Quick Credit Cards

Especially during the busy summer travel and vacation season, lots of credit card consumers will be faced with an often-perplexing question or choice. Should they go ahead and pay extra for auto insurance when renting a car, or decline it and hope that they are covered by their credit card membership’s insurance program?

Sometimes the cost of a daily rental car insurance premium is a huge additional expense that can escalate the cost of auto rentals into the stratosphere. But without it, if there is an accident, the renter could wind up owing a car rental company the price of a brand new car. So

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If you have had a history of making late payments on your credit cards, you may be relieved to learn that the Federal Reserve placed a cap on penalty fees recently. Now, credit card issuers are only allowed to impose up to $25 dollars in fees.

In addition, the Fed has eliminated their ability to impose inactivity fees, or fees that result from a cardholder not using the card over a certain period of time. And issuers will not be allowed to charge more in penalty fees than the actual payment amount (i.e. $25 fee on $20 minimum payment). These changes are a part of the third stage of implementing the Credit CARD Act. (Market Watch)

Last week a Credit Card Forum reader emailed this question:

Q: What is the best credit card for airline miles?

A: Airline credit cards just aren’t what they used to be. Here’s what you need to know about most of them today:

Annual fee vs. how much you spend
The truth is that for many people, paying a high annual fee just won’t make sense. For example, if you only spend a few hundred dollars per month, then a big chunk of those rewards you earn over the course of the year will just being going to balance out the cost of the annual fee you paid. Unfor

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There’s a hot new offer out on the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card, but it’s only good for the next week:

For a limited time only, get 30,000 Starpoints® after making just $1,000 in eligible purchases during the first 3 months of Cardmembership. This is our richest offer yet for the Card. The offer will only be available June 30 – July 6, 2010.

This offer is available on both the personal and business versions of the card. Previous Starwood Amex cardholders are not eligible.

Link (via FT)