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Have you noticed anything different about your credit card accounts lately? Read the fine print. Really read it. Chances are the interest rates have crept upward, fees have increased or rewards rates have been diluted, even if you pay your bills on time.
Many of these changes in account terms have already taken effect. Still others, such as the return of routine annual fees, may be on the horizon. Changes have come quickly in interest rates, fees, minimum payments, credit limits and rewards, and none of them favors consumers.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/BaSneaky (broken link) changes to your credit cardsnking/CreditCardSmarts/sneaky-changes-to-your-credit-cards.aspx
I noticed that BoA has raised the points you need to redeem and many stores have raised it too and don't offer the lower amount of points any more...As far as i noticed it has been changed twice in the last few months...
My flight reward points....I don't even care about them anymore...they wrote me I had to pay $ 25.- to keep them..., so I just let them go...if you also add that you have to pay $ 35.- or more for the ticket if you use rewards...
Who cares?? I use a CC maybe 3 times a year just to keep it active and pay it off immediately. Never thought these "points" and "rewards" were worth bothering with. And where did these "rewards" come from anyway? Is the CC company giving you free money or something? I don't think so.
BOA now has a "foreign transaction" fee of 3 percent (I think it said).....so don't use that sucker out of the country (or when ordering from a foreign website).
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
10,471 posts, read 15,827,481 times
Reputation: 6438
Quote:
Originally Posted by humboldtrat
Who cares?? I use a CC maybe 3 times a year just to keep it active and pay it off immediately. Never thought these "points" and "rewards" were worth bothering with. And where did these "rewards" come from anyway? Is the CC company giving you free money or something? I don't think so.
Hrmmm
Amazon Visa gives you 3 x the "points" per 1 dollar, if you buy something from Amazon, and I don't really tally up everything I buy there.... which really ain't that much a year....but Chase also give you "Amazon points" for all kinds of other purchases. For every 2500 points you get a 25 dollar Amazon gift certificate. This year, so far 26,878 points.
Money spent in 2008 was $28,000 (not "points" though, since I bought some things at Amazon and got 3 X in points per dollar.) I'd guess 30'ish thousand points.
So this year I got $250 from Amazon...and it's just May. Last year I got $300 free from Amazon. My rate is 12.75% for purchases and 19.5% for cash advances. (lf you think about it, last year was like them paying ME $25 bucks a month to use their card!) I owe..Zero. I pay it off every month. I did look into a few other cards but they didn't take gas or food as "points worthy" and a whole bunch of other stuff, like if you bought furniture or anything at a "discount" store like Walmart or Costco. And hey... Just by doing nothing, I got $550 bucks!
Amazon has enough cool stuff to keep going with this points plan.
Why so much dough? Medical & dental bills. Yeah...YOWZA!
Well as congress chnages the laws that government them the rask to reward changes ;so they change.As to teh rewards I like the cash that discover returns and I could carelesss where it comes from as long as I pay every month fully.
Amazon Visa gives you 3 x the "points" per 1 dollar, if you buy something from Amazon, and I don't really tally up everything I buy there.... which really ain't that much a year....but Chase also give you "Amazon points" for all kinds of other purchases. For every 2500 points you get a 25 dollar Amazon gift certificate. This year, so far 26,878 points.
Money spent in 2008 was $28,000 (not "points" though, since I bought some things at Amazon and got 3 X in points per dollar.) I'd guess 30'ish thousand points.
So this year I got $250 from Amazon...and it's just May. Last year I got $300 free from Amazon. My rate is 12.75% for purchases and 19.5% for cash advances. (lf you think about it, last year was like them paying ME $25 bucks a month to use their card!) I owe..Zero. I pay it off every month. I did look into a few other cards but they didn't take gas or food as "points worthy" and a whole bunch of other stuff, like if you bought furniture or anything at a "discount" store like Walmart or Costco. And hey... Just by doing nothing, I got $550 bucks!
Amazon has enough cool stuff to keep going with this points plan.
Why so much dough? Medical & dental bills. Yeah...YOWZA!
Hey,
What do you know, we agree on something else. I use my CC for EVERYTHING. I'm talking gas, electricity bill, phone bill, cable bill, going out to eat, malls, restaurants,vacations, etc. I always pay it off at the end of the month. I do this because I get tons of points. I get about $1500 back every year. It's free money! Why wouldn't you do it this way? As long as you don't have a problem managing your money, then this is how you should do it!
What I haven't figured out is, how do the banks make money off it? Visa is the one who gets paid on all the swipes, I always thought the bank got paid off people paying the interest (Which I don't do) the points program is provided by the banks, if I'm not mistaken. So maybe they get some kind of kickback from Visa? I don't know... and I don't care. Just keep showing me the money, and I will keep paying with Visa for EVERYTHING!
Have you noticed anything different about your credit card accounts lately? Read the fine print. Really read it. Chances are the interest rates have crept upward, fees have increased or rewards rates have been diluted, even if you pay your bills on time.
Many of these changes in account terms have already taken effect. Still others, such as the return of routine annual fees, may be on the horizon. Changes have come quickly in interest rates, fees, minimum payments, credit limits and rewards, and none of them favors consumers.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/BaSneaky (broken link) changes to your credit cardsnking/CreditCardSmarts/sneaky-changes-to-your-credit-cards.aspx
I noticed that BoA has raised the points you need to redeem and many stores have raised it too and don't offer the lower amount of points any more...As far as i noticed it has been changed twice in the last few months...
My flight reward points....I don't even care about them anymore...they wrote me I had to pay $ 25.- to keep them..., so I just let them go...if you also add that you have to pay $ 35.- or more for the ticket if you use rewards...
I'm not surprised. After all credit card holders are going to help pay back the bail out package one percentage point at a time.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
10,471 posts, read 15,827,481 times
Reputation: 6438
Quote:
Originally Posted by ufcrules1
Hey,
What do you know, we agree on something else. I use my CC for EVERYTHING. I'm talking gas, electricity bill, phone bill, cable bill, going out to eat, malls, restaurants,vacations, etc. I always pay it off at the end of the month. I do this because I get tons of points. I get about $1500 back every year. It's free money! Why wouldn't you do it this way? As long as you don't have a problem managing your money, then this is how you should do it!
What I haven't figured out is, how do the banks make money off it? Visa is the one who gets paid on all the swipes, I always thought the bank got paid off people paying the interest (Which I don't do) the points program is provided by the banks, if I'm not mistaken. So maybe they get some kind of kickback from Visa? I don't know... and I don't care. Just keep showing me the money, and I will keep paying with Visa for EVERYTHING!
Ah, same way the casinos do (or did). People that can't manage their money or are so deep in the hole they just say, "F" it...and keep spending until they go bankrupt or die.
Me and the wife used to go to this casino. Went maybe 3 times in 3 years. A steak dinner was 3 bucks. Steak, potato and salad. I think a drink was .50 cents. While you played, you got free booze. Shrimp cocktails with massive amount of shrimp was .75 cents. I'm thinking, "This is GREAT."
I worked with a guy who went there, too. Some weekends, he'd lose $3000 bucks. Others, he'd make the score. I heard he was ahead....from him.. but who knows. They make their money off the losers. They make their money off the people who can't think for themselves.
This is why bailouts bother me. It doesn't matter if you are smart or stupid, in most cases. Smart people end up bailing out the stupid people. In the casino, me and the wife would take $20 dollars and turn it into quarters or nickels and play until it was gone, or until we ate and drove home. If you ran out of money, we'd go watch the other person play. $40 bucks ( + lunch or dinner) for some fun...bout the same as any other entertainment.
Contrast that to when I was in the Colorado mall, buying my weekly $5 dollar lotto ticket (makes reading the Sunday paper more exciting!) and a lady comes in and puts $100 bucks down and says "Gimme 100 tickets. She looks at him and says, "I just gotta win this time....I just GOTTA!" The note of desperation in her voice was so apparent, so cutting.... It literally made me shiver.
I've never had to win a lottery to make it. And I dang sure wouldn't be spending $100 dollars to try. What happens when that lady's grand scheme fails? We end up being responsible for her failure. And maybe her kids, too.
- avoid airline miles cards. When you really need tickets, you will not get them. Often there is a processing fee to get these tickets. Plus, miles expire and need more money to be kept alive
- is it me or I get the feeling that the time allowed to pay the dues has been shrinking.
- cards that give points are not very transparent. Certain # of points may get you a radio and you figure my 10000 points are worth $10. But, later on, the same radio (often not the one you may want) may be going for 15,000 points. In some cases, the transparency is not there. The points-to-$ ratios may change. You may still be getting the same points, but not the same net dollars.
- I always pay off balances. Generally, I like no-fee cash back cards (Amex Costco, Discover, etc)
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, so I just let them go...if you also add that you have to pay $ 35.- or more for the ticket if you use rewards...
