Interbank Mobile Payment Service now available with SBH

23 Jan 2012 | by Mildred Matthews | No Comments »

Interbank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS) is now available with State Bank of Hyderabad, a leading public sector lender. The facility allows customers to make banking transactions through mobile phones.

IMPS facility is regulated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). With the inclusion of State Bank of Hyderabad, now a total of 34 banks offer IMPS facility to their customers.

 

Citi’s ThankYou rewards sharing Facebook app an exercise in frustration

17 Jan 2012 | by Mildred Matthews | No Comments »

With dreams of cruise ships and camping trips in my head, I have tried — mightily — to sign up for and start the new Citi ThankYou rewards Point Sharing app on Facebook.

The new social media program announced Jan. 3, 2012, allows Citi rewards card owners to share their rewards points with their Facebook buddies. Members are supposed to set up so-called “pools” that indicate which reward they are trying to obtain and the number of points needed to redeem it.  The app allows you to get points from friends or send some of your unused rewards points to them to meet their rewards goals.

But due to bugs in the app, privacy concerns and — imagine! — hordes of my Facebook friends aren’t flocking to fling all their Citi rewards in my direction, my net gain has been … Full Post…

Don’t Apply For Airline Credit Cards At the Airport

08 Jan 2012 | by Mildred Matthews | No Comments »

Walking through most airports, travelers will often find representatives of banks handing out applications for airline credit cards. It is difficult to blame them for this practice, as they are simply choosing the location with the highest concentration of airline passengers. In fact, some airlines have even recruited their in-flight staff to encourage passengers to apply for their affiliated credit cards. At the same time, travelers should consider whether or not submitting these applications in-person makes the most sense.

As passengers walk through the airport, they may hear someone ask them if they would like to earn bonus miles or some other type of reward in exchange for their credit card application. While the offer may seem like a worthwhile one, there really are few ways to determine if it is, in fact, the best one available.

Full Post…

New Credit Card Deals: Points Bonuses

01 Jan 2012 | by Mildred Matthews | No Comments »

Rewards cards have become an incredibly popular option, with more and more people trying to get a bargain on their shopping and spending habits.

These cards offer everything from cash back to gift cards and frequent flyer points but making a decision about what rewards card to get often leads to people looking at the signup offers.

Point bonuses are a kind of new credit card deal that gives people the chance to get ahead with rewards by offering thousands of extra points for new cardholders.

Most of these offers will only be available for a few months out of the year before providers change things around to promote a new card, but there are always a handful of cards that feature the benefit of additional points on signup.

In some cases the point amounts will even allow people to redeem rewards straight away.

The Westpac Earth Platinum card, for example, offers a bonus 33,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points to people who sign up before November 30, 2011 and that is enough for a flight from Sydney to Phuket, Hong Kong, Bali or Suva in Fiji as well as many domestic destinations.

A good example of more general reward card options, on the other hand, is Citibank’s Rewards Platinum card, which offers 40,000 points to new cardholders and instant redemptions including:

  1. Covering the card’s annual fee
  2. $200 worth of gift cards; or
  3. A 16GB iPod Nano

The important thing to remember with the point bonuses is that there could also be conditions to consider before the points are applied to the account.

While Citibank’s Rewards Platinum offers this deal to all new cardholders who sign up and make a purchase in 2011, other cards require a certain amount of spending within the first month or the first few months of getting the card.

Take the David Jones American Express card, for instance, which offers a bonus 15,000 points for people who sign up before 14 January 2012 and spend outside of David Jones at least three times in the first month.

For some people these conditions may not be an issue, but if you are not aware of the conditions there is a risk of signing up for a card and missing out on the bonus.

New credit card offers are a great way to get instant value from a credit card and by understanding more about them it will be easier for you to take advantage of any offer that you want.