The Sun's Financial Diary

A couple of days ago, I read an article on the Wall Street Journal about a new credit card rewards program Chase has just launched. The new program is called Ultimate Rewards, similar to Citibank’s ThankYou Network program and American Express’s Membership Rewards program. Basically, cardholders earn rewards points when using participating Chase credit cards [...]

I have heard some rumors that Chase no longer gives 3% cash back to Freedom Card holders for shopping at gas stations and grocery stores. I haven’t got the notice from Chase myself yet and my latest statement on May 13 still shows 3% cash back for every $1 of eligible purchases made at gas [...]

The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 yesterday. The House, already passed its own version of the bill last month, also voted 361 to 64 today to wrap up the legislation. Now the bill is sent to the President for his signature to become a law, [...]

Last Friday we received a membership renewal letter from Costco. Together with the notice is a $64.86 reward gift check from Costco. As a Costco Executive Member, we are able to enjoy the 2% cashback for shopping at Costco and the reward check is what we have accumulated last year, which also means that in [...]

A quick summary of credit cards that currently offer incentives: Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express 25,000 Starpoints: Open a Starwood Preferred Guest Card and get up to 25,000 bonus Starpoints that can be redeemed for airline tickets, hotel stays, or room upgrade. $65 annual fee is waived for the first year. Find out [...]

The new credit card regulations that aim to rein in excessive, and sometimes abusive, practices by credit card companies won’t take effect until July 2010. Congress is proposing a new legislation that will further regulate the credit card industry, protect consumers, and, hopefully, speed up the implementation of the new rules passed by federal agencies [...]

Are you still receiving paper statements from your banks, credit card issuers, or phone companies? Since I do transactions, such as checking account activities, paying bills, and transferring funds, I want to eliminate paper statements all together if I can because there’s nothing on the paper that I can’t find online. So there’s just no [...]

Over the past several years, I have acquired a couple of travel rewards credit cards, including AMEX Delta SkyMiles Card, Discover Miles Card, and Citi PremierPass Card. Though I don’t travel a lot, I’d like to have a card that gives better rewards for travel than a everyday card like the Fidelity 529 Card I am [...]