Low interest doesn’t always mean what you’d think. Here are some tips for finding out if your low interest credit card is a good deal. You just got an offer in the mail for a low-interest credit card. That sounds great, right? Interest charges make debt pile up faster, so you’re inclined to jump on this credit offer right away.

Hold your horses, friend. Before you take the credit card company up on its offer, there are some things you need to know about low interest credit cards. They’re not all created equal, and even the phrase “low interest” can mean something very different depending on the company – or the type of charge.

When you get an offer for a credit card – any credit card – you should read the fine print before making a decision. Many companies will try and lure you in with offers of very low interest rates, or even no interest. But these rates don’t last forever. If you check out the card’s terms and conditions, you will almost always find that the really low interest rates are just part of an “introductory” period. These can last as little as three months or as long as fifteen, with six to twelve months being standard.

If you have some important purchases coming up, or if you want to transfer your debt from a high-interest card, then a low- or no-interest credit card could be a good choice for you. Pay off the balance in full before the introductory phase ends to take full advantage of the reduced rates.

Also check out the fine print to see which types of charges the low interest applies to. You might be paying 8% interest on purchases, but cash advances can spike that rate to 20% or higher. Balance transfers and over-the-limit purchases are also subject to higher interest rates. If you incur these types of charges very often, you’re better off with an average interest credit card that charges the same amount for cash advances as for purchases.

While you’re reading through the card’s terms and conditions, check out the policy on universal default. If the company participates in universal default, you should look elsewhere for your next card. Universal default means that any time you’re late on payments, your interest rate can be increased. And that increase isn’t just for late credit card payments. Your late utility bill or late car payment could affect the interest rate on your credit card. It’s best to avoid universal default.

Another factor to consider is the card’s grace period. A grace period is the amount of time you have between making a purchase and having that purchase start to accrue interest. The average length of a grace period is about 22 days, but some cards don’t even offer one anymore. Look for one that does.

Sometimes things sound like a good offer until you get into the details. Always educate yourself about a card’s terms before agreeing to become a card holder. Low interest is a great offer, but first you’ve got to determine if it’s for real.

This article has been provided by Creditor Web. At CreditorWeb.com you can compare over 100 credit cards from multiple banks and apply for credit cards online. Read more…

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This offer is via FW: As a valued Mileage Plus® member, you are invited to apply for a Mileage Plus Visa ®1 and soon see your mileage balance grow. As a new cardmember, after you spend $250, you’ll earn 21,000 bonus miles2 and a $200 gift card to use at any of the 78 worldwide locations of […]

This offer is via FW:

As a valued Mileage Plus® member, you are invited to apply for a Mileage Plus Visa ®1 and soon see your mileage balance grow.

As a new cardmember, after you spend $250, you’ll earn 21,000 bonus miles2 and a $200 gift card to use at any of the 78 worldwide locations of Morton’s The Steakhouse3. Enjoy a spectacular dining experience with exceptional hospitality and service.

You will also enjoy these Mileage Plus Visa benefits:
Earn one mile for every eligible $1 in purchases4
Exclusive cardmember redemption opportunities 5
Earn travel certificates after first purchase 6
No pre-set spending limit 7
Apply by April 30, 2008!

The application is here and a description of the gift card offer can be found here, though neither of those links specifically mentions the number of bonus miles that will be awarded. It should also be noted that this promo does not waive the first year’s annual fee like the standard offer.

This post is from Credit Card Watcher’s Credit Card Deals Blog.

United Mileage Plus Visa: 21,000 Miles + $200 Morton’s GC After $250 in Purchases

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From Credit Card Watcher - www.creditcardwatcher.com

The Fair Credit Billing Act is a US federal act that protects many important credit rights including your rights to dispute billing errors, unauthorized use of your account, and charges for unsatisfactory goods and services.

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From Credit Card Cool - www.creditcardcool.com

[Dave Birch] I’ve been looking at some NFC-related business cases for customers in different countries and noticing — without giving away anything confidential — how different they are: some are focussed on retail, some on transit, some on operators etc. Yet they are all founded on what I think is a reasonable consensus on the narrative to date: that is, customers like NFC (a lot), operators aren’t sure how to cash in and banks aren’t sure whether the operators are on their side or not. One thing they all agree on though is that handset availability shapes the critical path. This is because it seems highly unlikely that consumers will hammer down the doors of mobile phone shops to get NFC handsets to use for boring things like payments. Once they have the handsets I’m sure they will use them for payments, but payments isn’t interesting enough to drive them down to the mall. What consumers will want NFC for is the simple stuff — smart posters, exchanging numbers, that sort of thing — and (in certain urban markets) for transit.

Yet while some commentators (eg, me) bemoan the lack of handsets — largely a reflection of the convoluted standardisation process around the location of the "secure element" in the mobile handset (ie, on the SIM or not) — there are big banks out there who are making big bets…

 

Citigroup Inc. has an NFC mobile phone under development that it plans to brand with the Citi logo according to a lab report filed with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The report clearly shows the Citi logo on the front of the tiny handset. Citi has been rumored to be considering issuing or distributing a branded phone to customers.

[From CardForum | CITIGROUP DEVELOPING A CITI-BRANDED NFC MOBILE PHONE]

Frankly, I’m not sure if I believe this to be the winning strategy, but I’m not an expert on Citi’s markets and I’m sure they are. Personally, I don’t want a Barclays phone: I want my Barclaycard OnePulse to be loaded to whichever phone takes my fancy (I’m currently very happy with my N82, thanks). It seems to me further confirmation that the move to NFC is gathering momentum despite the natural reaction to early hype. Yes, there won’t be as many handsets out there as quickly as people hoped, but still as James van Dyke of Javelin Strategy put it

 

[I] find myself wondering how long it will be before we all start to turn in our personal carrion-enclosed container o’ credit, debit and identification cards for a chip-enabled mobile payment device.

[From Javelin Strategy and Research » When too tired to be coherent, use props]

One critical input to current thinking is the extent to which corporate strategies toward contactless technologies, particularly in the retail sector, are shaped by the longer-term strategies around mobile. As recent survey by First Data appears to confirm the extent to which this is a growing component in decision-making:

 

New company research presented by Wendy Humphrey, First Data’s vice president of enterprise payments, asked merchants to cite the benefits of accepting contactless payments. Fifty-one (51) percent of merchants said faster checkout and increased throughput at the point-of-sale (POS), 46 percent said the ability to support customer preference for the contactless payment option, and 25 percent said being ready for future payment solutions (like NFC).

[From Finextra: Contactless transit uptake paves way for mass-market NFC mobile payments - Smart Card Alliance]

A year ago, mobile wouldn’t have been a consideration in in banks and retailers contactless strategies (well, unless they read this blog of course) and the focus would have been on the speed and convenience. But retailers and banks alike are beginning to see that business models (there we go again) based on new revenues for new services wrapped around payments are much more attractive than business models that use expensive mobile phones to emulate one euro contactless stickers. And there’s no getting away from the numbers. It’s hardly worth reciting the key statistics here, as everyone is bored with hearing about how mobile (not the web) is the key to the future of payments, but here we go anyway…

 

Three times as many people actively use SMS text messaging worldwide than use email. There are nearly four times as many mobile phones - at 3.5 Billion cellphone subscriptions - than there are personal computers. The cellphone is permanently carried (the laptop is not); the cellphone is personal; it is always on; it has a built-in payment system (imagine if all web users also had Paypal accounts); it is available at the point of inspiration, and delivers nearly 10x more accurate audience data than the web.

 

The Americans who think about the digital divide, need to know that the world’s most prevalent digital platform is not the internet, it is cellphones. Even in the USA from last year, more people owned cellphones than had internet access. In many countries the majority of internet access is from cellphones, including some of the world most technically advanced nations, such as Japan and South Korea, to some of the most backward, such as India and Africa.

[From Communities Dominate Brands: American Marketing Professionals Unsure about Digital - findings from Peppercom and PR News]

Retail e-payment strategy is, in the long run, mobile payment strategy which is, in the short run, contactless payment strategy. Discuss…

I’ll be going into this sort of thing in much more detail in the workshop I’m running at SMi’s excellent Contactless Cards & Payments conference in London 23rd-25th June 2008. I had a really good time running a workshop at the same event last year and, judging by the kind e-mails I received, so did at least one or two of the delegates. Because the people at SMI are both gentlepersons and scholars, they have kindly agreed to give a complimentary delegate place (worth an astounding ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE pounds Sterling — plus VAT) to the first person to respond on this thread with the name of the infamous American murderer who has the distinction of being the first person in history to be brought to justice by the miracle of wireless communications.

In the traditional fashion, this competition is open to all except for employees of Consult Hyperion and members of my immediate family. The prize must be claimed within one month. Oh, and no-one can win more than one of the Digital Money Blog prizes per calendar year.

These opinions are my own (I think) and presented solely in my capacity as an interested member of the general public [posted with ecto]

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From Digital Money Blog - digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com

Vindicia, has announced that it has added a fraud screening module to its integrated billing and fraud management offerings, Vindicia CashBox and Vindicia ChargeGuard, that “enables online merchants to adopt sophisticated commerce models to build revenue, and optimize their false positive and customer acquisition rates while continuing to prudently manage occurrences of true fraud.”

Vindicia, has announced that it has added a fraud screening module to its integrated billing and fraud management offerings, Vindicia CashBox and Vindicia ChargeGuard, that “enables online merchants to adopt sophisticated commerce models to build revenue, and optimize their false positive and customer acquisition rates while continuing to prudently manage occurrences of true fraud.”

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Payments News from Glenbrook Partners - www.paymentsnews.com

You probably know that hard inquiries can bring down your credit score. But did you know that businesses can perform hard inquiries without your permission - or even your knowledge? Read on to find out when these inquiries are permissible, and how to deal with them. For many of us, credit reports are mysterious, and sometimes scary, records of our financial history. We know that we should check them often; invalid items show up sometimes which need to be disputed. But did you know that businesses can pull your credit report without your permission? It’s true. And when you consider the fact that pulling your report can potentially lower your credit score, it’s no wonder some card holders are unhappy.

Why does it affect your score when someone checks your credit? It doesn’t always. Sometimes creditors can check your credit report with a “soft” inquiry, which doesn’t count against you. This is the type of credit check that is performed when you check your own credit or get pre-screened by credit card companies. “Hard” inquiries occur when you actively apply for a line of credit, such as a credit card or a loan. These inquiries can decrease your credit score. Creditors don’t like to see a lot of hard inquiries in a short period of time. When too many hard inquiries are present, the suggestion is that you’re applying for more credit than you can handle – a big no-no.

Problems start when businesses use hard inquiries without a person’s knowledge or consent. It’s typical for employers to check your credit in this way, but even rental car agencies will pull your credit report if you reserve a car using a debit card rather than a credit card. Renting a car is not a good reason for a decrease in your credit score. Some customers have been able to dispute these hard inquiries in the same way that they dispute other items on their credit reports. Others aren’t overly concerned. Hard inquiries lose their impact over a relatively short amount of time.

There are other circumstances where your credit report can be subject to hard inquiries without your consent. These include credit transactions and collections; any business transaction that you initiate; underwriting insurance; reviewing any open account to ensure that your credit is still good enough to qualify for said account; and determining your eligibility for government benefits which are dependent upon your financial situation.

If you’re concerned about items that could be having a negative impact on your credit score, order a copy of your credit report. You’re eligible for one free copy per year. Visit a site like AnnualCreditReport.Com to request your report from all three of the major credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

Once you receive your report, dispute any items that you feel are undeserved. You can do this by sending a certified letter to the creditor and the credit bureaus stating your claim that the items are invalid and should be removed. The FTC offers a sample letter template on their web site. The creditor will have thirty days to respond. If they fail to prove that the item is valid, it will be removed from your credit report. You’re entitled to a copy of the corrected report. Also, think about subscribing to a low-cost credit monitoring service to keep an eye on your credit score and the things that affect it.

It’s a sad truth that we don’t always have control over the things that impact our credit score. But by ordering your credit report and disputing any unwarranted negative items, you will have the satisfaction of righting the wrongs and saving your financial future.

This article has been provided by Creditor Web. At CreditorWeb.com you can compare over 100 credit cards from multiple banks and apply for credit cards online. Read more…

Credit Card Articles from CreditorWeb.com - www.creditorweb.com

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From Business Credit Cards Blog - www.businesscreditcards.cc/creditcards/bcc-blog.htm

A number of promo codes are currently available to Amazon.com Visa card holders, valid until May 15, 2008: $20 off $200 on electronics, computers and cell phones: 2IK9E6R8 10% off $50 on music : CDJLXT8U (Limit $20 per customer) $5 off $50 on DVDs: DVD5BFHR Only one offer of each type is allowed per household, and it does not […]

A number of promo codes are currently available to Amazon.com Visa card holders, valid until May 15, 2008:

• $20 off $200 on electronics, computers and cell phones: 2IK9E6R8
• 10% off $50 on music : CDJLXT8U (Limit $20 per customer)
• $5 off $50 on DVDs: DVD5BFHR

Only one offer of each type is allowed per household, and it does not appear to be targeted, meaning that any Amazon.com Visa can be used. (Via FW).

This post is from Credit Card Watcher’s Credit Card Deals Blog.

Amazon.com Visa: $20 off $200 on Electronics, Computers and Cell Phones

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From Credit Card Watcher - www.creditcardwatcher.com

Summary

[Dave Birch] I have the results of another interoperability test for you. Yesterday I used my UK Barclaycard OnePulse in a contactless terminal at a coffee shop in Singapore and not only did it work perfectly, it was very fast and very convenient. More, please! My expectations have been raised to the point where I was really disappointed that Ben & Jerry’s didn’t take contactless and I was forced to resort boring old-fashioned cash. The coffee shop was the textbook case for the cash-replacement low-value contactless transaction: why can’t more of the coffee shops in London have it? Oh, wait…

It looks as if my future coffee-buying habits in London will be at least temporarily changed. No more Costa for me, it’s off to EAT because

Fast food joint EAT has become the first retailer in the UK to introduce a fully integrated contactless payment system at the point-of-sale.

[From Finextra: UK retailer EAT installs integrated contactless payments system]

This is a big step, if you ask me. One of my common whines about contactless in London is that the POS terminals aren’t integrated so that you can’t just automatically wave your card or phone: you have to ask the retailer to use it and they have to rekey, so the arrival of integrated POS systems will make a big difference to the customer experience:

When I waved my card at the reader, nothing happened. The woman serving me asked if I really wanted to use the “terminal”. I said yes. She said: “It will be an extra five pence”. I said that I still wanted to use it — I am nothing if not dedicated to gathering practical experience — and so she rekeyed the amount into a separate POS and indicated for me to wave again. Which I did, and it worked. Nevertheless, something that should have been fast and convenient was in practice slow and inconvenient (and expensive).

[From Digital Money Forum: Slow penetration]

By the way, it sounds as if I’ve been having more luck than some other people who have been trying contactless.

This week, visiting three different grocery chains in New Jersey,I tried unsuccessfully to use my contactless card there. The first time, a cashier looked at me as I asked about using my contactless card. “It never works,” she said. In what way? “It will take the card and then tell you that the card’s been declined. But if you then slide it (magstripe scan), it will instantly go through.” Showing kinship with Iowans, I tried it. Sure enough, it errored in the exact way the cashier had described. I deliberately tried the same effort at two other chains, discovering the same problem, with cashiers and managers telling me that it’s common.

[From StorefrontBacktalk - Contactless Cards Proving To Be More Paymentless Than Contactless]

The introduction of contactless payments will, it’s no surprise, take some time. But shouldn’t the payments industry help the process along by at least making sure that the transactions work?

These opinions are my own (I think) and presented solely in my capacity as an interested member of the general public [posted with ecto]

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From Digital Money Blog - digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com

The GM Credit Card looks fairly ubiquitous but incorporates some nice features - the most prominent of which helps you gain savings on a new Vauxhall or Saab!

Other tasty tit bits include:

• Typical 14.9% APR variable

• 0% per annum on all purchases and balance transfers, fixed for the first five months from account opening, after which it will revert to the variable rate. A 2% balance transfer handling fee applies (minimum £5).

• Rebate Points are earned at the rate of 3% of your spend.

• 1 …

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From Credit Card Cool - www.creditcardcool.com