Credit Card Bill Of Rights

First, kudos to the US House of Representatives for passing the Credit Card Bill Of Rights. The real challenge remains in the Senate, yet supporters hope to have this passed by Memorial Day. It is notable, however, that the current bill allows one year for compliance of most provisions. I propose to send them a little booklet in the mail with fine print saying that if they don’t like these changes, they are free to cancel all customer’s accounts within 15 days.

Delta American Express Ups Their Sign Up Bonuses, But Are You Really Getting More?

Delta is offering up to 40,000 SkyMiles as a sign up bonus for the Delta SkyMiles American Express Card. Here is how it works. You get 25,000 for the initial signup, and another 10,000 when you purchase over $1,000 in your first three months. These offers appear to be targeted to NorthWest Airlines cardholders and they do tend to vary in miles.

Here is the problem. Delta miles have become the least valuable of all airline miles. Their new three tiered reward system is notorious for never having anything availible in the “Low” tier. Sadly, the SkyMiles necessary for redemptions in the “Mid” tier are much, much more than the low. It should, more accurately, be labelled “low”, “high”, and “Sucker”. Even many of the “mid” tier redemptions are producing less than one penny per mile of value, making it more cost effective to merely use the “pay with miles” option.

So yes, you can get a lot of SkyMiles by signing up for the American Express Delta card, but you will find that 40,000 miles doesn’t really take you very far anymore.

Here Is A Worthwhile Northwest/Delta Promo

It seems that Nortwest is offering a promo that will give you a thousand extra NWA WorldPerks Miles for each unique purchase at their shopping portal. It didn’t take long for the mileage gurus at FlyerTalk to start finding ultra cheap items that will qualify. It turns out that there are plenty of items priced around a$1 that will qualify for 1,000 miles. The trick is avoiding shipping costs. The way to do this seems to get an item that you can pick up at the store, or perhaps an intangible good. Such goods include music downloads, gift cards, and donations to charity. Yes, the legwork is significant, but if you have a little time and creativity, you can easily get 10,000 miles, per account, in your WorldPerks account, for under $20. The miles are then easily transferred over to your Delta account. The way to maximize this would be to make several purchases, one for each member of your family, and then pick them all up at once. It is not hard to see how a couple could get 20,000 miles for minimal effort and money, that is easily worth at least $200 off of your next trip.

Late Fees For Paying Your Credit Card Bill Early

From the Consumerist is an interesting story about a woman who thought she was paying her Capitol One credit card bill early, and ended up being charged a late fee. While this sounds insane, if you think like a credit card company, it is not. She payed her bill before the statement ended, so technically she made a payment during her previous statement.

It would be as if last month I paid more last month than the combined minimum of this month and the previous month. I couldn’t just call the credit card company and tell them my payment was early this month. They will credit my payments last month to my statement last month, not as an early payment for the following month. In fact, I would be pretty upset if they didn’t. Like much in the Consumerist, it makes a great headline, “Woman gets late fee for early payment”. Fortunately, it does illuminate how payments to credit card companies work. The moral of the story is that you want to be extra careful making early payments. If you are planning on being out of the country or something during the week or two between the time you get your statement and it is due, early payments may create more problems than they solve. In addition to the problem described, early payments creating a positive balance can also trigger a fraud alert.

Your best bet is to stay in touch with your credit card company, and try to pay your bills on time electronically. Capitol One did reverse the charge when it was brought to their attention. I have read many complaints about Capitol One, but frankly I have had mostly good experiences with their customer service, for what it is worth.