Credit card air miles tend to be airline carriers charge card, also, they are known as usage cards or even, airmiles credit cards. These cards make cardholder’s things that are also known as repeated flyer kilometers credits. When the particular card is used to get something the particular cardholder earns things. Most often the cardholder can gain one point or even one mile for every buck incurred on the card. Over time, the cardholder could receive the particular pints for free air travel or improvements.
The benefits presented with regard to flight credit cards are chosen any established point level. Consequently, when searching for a great flight credit card you learn how many points tend to be needed to end up being accrued at no cost flights. It’s also advisable to be aware that the actual factors come with an conclusion date thus; your points should improve sales a certain time. A lot of the flight charge card feature an annual fee simply because they tend to be very costly to the particular air carriers that offer all of them. The cards that include any payment will also have a higher interest rate compared to some other air travel credit cards.
Airline credit cards is usually a fantastic value however due to the twelve-monthly costs and better APR’s they’re just best for particular cardholders. If you are one of those people that pay off their particular credit card each month and also utilize the card frequently, after that a good airline credit card would have been a good value for you.
A number of the credit cards air miles are detailed as follows:
• Capitol One Endeavor Credit Card
• Miles simply by Discover Card
• Escape through Uncover Card
• Platinum Delta sky Miles the credit card from American Express
• Delta Reserve Credit Card
• Free Nature Onyx Planet Master Card and more.
Totally free airline journey seems best nevertheless, you may need to look into this carefully and ponder every card carefully to determine what one supports the biggest advantage for you. Should you tend to be not careful then the greater interest as well as the twelve-monthly fees necessary can make that totally free air travel too costly.
Should you be looking for an flight credit card you may get advice and ideas from Cardcreditassist.com at no cost.
Historical Nuggets
1. In the beginning, charge cards were just charge accounts, offered by individual stores and only usable at those stores. The first charge card that could be used at multiple locations was offered by The Diner’s Club in 1950. (full story)
2. Diners Club issued that first card to only two hundred customers and it could only be used at twenty seven restaurants in New York City.
American Express History
3. American Express started off as a shipping company in 1850, shipping products across the United States and capitalizing on the limited reach and slow speed of the United States Postal Service. Their main customers were banks and they shipped various financial instruments like stock certificates and other notes. They began selling money orders and traveler’s checks in 1882 and issued its first charge card in 1958. (full history)
4. In 1984, American Express billed their Platinum Card as extremely exclusive and it had an annual fee of $250 ($484.84 in 2006 dollars). Today, the extremely exclusive card for American Express is their black Centurion card with a $2,500 annual fee! (and requirement to spend $250,000 a year)
MasterCard & Visa History
5. MasterCard and Visa are networks of banks and financial institutions. American Express is its own company and Discover Card is a subsidiary Morgan Stanley (who is spinning off the business).
6. Visa was originally called BankAmericard, a card offered by Bank of America in 1958 in California. By 1970, they had created an association, called the National BankAmericard, Inc., of all the US Banks that issued the BankAmericard. It wasn’t renamed to Visa until 1976. (full history)
7. Visa actually stands Visa International Service Association.
8. The Visa logo colors were chosen because the blue represented the sky and the gold represented color of the hills in California where Bank of America was founded. (from Wikipedia).
9. Originally formed under the name Interbank Card Association and they acquired the MasterCharge brand and logo in 1969. MasterCharge was originally formed by four California banks in 1967, who joined together to form the Western States Bankcard Association to battle the BankAmericard of Bank of America. MasterCharge was renamed MasterCard in 1979.
10. In 1984, MasterCard was the first to use a hologram on its cards to deter fraud.
Discover Card History
11. Discover Card was introduced by Sears in 1985 and gained notoriety because it charged no annual fee.
12. At the time, Sears also owned the brokerage Dean Witter Reynolds Organization and the Discover brand was integrated into that organization. When Dean Witter merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997, Discover went along for the ride.
Useful Things That Make You Go Hmmmm…
13. Wonder why minimum payments are so low? It allows consumer to carry more debt while keeping to the same low minimum payment. You can give someone with the ability to pay $100 per month a credit limit as high as $5,000 if they only had to pay 2% a month. If the minimum payment were 5%, they could only have a credit limit of $2,000. The lower the minimum payment, the deeper in debt someone could be in.
14. It is against the merchant agreements of MC, Visa, and AMEX, for a vendor to require you to provide your phone number, home address, or other personal information for credit card transactions. In fact, some states make it illegal for them to require it. (It’s not illegal to ask, but it is if they refuse to process the transaction without that information)
15. Under the merchant agreements of MC, Visa, Discover Card and AMEX, you do not need to present a driver’s license in order to complete a charge card transaction.
16. Under the merchant agreements of MC, Visa, and Discover Card, vendors may not require a minimum purchase amount. Under AMEX, it’s more of a hint that the vendor shouldn’t put up any barriers to use but AMEX also has a discrimination rule, so if there is no minimum amount for MC/Visa, there cannot be a minimum amount for AMEX. (Consumerist has all the relevant merchant agreements consolidated)
17. Under the merchant agreements of MC, Visa, and Discover Card, vendors may not charge a surcharge for using the card (the anti-discrimination rules still apply for AMEX). In some states, it is actually illegal to charge a surcharge for charge card purchases. This rule does not apply to government agencies.
18. On the flip side, offering a discount for cash payment (over credit card payment) is permitted by all of the card companies (looooophole!).
19. A merchant may, on taking a personal check, require that you offer a charge card number. It is against merchant agreements to charge a charge card in the event of a bounced check (and it’s also very dangerous to have all that juicy information on one little slip of paper, plus this may also be illegal in your state).
20. You can lower your interest rate with a phone call. credit card companies are like cell phone and cable companies, they’re afraid you’ll leave and join with one of their competitors. Use this to your advantage by comparing offers from other credit cards and bringing this information to your credit company.
21. When you use your card, you agree to the cardholder agreement, you don’t have to sign anything. If you get an update to the agreement, you also agree to the updates once you use your card.
22. A fixed interest rate on a credit card can change with only 15 days of notice. Fixed is not fixed in the sense that a mortgage loan is fixed, it’s fixed in the sense that the charge card company can change it with only 15 days notice!
23. If you have multiple balances with different interest rates on one card, payments are generally applied to the balance with the lower interest rate. You will have no choice in the matter and you cannot request it be made to the higher balance. So if you have a $100 balance at 19.99% and a $5,000 balance at 4.99%, your payments apply to the $5,000 at 4.99% first. A note about this will be in your agreement.
24. The charge card sale process works as follows: The vendor sends an authorization request for the value of the sale. The credit card company checks the card limit and reduces the credit limit by that amount (it puts a “hold” or a “block”) and sends the vendor electronic confirmation that the card is good. The vendor sends a deposit transaction or a sale transaction. The credit card company sends the money. This process is usually quick and painless… with the following exceptions:
25. Hotels and rental car agencies usually send an authorization request for the estimated cost of your stay or rental and they keep this “block” on your card for 10 to 15 days (independent of how long you actually stay there) even if you pay with something else.
26. When you use a charge card at a gas pump, the pump authorizes the purchase for something in the neighborhood of $50 first. So if you have less than $50 left on your limit, the pump will reject your purchase attempt.
27. Restaurants typically will authorize a charge card purchase for the amount of the bill plus 25% (for gratuity), so again, if your limit can’t handle the extra 25%, the purchase transaction will be rejected.
Technobabbliciousness
28. Ever notice all your charge cards are of uniform shape and size? Their dimensions are governed by the ISO 7810 standard, an international standard for identification cards. Banking cards, as well as driver’s licenses and retail cards, follow ID-1 (passports follow ID-3). If your card has a smart chip, it follows ISO 7816, and if it has RFID, it follows ISO 14443.
29. The expiration date on the card is “fake.” You can still use the card after its expiration date because the card number on your replacement will be the same. The reason why cards do expire varies from company to company but mostly it’s because the credit cards take a lot of abuse and just need replacing (they estimate the magnetic strip is good for only about three or four years of swiping).
30. Interested to know what’s on the magnetic stripe? Check out this breakdown of the three tracks on Wikipedia (the rest of the page explains other magnetic stripes).
31. There are generally two types of magnetic strips, high-coercivity and low-coercivity, with the high-coercivity being stronger and more durable (also requiring more expensive equipment to handle). (from Wikipedia)
32. Higher-coercivity are usually black and low-coercivity strips are a dark brown, but there are special cases such as American Express’ patented silver colored magnetic strip.
33. Hotel keys and other low-coercivity stripped cards are susceptible to being scrambled by a weak magnetic force, including cell phones.
34. credit card numbers conform to the Luhn algorithm, which is just a simple checksum test on the number. What you do is start from the right and double each second digit (1111 becomes 2121), then add them all together, and you should end with a number evenly divisible by ten. If it doesn’t, it’s not a valid charge card number.
35. The first digit of the number is the Major Industry Identifier. 1/2 are for airlines, 3 is for travel/entertainment, 4/5 for banking and financial, 6 for merchandizing and financial, 7 for petroleum, 8 for telecommunications. 0 and 9 are for other assignments but you’ll likely never see them. If you look at an American Express card, you’ll see it starts with a 3, a throwback to their travel/entertainment roots.
36. The first six digits will correspond to the issuer, including the major industry identifier. 34xxxx/37xxxx are for American Express, 4xxxxx is for Visa, 51-55xxxx is for MasterCard, and 6011xx is for Discover.
37. The rest of the digits (except the last one, which is a checksum digit) is your account number.
Legal Ways You’ve Been Hosed & Un-Hosed
38. Minors, those under the age of 18, are not obligated to pay back any charges to their charge cards (unless a parent co-signs, but then its the parent who is on the hook) because they are not allowed to enter into a binding contract.
39. If there are unauthorized charges on your card, you’re on the hook for $50 each, maximum (unless your agreement says you are responsible for less, you cannot be responsible for more). If you report your card missing and an unauthorized charge appears after you’ve reported it, you are liable for $0.
40. By law, you are only allowed to dispute charges for “unsatisfactory goods or services” if you made the purchase in your home state or within 100 miles of your billing address and the purchase was for more than $50. (and if you’ve made a good faith attempt to resolve it with the vendor) While a charge card company may not hold you to this, they are protected by the law for purchases outside your home state/100 mile radius.
41. credit card companies are prohibited by law from sending you a card that you didn’t ask for, unless it’s a renewal or a substitute card. If you get a credit card you didn’t apply for, contact the Federal Trade Commission and file a complaint.
42. A common clause in most user/member agreements is that the cardholder waives their right to sue the credit card company. The cardholder must instead go through a binding arbitration hearing with the credit card company and cannot take the company to court or participate in a class action suit.
43. Before 1996 and the Supreme Court case Smiley vs. Citibank (517 U.S. 735, Thanks j), there were restrictions on how much a credit card company could charge for a late payment. The ruling in Smiley vs. Citibank lifted that restriction and fees that were once around $5-$10 jumped to $30 or more today.
44. There is no federal law regulating the rate of interest a charge card company can charge! The federal government use to regulate but repealed those laws during the Great Depression and never put them back in place, they now rely on the states to handle usury.
45. In the Supreme Court case Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corp (439 U.S. 299, Thanks j) in 1978, the Court decided that national banks only need to follow the usury laws of the state they are headquartered in, not the state in which their customer resides.
46. charge card companies are all headquartered in states with high or no cap on interest rates. American Express is located in Utah (no cap), Bank of America is in Arizona (36%), Citibank is in South Dakota (no cap), Capital One is in Virginia (no cap), Providian is in New Hampshire (no cap), and JP Morgan Chase, MBNA (now Bank of America), Morgan Stanley/Discover, and HSBC are all located in Delaware (no cap).
Department of Holy Crap They Make A Ton of $$$$$
47. Each American household receives approximately 6 offers a month. The typical response rate is .33% (one third of one percent). You can opt out of these mailings via OptOutPrescreen.
48. Each direct mailing acquisition costs approximately $80, according to R.K. Hammer, bank card advisory firm.
49. charge card companies earned $90.1B in interest in 2006, up from $89.4B the year before (according to R.K. Hammer).
50. credit card companies earned $55.2B in fees in 2006, up from $54.8B the year before (according to R.K. Hammer).
Bonus Fun Fact:
Mastercard’s market capitalization is a whopping $14.24B, American Express’s stands at $71.62B, and Morgan Stanley stands at $86.40B. Visa is not publicly traded (yet). While you can’t compare their market caps because such a large part of Amex and Morgan Stanley’s businesses are not in credit cards, it’s still interesting to look at the numbers. Incidentally, Bank of America has a market cap of $239.17B.
Finally, the most important fact, when searching for credit card always trust Discover cards and Chase credit cards
Are you one of the thousands of consumers that cringes when you open a new credit card bill? Are you disgusted with the interest rates that you are paying on your charge card accounts? Well, there is a way around these interest rates! Many people refer to credit card companies as all mighty corporations that are reluctant to help people. As much as I would love to agree with this, I have to say that it is not a fact. Banks are a lot like a mom and pop store in a way. Without clients, they will go out of business. You can use this fact to obtain lower interest rates on your credit cards. There are a few steps that you should follow during these negotations:
1. Know the facts! - Don’t start contacting credit card companies until you have figured out the facts about the account in question. Get your last bill and find out exactly what the APR is on the account. Also, it is a good thing to figure out what your balance on the account is and how close you are to your line of credit. This will come in handy when negotiating if you are not too close to your credit limit.
2. Call your bank - When calling banks it is crucial that you are polite! Being rude will get you no where especially when you take into account that the banker does not have to do a thing for you. So once again I can not stress it enough, be polite! When you first call, on average you will have to enter some information in an automated system that allows the credit card company to make sure to transfer you to the right department. Go ahead and answer the questions on the automated system. Once you get to the representative, very politely say “I was going through my credit cards and I noticed that this charge card has the highest interest rate. I like the charge card, and I like working with this credit card company but of course I am a little upset about the rate on this account. Is there anything that you can do to make this interest rate a bit more competative?”. After you say this, the representative is most likely going to put you on hold. When they come back they are most likely going to explain to you that there are now lower rates that can be placed on the account at the moment. This is OK don’t get mad don’t start being rude just move on to the next step.
3. Get to the retention department - Just about every bank has a retention department. This is a department specifically designed to do what ever possible to retain the customer including the ability to lower interest rates. To get there just simply ask “ok I understand but I have balance transfer offers coming in the mail and I do not want to go through the hassel of going to another bank can you please transfer me to the retention department?”. The representative will most likely gladly transfer you. Once you get to that department use the same line with them that you used with the customer service representative “I was going through my credit cards and I noticed that this credit card has the highest interest rate. I like the credit card, and I like working with this credit card company but of course I am a little upset about the apr on this account. Is there anything that you can do to make this interest rate a bit more competative?”. Once again you will be put on hold, but this time when the representative comes back, you will most likely get a lower rate.
If you don’t get a lower rate, I know of a company that is by far the best and a very reasonable price called Jem Credit Cards you can contact them:
By phone - (561) 355-0069
By email - Support@JemCreditCards.com
On the web - www.JemCreditCards.com
Just a good piece of information, if you don’t have one already, Discover card is the best credit card as far as rates, rewards, and customer service is conserned. To find the best one for you go to www.JemCreditCards.com
Copyright © 2008 Credit Cards: from Choosing Best Credit Card to Application
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