Tag Archives: credit card

Making Your Credit Cards Work For You Instead Of Against You

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Chase Freedom Credit Card

Chase Freedom Credit Card

Making Your Credit Cards Work For YOU!

Okay, let me start by saying that I’m the master of my credit cards and they work for me not against me!

I use my credit cards for everything that I possible can!  I use them for the typical stuff (clothes, groceries, gas, etc), and even non-typical things such as fast food, taxes, car insurance and really anything that I can charge with them!  I’ve even tried to buy a new car with my rewards credit card (the dealer wouldn’t bite on that one though)!

So why do I charge so much with credit cards?  CREDIT CARD REWARD POINTS

Yes, I love credit card reward points that I get for using credit cards!  I’ve use my points to buy computers, camcorders, jewelry, clothes and other such items.  But my favorite thing to buy with reward points (other than getting cash back) is gift cards.

I’ve found that if you buy $100 denominations of gift cards, you get a better point to value ratio!  So I almost always go for these types of rewards today.

The trick with reward credit cards is that you must pay your balance in full each and every month.  If you don’t do this, it greatly diminishes the benefits of the reward points provided by such credit cards because the interest on carrying a balance on such cards is usually much higher than the bargain non-reward credit cards.  So please don’t use reward cards if historically you have carried a balance!

Present Day Purchases

My last three purchase (from oldest to newest) has been Nintendo DS, Sony Camcorder and a ASUS Computer (it was only $700!).

Although I’ve bought TVs in the past, I’m going to buy a LED or LCD Big Screen TVs and then take a different direction with future purchases using reward points from my reward credit cards.

 

Future Plan Purchases

I’ve come up with what I think is a clever solution to take some of the bite out of minor, future emergencies, at least to some degree.

My house is over 10 years old now, and this means that my some of my appliances are starting to get pretty old too.  So lately, I’ve thinking about letting my balance ride until my dishwasher, clothes washer or dryer, or any appliance start to fail, at that point I’ll redeem my points and buy a new appliance with the reward points.  The only caveat is that I’ll have to cash out some of the point every 5 years or so.  Some of the credit card companies have the points start to expire around this time period.  You really should check your policy to determine when the points start to expire.  Another option would be to call credit card company’s customer service 1-800 number and ask them if and when the points start to expire.

As an alternative, I’m also thinking about getting reward cards such as Chase Freedom that will give you cash back instead.  That way I can create a special emergency fund this way.  Actually I’m kind of fond of the idea of a free emergency fund (lol).

The key is to have total control of your spending!  I only spend on what I normally would spend money on, nothing more and nothing less.

Do your credit cards work for you, or you for them?

MR

 

 

 

My Best Credit Card: Citi Diamond Preferred

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Please see this new page about my best credit cards, the Citi Diamond Preferred card I reference below no longer exists with the beneficial properties that I wrote about. It was great until they retired it, then years later brought it back in an inferior form. I do not own the Citi Diamond Preferred card and I won’t because it’s not a good match for me anymore.

It use to be a great card for a lot of reason that are now struckout below, but sadly now is subpar compared to the ones in the link: best credit cards …

Citi Diamond Preferred

Citi Diamond Preferred

My best credit card is the Citi Diamond Preferred credit card offer by Citi.

As you can tell by the picture above of the card, it’s not all black.  But here is something you don’t know…  Some of the  non-black colors wear off the card shortly after you get it!  It wasn’t intentional on my part, it literally was just rubbed off from use.

So while it wasn’t planned, the card looks like a Black Card.  I always get a chuckle when a retailer or restaurant thinks that it might be something more than it is.  While this is a good card and on the higher end, it does have spending limits, unlike the American Express and Visa Black Cards.  More than once, I had to explain that it’s not like one of those very high-end cards!  I do get plenty of compliments on how cool it looks.

So, other than the fact that the card becomes mostly black shortly after using it a few times (including the text that identifies the type of card), why else do I value this card?

Let me say this upfront, I didn’t really give a rat’s arse about the color of the card!  I’m got in it for the excellent rewards program that they offered (one of the best).

List of cool benefits of the Citi Diamond Preferred Card:

5 ThankYou® Points for every $1 spent on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations for 12 months; 1 point thereafter

1 point for every dollar spent on all other purchases.2 No matter what you are spending on, you’re earning ThankYou® Points

Rewards start at just 1,000 points2 . You’ll be rewarding yourself in no time

Annual Fee: No Annual Fee (for the most part)
Purchase APR: 0% Intro APR on purchases for 12 months; after that the variable APR will be 12.99%-20.99%, based on your creditworthiness

Diamond Perks: Access to Private Pass, which gives you the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of exciting events and unique experiences

So has the card benefited me?  Yes, I’ve already earned and spent over $1000 dollars via the rewards program!  It’s still one of the best cards out there in my opinion!  I’ve never used the Diamond Perks, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value!

What is your best Credit Card?

Don

My Bad Experience With Credit Card Customer Service

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As readers of my site know, I’m proud that I’m totally debt free (including home and car debt)!

So when a Big American Corporation bank charged me a late fee on a credit card bill that I never received, I thought it wouldn’t be too big of a deal to have the fee waived.  After all, the amount the fee was based on was barely over $100…  Surely they would realize that I was a valuable customer and not worth upsetting over a piddly $110 balance…

So I called the customer support number!  I knew things were going to go bad when the customer service representative that answered had a cocky kind of way of answering.  Even before I said a word, this guy was going to be a jerk.

But I gave this guy the benefit of the doubt, and explained my problem.  He said that I recently had the credit card fee waived within the last 12 months and there was nothing he could do about it. 

I was still relatively calm at this point, and thought after I explained my circumstances that he would let common sense prevail…  Boy was I wrong!

Here is the information that I provided for to him:

  • Since before 2003 and to recently, when Citibank had my card, the bill was always received by us and corresponding then paid on time by us.  He could have confirmed this but didn’t.
  • My wife is an accountant, and handles the bills in our family so naturally, you’d assume she knew what she was doing.
  • I explained that we’re totally debt free, no mortgage, or car loans outstanding.
  • My credit card score is (at least the last time I checked) over 800 points.  I’m trying to convey that I’m reputable (which I am).

So when the credit card representative told me that he checked the computer and could see that the bill was sent on time, I couldn’t believe my ears.  I told him that possible the mailing from them was mishandled or didn’t print out to the printer (heck this happens, even the company I work for occasionally has printer issues).

To my total bewildering amazement, he tells me that he could put me on a payment plan for the ($110 dollars) amount that I owe.

Totally shocked at how stupid this representative must be, I instantly ask for a supervisor.  After 10 minutes, a supervisor get on the phone, and I can hear the combative tone in his voice too.  The previous representative must have talked to him swaying the supervisor’s opinion in some way.

Ready to push me around, this representative goes on to treat me horribly (and that’s being nice).  I go into my spiel again about the reasons why this was ludicrous, but he has cowboy syndrome, even cuts me off a few times while I try talk.

I try to reason with him again, but he’s just as rude as ever.  At this point I ask for his name, tell him that he is being incredible rude and doing a horrible job, but in a respectful way.  What changed this cocky supervisor tone was when I asked for his name telling him that I’m writing a letter complaining about my experience (which I WILL still do!). 

At this point, he realized that I’m the customer and not somebody trying to skip out on a payment.  He then tells me in a more acceptable manner that this is just policy, and then the pleasant lying begins. 

I tell him to tell me everything I need to write a complaint letter about my experience, including the name of the initial representative.  Which he lies to me and tells the system doesn’t provide that information.  I call him on this and state that I know that system has a transaction logs and that he does know that name of the previous rep, but that it’s against company policy. 

He states that’s true, and I tell him that he could have told me that and I would have been fine.  He tries to save face by removing the $1.50 interest charge that I shouldn’t have had, but he doesn’t take off the late fee per say…  I get all the information at I need from him, and then tell him I want to pay the bill online, now, with him.  He does so, quietly…  My one mistake was that I forgot to get the exact balance that I paid.

 So 10 minutes later (after I started writing my complaint letter), I realize I need that balance number (additional interest had incurred since we got the next month’s invoice.  So I call customer support for a second time.

This time I get a pleasant-sounding representative that wasn’t in a cocky mood.  I ask for the balance, and then ask him what was his full name.  He said that against company policy to tell his last name (I was testing them).  I then explain to him why I wanted his name and that he was going a fine job.

You know what?  This new representative tells me it sounds like I had a bad experience (which I agree that I did), and he said he’s going to get that fee removed.  He put me on hold for a minute and a half, then connect back to me again, explaining that he got permission from his manager to remove the late fee!

So the moral of the story is, if you get ahold of a representative of a credit card company, and the guy sounds like a jerk, do the following:

  1. Ask for his supervisor!  Although it didn’t work for me this particular time, often time they are smart enough to realize they don’t want to lose a good customer.
  2. If the supervisor sounds like a jerk, end the call gracefully, then call back!  Hopefully you’ll get a different representative and that person will be more reasonable.
  3. If you get a 2nd bad representative, try again the next day…
  4. If all of those fail, then go the suggested route of the original cocky supervisor(make them tell you over the phone, then google it to make sure it’s correct)!  Then mail the complaint to the customer complaint mail address.

So do I hate the Big American Corporation bank that I encountered problems with?

No, some people are decent intelligent human being, while other are jerks (and that’s being polite) that are bitter people who lack common sense.

Will I use the Big American Company bank credit card again?

No!  Not because I”m bitter with the company per se.  Why I won’t use them again is because their customer service failed to provide a valid reason why my credit card bills only sporadically made it to my house address.  Ever worse, they made no effort to look into if there are problems with customer receiving their credit card bills.

The other 2 credit cards that we use have always come to us via the postal system with no problems, so this leads me to conclude that it’s something on their BAC’s end.

What do you think of my little ordeal?

-MR

Update:

Readers, it would be greatly appreciated if you were to take the time to write such letters to the company about incompetence you may experience by bad customer service representatives!  Believe it or not, you are doing both the company and the credit card holding population in general a service by doing so.

*Note, I didn’t use the bank name, but if you know bank stocks, I’m sure you can figure it out.

How Credit Cards Helped Me To Become Debt Free

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Do I sound like Bizarro?

Hi I’m Reasons Money, oh wait… that’s Bizarro!    

I know, my title doesn’t make sense on the surface, but hear me out!    

It’s true, my credit cards helped me get out of debt quicker than if I hadn’t used them!    

First, let me set the background.  For the last 12 years, I’ve only owned reward credit cards (Sony,Upromise,  GM, Citi, Schwab, etc).    

Secondly, I almost never (hard to believe huh) carried credit card debt longer than a month.  I like to pay my balance in full each month!  The only time that I didn’t pay my credit card balance in full was when I bought a computer with a best buy card that had a 0% interest deal (and even with this card I paid it off early).    

I only own reward credit cards, and usually ones with pretty decent paybacks percentages!    

So how did (and does) that help me pay off my debt any quicker, you might ask? 

Well, first I get a discount on my purchases, typically anywhere from 2 to 5%!  If you pay with cash, you will incur that additional cost!  This is better than I did in the stock market last year! (Laughing, but really crying inside…).  This alone make the reward cards a great deal!    

You might not think this make a big difference but it does!  Instead of saving that money, we used it to help augment our Christmas presents!  We have also used it to rewards ourselves for being so frugally minded.  Yes, purchasing goods with credit cards is frugal (there, I said it!)    

The amounts saved via reward credit cards is like a forced savings plan.

Now, I’m not really Bizarro, and I know that in many ways having Credit Cards for some is like giving a beer to a recovering alcoholic.  But if you have the displine or if you create a budget to control your debt, Reward Credit Cards could be used for good instead of evil (another corny superhero cartoon reference).    

Credit card are a lot like guns!  Guns don’t kill people, people kill people, same with credit cards!  Creadit cards on’t get you in debt!  People get themselved in debt!   

I know what I typed runs against the grains of popular opinions out there!      

What do you tkink?    

-D 

One Caveat:  If you are married, your spouse must be frugal and on-board with paying the credit card in full each month for this to work!!!  My wife is and it has worked great!