College Students with High Marks Get Up to $760 with BofA Credit Card and Deluxe Credit Protection Plan

I wish I had run across this item a few weeks ago, before some students enrolled at college. But there are still opportunities here for good college students, whether you're just starting or and especially if you're going to graduate this year.

It's may sound a bit complicated to follow, but by using a Bank of America Credit Card and joining their Deluxe Credit Protection Plan, good full-time college students (3.6 GPA or better and 12 or more credit hours/semester) can earn up to $1,000 a year ($500/semester). Since this credit protection plan costs $20 a month, they could net up to $760.00. (Even if you only qualify for one event, you would net $260.00.)

The $500 can also be earned by enrolling a college or by graduating with a degree (even an AA degree apparently). You can earn $500 twice a year for a $1,000 maximum.

If you are in a situation already getting a 3.6 or higher, or you are going to graduate soon, or you will start school soon, but not have any of these events occur before 30 days from now (the lead-time period), then maybe you should consider this. If you think this might be a possibility for you and want to learn more, read on. Thanks to Villa Bryan at Slick Deals for the info.

What's needed:
- A Bank of America credit card
- The credit protection Deluxe plan (20 dollars a month)

30 days after activating the plan, you can get 500 bucks for doing the following:
- Getting a 3.6 GPA for a full-time term (after activating the plan)
- Becoming a full time student at a school
- Graduating and receiving a college degree

You can only get money from those types of benefits twice a year. So if you take two semesters at 3.6 GPA or higher and graduate (three events) you would still only qualify for two.

To find out about how to get the Deluxe plan, you can call 1-888-668-6938 (the BofA website only seems to post information about a Credit Protection Plus plan, which isn't the one which has this benefit).

If you don't have a BofA card yet, call to make sure you can get the Deluxe plan if you sign up for a credit card. If you already have a card, call and find out if you can get the Deluxe plan. It costs $20 a month, so you should gauge whether this will be worth it (i.e. if you're not sure you can maintain a 3.6 GPA and you're not just enrolling at a college soon nor graduating soon).

You have to be a Full-Time student (12 units or more each term). You have to wait 30 days before activating a benefit (although apparently you can register during a semester in which you're pretty sure you will get 3.6 or higher, as long as you register for the plan more than 30 days before that semester ends).

When you activate a life benefit under the Deluxe plan, you get a $500 credit applied to your credit card bill. If you don't have a blance at the time, they put it in a reserve account, and you get to charge $500 dollars worth of stuff to it (such as next semester's books) and not pay.

To activate a life benefit (any of the three academic ones shown above), you call the number they give you, they send you an envelope, you send back an official transcript, enrollment verification, and class schedule. You must follow all of those rules for it to get activated. 1-2 weeks later you get a letter letting you know you if your benefit was activated or not. If not, they tell you why not.

So obviously this isn't for everyone. But if you're consistently getting high grades of well over 3.6 anyway, have a semester that's going to end in a little over 30 days, and think you can do it again the following semester, this is worth a look. It's especially worth a look if you're getting those level grades and planning to graduate, or planning to enroll in a new college soon.

Since this does involve getting a protection plan that costs $20.00 a month, you should research this carefully before applying, to make sure the benefits will outweigh the costs. But if they will, this is some nice bonus money for good school work.

Spend $40 Twice at Walmart Using American Express® and Get Back $20

The numbers seem to show more people shopping at Walmart, so if you plan to do some shopping there and have an American Express® card, you can get a $20 credit back if you make two separate $40+ purchases beginning tomorrow.

Before you make the purchases, you need to register your card for the promotion.

This offer is good for in-store or at Walmart.com. The purchases must be made between November 18 through December 18, 2008, using your registered American Express® Card. You will be charged in full at the point-of-sale and your savings will automatically be credited to your statement within five days after you spend $40 or more two times.

To enroll your American Express® card in this Walmart promotion, click this link.

Have Your Gas Card? It Won't Make Gas Cheap, But at Least It'll Be Cheaper!

Well, we've all been watching the price of gas climb precipitously and we keep being told to brace for more. We can each have our own little strategies to try and minimize their impact, including bunching errands into single trips, not idling the car when we stop into the local shop for just a few minutes, stepping off the gas pedal nearing the crest of a hill so we can coast a bit on the downhill side...

One other step you can take is using a gasoline credit card. I wrote about this before, but in a conversation I had today I realized many people still don't realize the potential savings.

There are two kinds of card that give back on gas purchases -- first is the gasoline credit card, which is issued by that company and gives rebates for purchases at their stations. Those can be very handy if you have particular stations near your home/business where you would frequently stop for a fill-up. The other kind of card is a standard credit card with a rewards program that offers some larger savings for gas purchases.

I have two gasoline branded credit cards, Hess and Sunoco, which give percentage rebates when I purchase my gas at their stations. I have a bunch of Sunoco and Hess stations where I travel, so those two cards are usually all I need. And the savings aren't bad. The Hess card which gives me back 5% on all gas purchases at Hess stations (they even had an introductory period of a few months when the rebate was 10%). The 5% was nice enough a couple of years back when gas was around $2.00 a barrel and I was saving 10¢ a gallon -- at today's prices around $4.00 a gallon, I get back 20¢. Now that's not enough to make gas a bargain, but saving about $2.50 every fill-up takes at least a slight edge off.

The Sunoco card gives back 4%, which is also a pretty nice rebate back when I buy gas there(their intro offer was a $20 rebate).

The way these work is a rebate credited onto your credit card statement, which then gets applied against the following month's balance. So if you keep buying gas there, the rebates from prior purchase get applied against the new purchases you make.

My reason for Sunoco and Hess is that the stations are convenient at my location. Other companies also have similar branded cards, each with their own percentages and offers. To get the best savings would probably depend on the stations most convenient near you. After all, an extra percent savings wouldn't be worth it if you had to drive an extra 20 miles to get to a different company's pumps... you'd spend more in gas than the savings would be worth.

The number of cards you apply for is also a matter of personal preference, as far as how many different cards you want to carry while you drive. And it's important to pay off the balances of these cards every month so you don't pay any interest charges that would offset the savings. But certainly having a card that gets you back 4% or 5% of your gas purchases make it worth considering as an option.

Another way of saving which doesn't limit you to a particular brand of gas is a general credit card which offers a heightened rewards level for gasoline purchases. A general card with rewards gives you added flexibility of choice of gas station. The providers of these kinds of cards can vary, and their rewards programs would have different features. Usually the rewards are annual rather than rebates applied against the next month's bill as is done with the branded gasoline card.

Some providers offer special high rewards for gas/supermarket purchases for a short while but then scale them back to 1% later. But there are cards offered by both Discover and American Express Business which give you rewards of 5% of your gasoline purchases. To read more, check out this link at credit card forum.

So if you get one of these cards to use at gas stations and pay your bill in full every month (to avoid finance charges), you can get an effective 4%-5% reduction in how much gasoline hits your budget. And that's not an amount to sneeze at.

Use Your Rewards Points Wisely

Chances are that you have a credit card that offers some types of rewards points. Many banks and companies have created those as incentives for you to keep using their card, obviously. But how do you make the best deal out of it? First by picking the rewards that fit you the best, but then also looking at the relative value of the rewards they offer.

I have one card that offers points that can be used toward a variety of things. Some are gift certificates to stores, others are merchandise or travel, and at some levels they offered credit toward your account balance. That ended up being a nice little deal. Not just because it was a credit direct back to me, but also that it had a higher value per point. Let me explain.

If you look at the rewards this card offered (and you can looked at your own cards programs) you can calculate what the value of a point generally equals. For example, if it takes 6,000 points to get a $25 gift certificate then a point equals less than half a penny (about $.004). If 10,000 points gets you a $50 certificate then a point is worth half a penny at that level. A 25,000 point level that gets you a $250 certificate means you're now at the penny-a-point level. I had looked over my plan and thought a penny was the best that I could do. But then I saw a note that for 50,000 points they would give me a statement credit of $1,000. That meant that my points would now be worth two cents apiece! So the value was significantly higher than if I cashed them in at the lower levels.

So rather than redeeming the points at the 10,000 or 25,000 levels, I let them build -- knowing that not only were the new points going to be valued more, but I was also increasing the value of my existing points once the total reached the next level.

To me a statement credit was the best kind of reward, because it specifically reduced the amount I would have to pay toward bills on the account -- which meant less cash coming out of my bank account. And getting it to the highest reward value per point just made sense too.

So do a couple of quick calculations as to the relative value of your points as you accumulate them and certainly before you redeem them.

My other ideas about points: redeeming them for merchandise will often achieve a lower value per point than if you took a gift certificate to a store that might carry that type of merchandise. There are two reasons I say this:

First, redeeming it for points will generally be based on the suggested retail price, so a stereo valued at $300 might require 30,000 points (making it look like you are getting a penny a point). But what if you have a chance to get a gift certificate to an electronics store that often has great sales on stereos, say a $250 certificate for 25,000 points. You might be able to find that same stereo on sale for $250 or maybe even less, and get the same stereo while cashing in fewer points. So the net value of the points could be higher with a gift certificate than redeemed merchandise from the rewards program directly.

The other reason is that as models change, the one that's offered by the rewards program might not even be the latest model anymore. By using a gift certificate redemption, you can choose the make/model that is exactly what you want. And if you want the older model the program offered, the stores have probably dropped the prices even more when newer models came in.

Gift certificates at stores allow you to take advantage of store sales, so you can use them when sales are best, and probably up your point value higher than originally appeared if you buy things on sale.

The same thing with travel rewards. Maybe they offer you certain values on services through their travel agents for credits on flights. And the value-per-point might look good. But as I've discussed on this blog, there are lots of ways to find travel bargains. So let's say they offer a $250 travel credit for 25,000 points -- using their travel service. You might be able to find similar flights for much less than their offer -- and in this case taking a statement credit and booking the trip yourself might yield the same trip for less money you actually spend.

I hope these tips make sense. It might seem complicated, but the explanation is probably more long-winded than looking at your points program and analyzing where your points get the most bang for the buck.

Getting Your Credit Report for Free

Checking your credit report every so often is a wise step to gauge your financial situation as well as to make sure the credit bureaus have correct information. Like many of you probably have, I've seen commercials for places that offer free credit reports, or gotten flyers as credit card inserts about getting my reports free. For the most part they all seem to give you the free reports if you join some sort of service. Usually there's a free trial period and then a monthly or annual fee. Other companies get you your credit reports as a regular service they sell, generally packaged with tools to give you advice on improving credit scores -- I have to confess that I signed up for one of these paid services after watching a financial management presentation... oops!

Turns out that the three credit bureaus were mandated by the Federal Government to allow consumers to get a copy of each of their reports at no cost once a year. I guess businesses were smart to grab all the website names with "free" and "credit report" in their titles first, so the obvious names freecreditreports etc. actually take you to services you will pay for.

The website for the Federally-required credit reports at no cost to you is http://www.annualcreditreport.com/. You are entitled to get an annual copy of each report: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. My suggestion is to stagger them throughout the year, so you have a wider view of your credit scores and any changes or issues.

Once you get the reports, you can check on them for any incorrect information which you have the right to correct, or any red flags that may show an area that is causing your score to be less than ideal. Since your score will impact things like credit card interest rates, types of offers you receive, mortgage and car loan interest, and sometimes even your insurance rates, it's wise to keep those scores up there.

It's nice to know, though, you don't have to pay to simply get the information.

Credit Card Tip to Save 2%-3% on International Travel

I wanted to let you know about a credit card that ends up saving you money when you use it in foreign countries.

I travel occasionally to other countries, so exchange rates to foreign currencies matter to me. It always irked me when credit card companies would add a fee to transactions made in anything other than a US dollar. What irked me was that the umbrella company (Visa, MasterCard) was already adding a fee for the transaction (I believe it's 1%) and they were doing the conversion and then passing the transaction in dollars to the bank/credit card company. To have the credit card company add another fee when the currency exchange had already been processed by Visa or MasterCard was adding insult to injury. It seemed to be a fee for doing nothing.

And it wasn't a cheap fee. Many banks were adding 2%-3% to each transaction (again, this on top of the initial conversion fee by Visa/MC).

And over the last few years it seemed as if more and more credit card issuers were going to this additional fee. But I have found that Capital One credit cards still do not charge any fee/exchange premium on top of what's put there by MasterCard. The base fee by MasterCard is added into the transaction but nothing more. So using this card instead of others means that I automatically spend about 3% less than I would have if I used a different card.

The Capital One cards I've seen carry no fees, so having one available for international travel would cost nothing, and could add up to big savings -- imagine paying 2%-3% less on every hotel transaction, meal and souvenir purchase you made while on that exotic trip to Paris, Rome, Venice...

And they have some credit card types that have reward features, so it's not like you have to sacrifice reward-point-earning to save this way.

So if you have occasion to take a trip to that exotic destination (or some not-exotic but foreign destination) it's probably worth applying for one of the Capital One cards a couple of months before your travels.

Save Thousands - yes, THOUSANDS - with Balance Transfers

If you're like me, you get a bunch of credit card deals in the mail. A lot of people consider them junk mail and toss them. I try to at least glance at them because every so often comes something worth jumping on. I did recently and will save a couple of thousand dollars on my home equity line-of-credit interest this year!

I had been getting envelopes from Washington Mutual that had been offering a 0% on purchases for a year if you transferred a balance -- but the balance transfer rate was 9.9%. So that wasn't going to be a great deal. I have credit cards I use for purchases which I pay off each month so I'm not paying interest on those purchases. So those Washington Mutual offers weren't giving me any big advantage. But then one day I spotted an envelope with a different offer... 0% on balance transfers for a year, and allowing a credit line up to $30,000.

The only cost was a balance transfer fee of 3% with a maximum fee of $75. I did a quick calculation in my head, and since I'm at 6.99% on my equity line, I knew it was just about $2100 interest I could avoid paying by transferring. And since it's a equity line-of-credit, at the end of the year I'd have the flexibility to transfer it back. That way I wouldn't be stuck paying some higher interest rate on the credit card down the line.

So I made the call, verified that the balance transfer could be to an equity line and not just to another credit card account (they said it could) so I applied. I didn't want to push the envelope too much but I wanted to make sure I got as much of a credit line as possible, so I told them I would be transferring $25,000. They told me that if approved, I would get a chance to review the transfer one more time before it was processed -- an added chance to think things through. I was happy when I found they gave me the maximum line available. That meant I could up the balance transfer to just under $30,000 (they needed $100 left untapped and there was the $75 fee). I called, they took the revised information and the balance transfer went through without a hitch.

So over the next year, that'll help keep my home equity interest at $2100 less than it would've been.

My advice is to keep giving at least a look at the stuff that looks like junk mail -- it might contain gold!

High Gas Prices -- Trying to Get at least a Little Break...

High gas prices are tough. There's no way around them but I take at least a little bit of the edge off with their branded credit cards. I have a couple of them, one with Hess and one with Sunoco. They each offer rebates back on purchases at their company gas stations -- my Sunoco card has a 4% rebate, and the Hess card is 5% back. With gas currently at about $3.00/gallon, that would save 12 cents a gallon at Sunoco or 15 cents at Hess. So the prices are still high but at least there's a bit of a break. And while I'm filling up, psychologically I can focus a bit on some savings.

They also offered special introductory deals when I applied, with Sunoco offering a $20 rebate credit, and Hess offering to double the rebate to 10% for the first 90 days (so while I'm at Hess right now, I can look at the 30 cents a gallon I save -- a fill-up of $40.00 doesn't feel quite as bad if I know it will be a net of $36.00).

Other companies also offer the cards but I don't get them all because I wouldn't just want to stuff my wallet with too many different ones. I use these two because they are the stations closest to the areas I frequently pass by in my regular driving. You may want to check with your own most-frequented gas stations and see which offer the best deals.

Every little bit helps.