credit accounts for fraudulent and unauthorized activity. For example, let’s say you do notice that $8.35 charge and report it. Then, BillGuard looks at other people’s credit card charges for an $8.35 charge from the same merchant and flags it for review. If enough people flag the charge, then the signal gets stronger.

Unfortunately, it seems that BillGuard doesn’t work so well in the one area that would really help me. I want it flagged when my Comcast bill goes up, or my cell phone bill, or whatever. However, since everyone has different accounts and packages, they wouldn’t be flagging the same things. And, since pretty much everyone gets screwed over by the cable company or phone company at some time, allowing those flags to exist would generate a lot of false positives for people who aren’t currently being tricked.

Ultimately, BillGuard is an interesting service. However, it is unnecessary if you are already vigilant about monitoring and verifying your finances. But, if you have a lot of accounts and let months go by without reviewing everything, BillGuard might be just the little help you need to keep from being scammed.

Related posts:

1. How Safe Are Municipal Bonds
2. Quizzle Scam or Legit?

BillGuard Safe and Legit? originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Getting a credit card with poor credit is no easy task. Credit card debt is easily wiped away in bankruptcy. Furthermore, because most credit cards are unsecured, banks and card issuers have little recourse to collect the unpaid balance other than reporting negative information to the credit bureaus. People with poor credit aren’t as likely to see that as a motivation to pay up.

Be sure to monitor your credit score on an ongoing basis so you know if it is getting better or worse. Residents of the U.S. can use online credit score reporting services like Credit Karma to monitor credit scores free. Check out the CreditKarma review here on Finance Gourmet for more details.

Granite Card Review

The granite Credit Card is available to residents of the UK who are not legally restricted from obtaining credit. The card is issued by Vanquis Bank, which bills itself as a financial institution that can help with credit repair. It is a Visa card which ensures wide acceptance at most retailers that take credit cards.

As you might expect from a credit card for people with low credit scores, the Granite Card is not cheap. The variable interest rate is currently a whopping 34.9 percent.  The good news is that despite the hefty interest rate, there is no annual fee. While technically not a rewards credit card, there is a granite Rewards program that offers discounts from several leading retailers when you use the card to make purchases.

Unlike many credit cards for low credit scores, the granite Card is not a secured credit card. However, the card comes with a low limit that can grow over time with consistent payments and no over-limit issues. The credit card limit is just £150 to start. That amount can increase to up to £500 after your account is reviewed, depending upon just how bad (and how recently bad) your credit is.

The credit limit can potentially be raised every four months, assuming everything is going well. These increases are optional and solely at the discretion of the card issuer, so they are not something that can be relied upon. Over time, the card’s limit may grow to up to £3,000.

Beware, the monstrous interest rate on this credit card can quickly eat up both your credit limit and your ability to pay off the credit card. This card is strictly for those with the ability and the discipline to pay the full balance each month.

Related posts:

1. Target Credit Card – REDcard Rewards Review
2. Southwest Airlines Rewards Credit Card Review

Granite Credit Card Review originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Capital One No Hassle Miles can be earned on numerous Capital One rewards cards. The program follows the basics that all other miles based credit card rewards programs use. For each dollar you spend on the credit card, you earn 1 mile. Miles can be redeemed for free airline tickets, free hotel rooms and other free travel services.

2012 Capital One Rewards Catalog

Just like with the Capital Rewards Catalog 2011, Capital One saves money by not mailing a printed rewards catalog to every cardholder. Some customers report that they get catalogs because they have a high point balance, while others say that they only get the miles redemption catalogs when they have high card usage. Either way, there is no way to order a Capital One Rewards catalog in the mail. You either got one or your didn’t.

Fortunately, like all rewards programs, the merchandise you can redeem miles for is not offered at a bargain price. The reward “prices” are good for months at a time, so unless the card company is willing to hold inventory of merchandise (expensive), it is necessary to charge an amount of points that results in paying full retail or more for an item. You are much better off redeeming your rewards points and miles for free travel.

Capital One Rewards Chart

Fortunately, you don’t even need a complicated Capital One rewards chart to figure out how many miles you need to redeem for a free flight, depending upon whether you have Capital One No Hassle Miles, or Capital One Venture Miles.

For the Capital One Venture Card, and its no-fee cousin, the Capital One Venture One Card, you redeem your miles at a rate of 100 miles per dollar for any travel expense. (Only certain categories of travel expenses are allowed under the Venture One rewards program, but they include airfare, hotel and car rental.)

You don’t have to order your reward or redeem miles in advance. Rather, when your travel expenses show up on your credit card statement, you can redeem your miles against the existing charges. For example, if you spent $650 on a free plan ticket as your credit card reward, you would buy the ticket using the Venture card just like you would if you were not redeeming miles for free trips. When you see the $650 show up on your monthly bill, or online, login to to redeem your miles. Use 65,000 miles to cover the $650 charge and your balance is now $650 lower. Just pay the rest of your credit card bill like normal.

If you have a Capital One No Hassle Miles card, the deal does require a free ticket redemption chart. The chart is unchanged from the 2011 credit card rewards program.

A ticket that costs less than $150.00 takes 15,000 miles to redeem.

$150.01 to $350.00 takes 35,000 miles to redeem.

$350.01 to $600. 00 takes 60,000 miles to redeem.

Tickets over $600.01 are the price times 100 miles to redeem.

Redeem Miles for Cash or Gift Cards

You can also redeem No Hassle Miles for cash or gift cards.

Cash rewards are the same cost as statement credits. The only difference is that you don’t get a check in the mail. Each reward is redeemed at a rate of half the redemption points for travel. In other words, while 10,000 miles should get you $100 worth of travel, it only gets you $50 worth of cash.

Gift card rewards are dependent upon both the retailer and amount. Some retailer’s gift cards cost the same amount as cash. In that case, you are better off buying them, collecting the points for spending the money and then redeeming for a statement credit. Other retailers redeem at the same rate as travel.

Watch out for changing redemption rates based upon the size of the card. Some retailers will charge a higher rate on cards with smaller values. Often, the better rate begins at $100 gift cards, so check this price point first.

Related posts:

1. Capital One Rewards Catalog – No Hassle Miles – Travel Rewards
2. Capital One Rewards Catalog 2011 Is Here

Capital One Rewards Catalog 2012 originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

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

Over at one of my favorite deal news websites, I noticed that Citibank is offering a bunch of bonus points for people who sign up for their ThankYou Premier rewards card as its latest Citi rewards card offer.

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.

Related posts:

1. Citibank Rewards Credit Card Offers: Premier Card
2. Review Citibank Rewards Points Elite Level Premier Pass Card

Latest Citibank ThankYou Rewards Premier Card Offer 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

Update: Information on the new 2012 Capital One Rewards catalog is here.

The 2011 Captial One Rewards catalog is here! I’ve learned that not everyone gets a printed hard copy Capital One Rewards catalog in the mail, but for some reason, I seem to get one each year around Christmas. I guess the folks at Capital One think that people are more likely to redeem miles for Christmas gifts or for free holiday travel, especially since the airlines like to block out all of the good flights and days around Christmas time.

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.

Related posts:

1. Capital One Rewards Catalog 2011 Is Here
2. Capital One Rewards Catalog 2012

Capital One Rewards Program 2011 Guide originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

The Capital One Rewards catalog for 2011 is available. Technically, it is the Holiday 2010 Capital One NoHassle Miles rewards catalog, but they never really seem to update it the next year, so for all practical purposes, it is the rewards catalog for Capital One 2011 miles redemption amounts.

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.

Related posts:

1. Capital One Rewards Catalog 2012
2. Capital One Rewards Catalog Holiday Specials Good Until January 31

Capital One Rewards Catalog 2011 Is Here originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Earlier we discussed how I first found out about Credit Karma and how, as a seasoned financial professional, I was inclined to think that Credit Karma is a scam offer for free credit scores. I decided to do a review after being asked about it repeatedly.

Update: Read here about an opt-in service Credit Karma review credit monitoring as a free additional service.

There are multiple reasons for thinking this service isn’t legitimate, but the main one is that credit scores are not free.

Credit scores are not free for you, they are not free for banks, they are not free for car dealers, they are not free for anyone. Credit scores are the “why didn’t I think of that” invention of the century where personal lending is concerned.

A company called Fair Isaacs takes information from the credit reports at any of the three major credit bureaus and then uses a proprietary algorithm to reduce dozens of pages or more into one single number called a credit score. It does not do this for free. Every time someone pulls your credit score, they pay. They may pay a lot or they may pay a little depending upon their agreement with Fair Issac, but they do pay. You can’t give something that costs you money for free unless you have another way to make more money than you are paying out.

Credit Karma Review of Free Credit Score

Since most free credit score scams are actually free trial offers that lead to an automatic recurring charge on your credit card, I figured that Credit Karma would want a credit card number before giving me my credit score. I know how to beat automatic charges on my credit cards, so I thought I would go through the process anyway and find out for sure whether or not Credit Karma was a scam.

The surprising thing was that they never asked me to enter a credit card number!

As you may recall, I had generated a limited use credit card number to enter, but I didn’t need it. Credit Karma asked for a lot of personal information, but never asked me to enter a credit card number nor any bank account information. In other words, they have no way to charge me for my credit score. It’s tough to scam someone when you don’t get any money from them.

That begs the question, is the credit score from Credit-Karma a real credit score?

Another credit score offering out there are calculators that “estimate” your credit score for you. The catch is that they estimate your credit score based upon the information that you provide. Chances are that there is no way you are going to enter all of the information that exists in your credit report, so it is not a very accurate estimate, no matter how good the credit score calculator program itself is.

That didn’t happen with CreditKarma.com either. Instead of asking me for my financial account information, they asked me for the same type of personal information anyone would need to pull a credit report and get a credit score on me. This does include your social security number and there is no way around that, so at a certain level, you have to trust that the Credit Karma website is legit. So far, I haven’t heard of any rumblings that this is all a very elaborate identity theft scam, although that is no guarantee of anything.

Credit Karma Complaints

The number one CreditKarma complaint is that the credit score is not a real FICO score. However, it is based upon your actual credit report data.

As it turns out, I was buying my car off of its expiring lease when I discovered Credit Karma, so I was able to compare the score CreditKarma.com said I had with the one my auto broker pulled in order to do my car loan paper work. The scores were close enough to be considered identical. (Scores actually very depending upon which credit bureau is used and even from day to day depending upon new information being reporting and aging of old information, but in this case they were within 4 points of each other.)

Now what would make Credit Karma the must have personal finance service for financially savvy people is that it does not just offer you your credit score for free once, but says that you can come back and update it as often as you like. I don’t know if there is a limit on how many times you can update, but I updated my free credit score from Credit Karma every month since May with no complaints.

In other words, I have gotten six free credit scores from CreditKarma.com without paying a cent, without buying anything, and without clicking on any advertisements. There are advertisements on the page, but unless they are the kind that pay just for showing up, they have earned nothing from me other than thanks and this review.

I recently setup an account for my wife (spouses can have very different credit scores even if “everything” is held jointly) and have started getting her free credit score as well.

I can’t say that I expect Credit Karma to be in business long. I doubt that it can earn enough money on what it is doing to make a profit. It might even get shut down by Fair Issac somehow since they don’t want people thinking of its flagship product as “free”.  If Credit Karma does succeed, then it won’t be long before copycats are all over the Internet. But, no matter how it turns out down the road, for now, Credit Karma is a great deal for people managing their money.

Related posts:

1. Credit Karma Review Free Credit Monitoring
2. Is Refurbished or Remanufactured a Good Deal?

Credit Karma Review – Good Deal? originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com