March 16, 2009

• Guidelines for Choosing the best CC Rewards, Pt.2
    The ‘Duffers' (light duty users).

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  Duffers: If you're more passive about using credit cards, there's something here for you to. You can just stay with the general credit card guidelines and make a few bucks. The easiest two credit card deals are recommended in this section but, feel free to explore the others, as well.

    1) Pay off: In the case of lesser anticipated gains, it's very important to not be eaten alive by finance charges (or mosquitoes either, for that matter). Make every attempt to pay off your credit card balance every month (and wear mosquito repellent, too).
    2) Inactive Status: A new trend that's blowing into a sirocco is the credit card industry's plan to cancel ten's of millions of credit card accounts, starting with seldom used accounts. Listed as ‘Inactive Accounts' these leave the lender with max liability and min gain. Max liability because they suffer the same risk exposure (in case the card is stolen or maxed out suddenly) as a busy card. Min gain because the card lays dormant for years. Be sure and use ever card you own at least once every six months. Remember, your oldest card can be your most valuable, when it comes to your credit score (history matters a lot).
    3) Call: Assuming you're not very involved and don't wish to spend a lot of time on this quest, you may wish to ‘cut to the chase' from the onset and just call Customer Service first. Get the person's name or ID before any further talk. Then ask about the best credit card offer. Paraphrase (restate in your own words) what you understand. Ask about ‘gotchas' with the general agreement. Sometimes, you have to expressly direct them to give you cash (or credit your existing debt) or they simply do nothing. Some plans are actually devised this way.
    4) Expire: You must be mindful of important expiration dates like losing rewards points and, if you've taken advantage of promos, the dates they expire.
    5) Recommendations: In the case of those who just want to get the program set up and running in autopilot you should just choose the simplest plans. Two plans seem to fit this scheme, depending on your volume of charges:

        o AMEX/Blue Cash: If you charge at least $6,500 per yr. on your credit card, AMEX will award you with back with 5% of the amount you spent on groceries, gas or drug store items. If you qualify, they will also offer you a 12-month promo with no interest on any purchases.

  ‘Duffers' Continued...
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