Potential $100 in Gas Rebates For Citi Credit Protector Trial

Posted on November 11, 2006 // 17 Comments

I’ve written about those $15 checks that credit card issuers send you to try out their overpriced credit “protection” programs, so when I ran across this offer from Citibank for $100 in free gas rebate coupons for enrolling in a free 30-day trial, I was a bit suspicious.

I’ve gotten these before, but they were broken up into $10 rebates, one a month, and only valid if you stayed with the service. On top of that, they take months to fulfill, and if by the time they finally decide to stop stalling and process the rebate you’ve already cancelled, then oops! no money for you. In other words, it was a pain. Would this be similar?

Probably, but maybe not as bad – According to recent reports on Fatwallet, the rebate coupon they mail you is for $100 all at once. One catch is that you must submit gas receipts within 30 days of purchase. So if you can’t spend $100 on gas in 30 days, you may not get the full $100. Others suggested just picking up old receipts off the ground to satisfy the $100 requirement. I also asked if you still need to be enrolled for the rebate to process, and will update if I get an answer.

As will most of these credit protector trials, you are automatically enrolled after the initial period unless you call to cancel. For my own memory, the number to cancel is 1-888-592-7344. The program fee is 85 cents per $100 of your monthly balance. Thus, you should always try to sign up with an idle credit card with no balance. That way, even if you forget, you won’t be charged anything.

Thanks to Reader Paul who reminded me of this and also reports that you can’t use the Citi Professional Card, which a lot of people have from the $100 bonus, have to sign up. I tried too and it didn’t work. I did sign up successfully using another Citi card. I’ll try my best to remember to update here when I get the forms, and also post again in 30 days to remind people to cancel.

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

Best Business Credit Cards With 0% APR Offers

Posted on November 7, 2006 // 24 Comments

I hate it when I just plain forget to post things, which is I’m glad I did that survey 😉 One of the main reasons why I brought up the fact that anyone can apply for business credit cards is that you can take out 0% APR balance transfers (see my detailed posts on how I do this first) and because business accounts and balances don’t show up on your consumer credit report, it won’t dink your personal credit score. The only problem is that business credit card offers tend not to be as juicy as the best consumer card offers. Still, here are some of the better ones. Again, I’m looking for 0% APR for the longest time, applying to both purchases and balance transfers, no annual fees, and lowest balance transfer fees.

Advanta Platinum Rewards BusinessCard MasterCard – No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 15 months on balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $50). This probably the longest one I’ve seen. There is also a cashback program, but don’t use this when you have a balance transfer.

Chase Platinum Business Rebate Card – No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $75). 3% Cash Back on for purchases at restaurants, gas stations, office supply stores, building supply stores, hardware and home improvement stores

Chase Business Cash Rewards Card – Similar to above; No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers, balance transfer fee of 3% (min $5, max $75). Somewhat confusing tiered cashback program up of to 5% back. May be worth it for big spenders.

CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network – No annual fee, 0% APR fixed for 12 months on purchases, see application for balance transfer fee detail. There is also a $100 Gift Card after you make $250 in purchases!

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //

How To Get A Free Month of Amazon Prime

Posted on November 2, 2006 // 20 Comments

Yep, Amazon is giving out a free trial of Amazon Prime for up to 3 months to lots of people, which includes free 2-day shipping on most items with no minimum purchase. Click here to see if you qualify. Hopefully you’ll be greeted with this image:

screenshot 1

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Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Got a Discover Card? Get $20 Gift Card For Each $200 Spent At Select Malls

Posted on November 2, 2006 // 14 Comments

Get a free $20 Discover Gift Card instantly by spending $200 on your Discover Card at select malls from November 1 through December 31, 2006. Just take your receipts totaling $200 to the customer service desk of any of the participating malls to receive your Discover Gift Card. You can get up to 5 gift cards per account. Link via SlickDeals.

All Discover cards should be eligible for the promotion, including some good cards I’ve mentioned before – the Discover Miles Card which offers 0% on purchases and balance transfers for 6 months and Discover More Card, offering 0% APR on balance transfers and purchases for 15 months, along with no balance transfer fees for initial balance transfer. More details here (opening bonus with the Miles card).

Now, I don’t have to tell you bright folks that spending $21 more than you would have otherwise to save $20 is not a smart thing to do, right?

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Emigrant Direct Signup Bonus Update – September Payouts

Posted on November 1, 2006 // 2 Comments

Everyone who sent me their Form #2 in September for my Emigrant Direct Opening Promotion should have been paid. If not, please e-mail me. If you’re interested in opening an account with Emigrant Direct’s 5.05% APY with no minimums, don’t miss your bonus of up to $20?

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Free Trade Magazine Subscriptions

Posted on October 28, 2006 // 5 Comments

TradePub is a site with a big list of free subscriptions to trade magazines in various industries, from finance to IT/engineering to healthcare. It’s all advertiser-supported, so just pick out what you want. Here are a few financial mags that caught my eye:

Financial Planning – “Delivers in-depth features and articles that help advisers build their practices and enhance planning and investment.” This one would be interesting just to see what they talk about behind our backs.
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Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Free 250 Delta Skymiles For One Question Survey

Posted on October 27, 2006 // 12 Comments

Free 250 Delta miles for telling them what you like to do while in-flight. Easy-Peasy. I can’t wait for free WiFi to hit airplanes.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

3 Quick Tips For Dealing With Customer Service Reps

Posted on October 27, 2006 // 7 Comments

Whether trying to get a fee waived, or calling in to check up a signup bonus, here are 3 quick tips for dealing with phone reps:

1) If you can’t get to a human within 30 seconds, try finding a better number at GetHuman.com.

2) If you ask nicely and don’t get what you want, don’t get mad. Just hang up and try again. You may have caught someone trying to reach a quota or simply on a bad day. If it doesn’t happen in three tries, it probably won’t happen.

3) When you do get what you want, try to have it credited immediately. If it is one of those “it should show up in 4-6 weeks” situations, have them type a note in your account. This can save a lot of research time later on, and helps make sure you get what was promised.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Another Free Nano Offer For BofA Credit Card

Posted on October 16, 2006 // 23 Comments

Why oh why did the Cardinals run the last two plays? Arrggh!

Anyhow, if you missed the last one, Bank of America is again offering an iPod Nano and $50 if you apply for their WorldPoints Platinum Plus card. You need to spend or make cash advances/balance transfers totaling at least $2,000 to get the Nano in 8-12 weeks. Thanks to Lina.
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Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Citibank Checking and E-Savings Account $100 Bonus

Posted on October 15, 2006 // 7 Comments

Citibank is offering a $100 bonus for opening both a Regular Checking and a 4.75% APY e-Savings account online with at least $5,000. Note that you will get a hard credit inquiry. This bonus is bit time-intensive (you have to wait for an entire year), but it may be worth it if you have Citibank branches near you as this would also be a nice local checkings/savings combo. You must never have had a Citibank bank account to get this bonus. Here’s the fine print:
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Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Zecco Feature Review and Free Trades Details

Posted on October 8, 2006 // 135 Comments
Update: Please see my new and updated Zecco Broker Review.

Zecco Logo - ReviewZecco.com has revealed more details about its promise of free stock trades, and is causing a lot of talk for us investors looking for cheap trades.

Details
» Stock Trades – Yes, it’s free and yes, it’s limited. You get up to 10 free market or limit online orders per day, up to 40 per month. After that, they cost $3.50 per trade.

» Mutual Fund Trades – $10 per online trade, no-load only.

» Options – $3.50 plus $.60 per online contract with no minimums

» No minimum to open! (was $2,500)

» No inactivity fees.

» Accounts are SIPC-insured, like most brokerages.

» ACAT fee is $50, not sure whether this means in, out, or both

» IRA accounts available. $30 IRA annual fee and no closing fee.

» Free trading applies only to one account type per person/company. For example, if you open one account for yourself, an IRA, and also a joint account, you can only get free trades one the first of the three accounts opened.

As for how they make money, here is an excerpt I found:

We make our money the old-fashioned way. We earn interest off your money. Hopefully we provide enough value to you as a investor that it’s worth your placing your account with us. This business model has worked for fianncial institutions for about 400 years, it will work for us. It works for most other onine brokerages, too. If you take a spin through Etrade latest 10-K filing, you’ll notice that they make 49% of their revenues from interest. We absorb the minimal clearing fees on a trade as the cost of doing business with you. We also make money on higher margin services like options trades and from advertising on the portal. When we don’t spend $5 of every trade on advertising to get the trade in the first place, we can offer this service at a much more attractive price: FREE. – Sabin Zecco.

Accounts and transactions are done through Penson, one of the largest clearing firms in the country.

By interest they are probably talking mainly about margin interest (which is currently at 10.5%), but I haven’t found any details on interest rates on cash. According to the forums you have the default cash option but can also sign up for a money market sweep account. Another concern that some people have is getting ‘bad fills’, basically not getting the best order routing and therefor the best share price, but it’s hard to find any place that objectively measures this.

As for advertising, they sure are going to get a lot of buzz for this! Only time will tell if it’s enough. My only question now is if they do a hard credit pull when applying. If not, I’m signing up!

Added: I signed up, and there was no hard credit pull for opening an account at Zecco.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Investing //

Nanolicious!

Posted on September 30, 2006 // 13 Comments

The nice FedEx lady just dropped off my own brand new 2nd Generation 2GB Silver iPod Nano – free (of course) courtesy of KeyBank. Thanks KeyBank! Unfortunately, it looks like the promotion is now over. Hopefully everyone who participated gets their’s soon too.

It’s stuff like this that help me make an extra few thousand dollars a year from various offers. Won’t you subscribe and join me? Here’s a nice picture of my new Nano:
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //
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