Growing Money

I recently accepted an offer to receive the American Express Business Gold Card and was told that I can link the points to my existing personal American Express Blue Card. I thought it would be a great idea to have two credit cards linked to one rewards point system.

It turns out that American Express (silently) charges a $10 Linkage Fee for linking the two rewards programs together. I called up the customer service in American Express and asked about the charge.

The customer service department immediately transferred me to the Membership Rewards program. I explained the situation to the representative from the Membership Rewards department, but the lady had an attitude and transferred me to another department.

Finally, I ended up speaking a representative by the name of Michael. I told him that I was not aware of the charge for linking the two membership rewards together and was never informed about it. I asked to have the Linkage Fee reversed.

Michael said that he would have to unlink my membership program for my personal American Express Blue Card to reverse the Linkage Fee. After a few minutes, he was successful in unlinking my personal American Express Blue Card, and left all the reward points in the new Gold card.

I questioned about the reward points staying in the Gold card and he answered that the Gold card has more membership rewards. I think the real reason is that they want to trap me in keeping the Gold card, because it has an annual fee.

I had always been very impressed with American Express and their customer service, but they have let me down this time. I was not happy that American Express is charging a fee to have all the membership reward points together. It is really to their benefit, and both parties would benefit. Moreover, I was not satisfied with their customer service and how they handle this situation.

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CreditCardAssist.com put together a resourceful compilation of links to virtually all the information you want to know about credit cards.

Top 50 Most Useful Sites

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NEW INTERNET BANK WITH 6.00% APY ONLINE SAVINGS ACCOUNT (OSA) LAUNCHED BY
FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF OMAHA

New OSA, with no minimums, enables Internet banking customers to start saving at more than 10x the national traditional savings average. Consumers can sign up for the FNBO Direct OSA online at www.fnbodirect.com/pr.

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Discover Credit Card sent me a letter with an invitation code to 0% APR for life. It says that the 0% APR be will extended for life as long as I make two purchases each month in January 2008. The card has up to 5% cashback bonus that does not expire. I really liked the offer and wanted to apply for the card until…

I looked at the fine prints and saw the Balance Transfer Transaction Fee. It is 3% for each balance with a minimum of $5 and a maximum of $50. That’s a big catch, because this transaction fee will be charged the regular APR interest every month. Also, Discover Card may not give me a high credit limit based on my current Discover Card experience. My current Discover Card is under $5,000. The $50 balance transfer fee and a possible low credit limit have made the offer less attractive. It seems like my net earnings would be low.

I would consider it only if my credit limit is at least $10,000. Then I would put the $10,000 in a high-yield savings account, at around 5% at the present time. The interest earnings would come out to about $500 a year less fees. The other catch is two purchases a month, and I’ve already figured that out. I would set up an automatic recurring charge to the Discover Card for two transactions of 5 cents a month.

I’m not sure if I want to sign up for another credit card. I’ve already signed up for the Citi Professional Card and the American Express Diamond Rewards Preferred and I still have not activated the cards and claim the promotional rewards. If I sign up for another credit card, it may impact my credit score, which I am not too concerned with anyway at the moment. It appears the profits margins will be small, probably around $500, but contains a lot of initial hassle.

I did a search on the Discover Card 0% APR for Life promotion on Google and found Jonathan’s post on it.

0% APR For Life from Discover - What’s the Catch?

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Citibank has recently updated its online screen display. The account overview now uses bright green headlines above the balance amounts. Bright green is the color of my choice and is used widely in my website theme. Citibank has made a great color choice, and the new chosen color makes the account overview screen that much sharper and draws attention directly to the amounts.

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Citibank has come up with an online savings account, Citibank Direct. The name reminds me of HSBC Direct. Citibank Direct pays an APY of 4.65%, plus a $50 sign-up bonus for first time customers.

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I have the Advanta Business Card and use it strictly for business purchases. Once my card reaches a total of more than $50 for cash back, Advanta automatically sends out a check for the cash back balance as of the last closing statement. On April 14th, I received an email from Advanta telling me that they have mailed out a check for $58.52 to me.

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I have a 13 month Washington Mutual CD that’s going to mature at the end of September 2007, but I need funds in my checking account and I want to withdraw early from my CD. I called up the bank about the interest earned to date. I have roughly $1400. Then I asked about the penalty if I withdraw early.The representative told me that the penalty is a $1570 fee. That means I will have a loss in principal if I withdraw early. Clearly, it’s not a smart move to withdraw early, since I’m half-way through the CD terms. I’ll just have to tranfer funds to my checking account from other accounts, and not touch this CD account until it matures.

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Creditcardclients.com sent me a link to review their product, Savings Agent, but I have no credit card debt, so it doesn’t apply to me. If you have credit card debit, this tool may be more helpful for you.

The Savings Agent is an interactive tool designed to help you save money on your credit card debt. It uses your debt profile to find the optimal savings strategy for your specific needs. The Savings Agent uses a database of over 200 credit card offers from major credit card companies. It consolidates information from all these offers and calculates, in two short steps, the top 10 credit cards that will save you the most money.

The Savings Agent is a helpful tool for almost anyone with credit card debt. Past usage shows that 8 of 10 visitors with any credit card debt found that they can save over $1000 using this tool.

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I wrote a check to my Roth IRA account in January and I didn’t have enough money in my checking account. Fortunately, the check did not bounce, but there was a huge negative amount displayed on my online account balance. I immediately transferred enough money over from my savings account. Unfortunately, I was still charged an overdraft fee of $30.

I usually keep good track of my accounts but there are times I’m so busy I lost track of each account. During the fourth quarter of 2006, I got caught up work. I didn’t update my Microsoft Money and forgot about the balances in my accounts. My 0% APR credit card expired and I was charged finance fees for several days. My checking account was running low in funds so I was caught with overdraft fees for a few checks. I was hit by a string of bank fees and finance charges. The fees added up and became a sizeable amount. That’s why it’s important to watch over your accounts.

Bottom line: Monitor the balances on your accounts.

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