It is not a fancy restaurant at all. Rather, it is a place that simply serves Japanese noodles (Ramen). During fall and winter, a bowl of hot noodle soup is always so nice.

But there is one peeve of mine about this restaurant. It does not take credit cards! So I have to pay cash! And because I seldom carry cash in my wallet, I’ve got to always make sure that I always carry enough cash. But they are not the only place not to accept credit cards. Even Haagan Daaz in New York at South Street Seaport does not accept credit cards!

Well, I guess when you really like a place, having to pay by cash is not an issue. I’m sure my friends Matt from Debt Free Adventure, Brad from Enemy of Debt and Adam from Man vs Debt will be grinning from ear to ear that I have to pay cash at my favorite Japanese Noodle place!

As you can tell, I don’t really have much credit card wisdom today after a night of pigging out on honey baked ham! So I’ll end this post by wishing every one a very belated Happy ThanksGiving!

You all very well know that I carry the Platinum Card from American Express. So last Friday, I decided to book those tickets. I called the Amex Concierge and found out that 5pm EST last Friday was the cut off time for getting seats before they were made available to the public on Saturday! Urhh! Did I miss the good seats? (I was actually calling at 9pm EST). But the concierge lady managed to login into the account to get me the early tickets. (For those who are not familiar with this – Amex actually sponsors and supports many theaters and performances and they will actually let Amex cardholders get tickets before the public does). So I managed to get 5 seats for my family. It wasn’t right at the front, but they were floor seats. So I got an email confirmation in my yahoo mail and was pretty pleased with myself. Below is the email.

It was a pleasure speaking with you and assisting you in purchasing tickets to Star Wars. The details of that purchase follow. It sounds like so much fun – I hope you and your guests really enjoy it!

Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can provide you with any additional conveniences like dining reservations, directions or local information. It is important to note that all purchases are subject to charge card approval and billing address verification. Once tickets are purchased, Concierge cannot be responsible for changes, cancellations, or postponements made to the event.

On Saturday afternoon, I decided to check the email and to my horror, I discovered that the tickets were booked incorrectly! It was supposed to be in the Wachoiva Center in Philadelphia City (a 25 minutes drive for me) not Wachovia Arena at Wilkes Barra (a 2 hour drive!). I called Amex and told concierge of the situation. The new concierge lady got off the phone and tried to correct the situation. She called back 30 minutes later and told me they could cancel the tickets and rebook them. I would be getting roughly similar seats. The only snag she said was that Ticketmaster (whom they book through) said they will refund the tickets, but are only willing to refund the processing fees when they listen to the recording between me and the previous lady handling my booking to see if it was “my fault” for giving incorrect information. But she said even if they did not refund it, they’ll get Amex to refund the rest using the “Ticket Protection Feature” that came with the Platinum Card. I was told to expect a call on Tuesday.

While I was on the line with concierge, I also asked her to book 2 tickets (for Mrs Credit Card and myself) for a performance by the Vienna Choir Boys who will be performing in the Kimmel Center on 4th December. This one was a breeze. I managed to get second row seats (which is great).

Before I hung up, I had to decide how I wanted the tickets delivered. I had 3 choices. And all of them cost money!

Email – or etickets – The safest way cos you will never lose them!

Snail Mail – You’ll get a nice ticket, but you have to be careful not to lose them.

Pick up at the venue – No way to losing it, but you need to bring your ID and arrive 90 minutes before the start of show.

I chose to get the etickets.

So I got the new confirmation email. See below.

It was such a pleasure assisting you this evening with your ticket request. I have wonderful news to share with you! I have successfully secured tickets to Star Wars in Concert on Sunday November 15, 2009 in Philadelphia and Vienna Boys Choir on Friday December 4, 2009 in Philadelphia as well. I am thrilled to have been able to accommodate your request. I hope you and your family have a great time! Please see ticket confirmation details below:

Please let me know if you have any questions or if we can provide you with any additional conveniences like dining reservations, directions or local information. It is important to note that all purchases are subject to charge card approval and billing address verification. Once tickets are purchased, Concierge cannot be responsible for changes, cancellations, or postponements made to the event. Have a great night!

Check the email and everything was OK except that for the Vienna Choir Boys, the tickets will be sent to me! (hey – no big deal).

On Tuesday (yesterday), I got a call from Amex concierge. It was the supervisor. He apologized for the error in the booking and said ticketmaster will refund everything except $3.40 in processing fee! But he said Amex Concierge will refund that and take care of it. He also gave me his name and direct number if I have any issues in the future.

I must say that I am extremely happy with the way Amex Concierge handled themselves. They were always polite and resolved the situation pretty quickly. I will always be using them to book stuff because I simply cannot imagine the hassle of me actually calling ticketmaster and trying to get the refund myself. Sure I could do it, but why bother? It is moments like these that remind me what a great card the Amex Platinum Card is.

I have several credit cards, but only use a couple. Here’s what’s in my wallet.

Platinum Card from American Express – The main card I use at the moment is the Platinum Card. I actually upgraded to the Platinum Card from the Gold Card a couple of years ago. There were several reasons for the upgrade. Firstly, I wanted to review the card. And to be honest, you cannot just write a review of such a card without having owned one. There was also a slight ego factor when I upgraded (it is after all the Amex Plat – though not BLACK!). Since getting the Platinum Card, I have been using more of its features like companion airfare tickets, and especially its concierge service, which I use to most of my entertainment booking. One of the great perks of this card is that you can get notified of events that are sponsored by Amex and get access to tickets before the general public could. At this moment, this is the main card that I use.

Past favorite – Blue Cash – If you were to ask me two years ago what was my main card, I would said Blue Cash hands down. It is still a great card. But since my kids are older now, we find that we are taking more vacations and earning points seems like a better way to use credit cards. The Blue Cash has a tiered rebate system, but I spend enough to make it worthwhile. On average, I get over 2% in rebates (which is better than getting a straight 2% card like Schwab Credit Card). One of the great things about this card is that rebate formula has hardly changed. Yes, it has a tier, but look at Citi Dividend and Chase Freedom, each year, their rebates gets reduced. For anyone looking to a cash back card, this would be a card to consider if you are a big spender. Supplement it with the Discover Card and you can earn lots of cash rebates! For now, this one is going to take a back seat!

Chase Flexible Rewards Card – The only reason I got this card was that I needed a Visa Card and I wanted to review the reward program which Chase did not put on their website (you could not see the rewards until you got the card!). When I first got it, the rewards were really bad (as in really bad), but it has improved a lot since. I just got a mail recently that this card will be changed to the Freedom Card at the end of October. So I guess I will get the Freedom card with the chance to review Chase’s new Ultimate Rewards program!

Merrill Lynch Visa – Only reason I got the card was again to review the reward program. Use it as a spare Visa.

2 weeks ago, I applied for and got approved for the Plum Card (I applied from my site off course). It was really easy and I got a response literally in 60 seconds (as Amex claims) that I got approved. So the Plum Card is now the official card used by Ask Mr Credit Card for all our business expenses. Previously, when I was using my Blue Cash, the Platinum Card was used for this site. I thought about getting a separate Platinum Business Card, but the thought of paying another set of fees didn’t sit well with me. I then considered getting the Gold Card to earn Membership Rewards. But Mrs Credit Card thought we should try to earn cash rebates instead (even though our personal cards are now geared towards earning rewards!). Getting a card with no preset spending limit was important because I do advertise on the internet and sometimes the cost can skyrocket! You do not want a card with a fixed limit. The card also gave me the flexibility of deferring my payments for an additional month with no interest cost and I thought that was a good option to have. But it looks like I will pay in full every month and earn the 1.5% cash rebates.

I may decide to switch to the gold card later on and if I do so, I will update this page.

Regular readers of this blog will know that Jason Steele writes for us about reward programs and credit card news in general. His main card is the Starwood Credit Card. Jason has to make an annual trip to Israel every year and hence trying to get the best ticket deal for the buck (or rather for the points) is top priority. The reason why Starwood fits him is that they allow you to exchange points for frequent flier miles mostly on a one for one basis with over 30 airline partners. You also get a 5,000 bonus miles when you transfer 20,000 points into miles! It’s like Starwood prefers you to use points for other airlines than their own hotels! So search among airline alliance and transferring points to the program which requires the least miles is what Jason is good at doing. The only other thing I might recommend him is to get the business version instead since it is the same card and he can get discounts at OPEN Savings merchants.

Capital One – Jason also has a Capital One credit card in his wallet though he only uses that overseas since they do not charge any “foreign currency transaction fee”.

Jason in the meantime has also been doing some credit card churning lately by applied for Citi’s AAdvantage Cards, getting their bonus miles, canceling the card and reapplying 65 days later. He reckons he can rack up over 100,000 miles just doing that. If your credit is not good, and you need to get an auto loan or mortgage in a couple of years, I suggest you do not try this!

For those of you who have followed me for a while, you may recall Jenna Banks, who used to write for me. I hired Jenna because she had been through bankruptcy and was able to help our readers answer questions relating to that topic. Plus, it was good to have someone on board who actually has a couple of “subprime cards” after they got out of bankruptcy (since we review them as well).

The main credit cards that Jenna had were the Orchard Bank MasterCard and the First Premier Bank Credit Card (which she got after her bankruptcy). She would be the first to tell you that she would rather have any of the credit cards that both Jason and myself have (since they are layered with fees). But I guess she simply has to start rebuilding your credit somewhere!

Aside from the cards we carry, we also have access to other cards that we do not carry. For example, two good friends of mine have given me that password for the Discover More Card and the Capital One No Hassle Miles Cards so that I can actually review the reward programs. I want to thank them for that and for the trust they have in me. Having access to both of these cards are important because they do not display their rewards on their website. Instead, you have to actually get the cards before you know the rewards! So only by having access to these reward programs could I write a proper review.

I would also like to get my hands on the following cards in future. One of them is the Visa Black Card. I’ve been hesitant to review it yet because I have not got my hands on the card. I’m not not too bothered by not knowing what gift card partners they have or what sort of merchandise they have in their program. I was more interested in their airline travel rewards. But it looks like they have finally put that information on their website, so I’ll probably do a preliminary review soon as lots of people are asking my opinion of the card. If you have the Visa Black and are willing to share the reward information, please drop me an email.

Another card I’m looking to get is the Citi Platinum Select Card. Reason being they now have this program called Extra Cash which is like Discover’s shopdiscover.com program. Would be great to do a side by side comparison.

Chase has also just revamped their reward program and I would like to get to see their ultimate rewards program. But since my Chase Flexible Rewards will soon be Chase Freedom, I guess I’ll get a sneak peak at the program. But I may try to get the Sapphire Card to check it out.

I once thought about getting a Bank of America Card with the WorldPoints program since they do not state their travel rewards unless you get the card! (another one of those things). But when I called WorldPoints, the customer representative gave me the exact details so I was able to get that information without resorting to getting the card for the sake of it.

Once again, if anyone has these cards and are willing to share details of the card program with me, please contact me.

Please feel free to share what cards you use below.

But hey, Mrs Credit Card is my “additional cardholder”. I have 3 kids (10,8 and 6 years old respectively). I can’t give my oldest son a card even if I wanted to! Who am I supposed to give this to? My mistress?

So I hope Amex stop sending me these silly offers when I already have an additional cardholder (my wife!). Save some trees and some marketing expense please!

Other rants

I guess nothings stirs up more emotion in the personal finance space when someone talks about credit card, credit card debt or should they cut up their cards. Over at www.debtfreeadventures, my friend Matt Jabs has written a couple of a couple of credit card posts that drew quite a bit of comments from his readers. His post more reasons to pay off credit card debt was followed by wise use of credit cards after they are paid off.

One of the trends I have noticed within myself is that I am now reading more blogs that have more personal posts. Having been kind off in the pf space (if you could even call this blog a pf blog?) is that I’m really sick and tired of 10 ways to save money or are credit cards good or bad type posts that inevitably everyone will write about. This post from Miss M about financial infidelity was really revealing an honest and it has drawn me even more to her blog. Keep it up! I guess I also owe her a congratulations as she has just got engaged.

Stephanie recently described an episode by she had trouble with the identification process with one of her accounts. Fascinating scary incident. I think we all have something to learn from that. Incidentally, being a recent grad, she is actually reecommending that college students get a credit card right now to build a credit history since the new Obama CART act is going to make it more difficult to get one when the act starts getting implemented next year.

I have also been trying to do some research on online banks and brokerage (which is not presently my area of expertise). Seems like SVB has been on top of this game and she has just investigated another online brokerage trademonster (what a name!). My bank accounts are still with traditional banks and so is my brokerage account. We’ll see what happens in the future.

Lastly, congratulations to the Phillies for their 3rd consecutive NL East Division Win!

I first job was a sales position in the financial industry. Back then, I corporate card from the firm I worked with. It was an American Express Corporate Card. If I recall correctly, it was a the Green Corporate Charge Card. The arrangement that the firm had with Amex was that the membership reward points that employees earned went into the Employees account. That is not always the case as the second firm I worked for gave me an Amex Corporate Card but I could not earn points.

So my rationale was since I was earning Membership Reward Points on the corporate credit card, I might as well use Amex as my main card and earn more points. I was deciding between the green card and the gold card, but ultimately settled for the gold card? Why? don’t really remember? maybe it looks nicer?

Well, I was with my first job for about eight years and within that period, I have chalked six figures in membership reward points. All most all of my points were redeemed for business class flights! There were times when I went a couple of years without redeeming them. But since Amex Points do not expire, that wasn’t an issue at all. I took flights to Europe and many other places. It’s really nice when you do not have to pay for them!

The one thing I did not do was to redeem points for things like merchandise, gift cards and other stuff. After I started this site and did more investigation into reward programs, I realized that I had made the right choice. By transferring points to airlines and find the airline (and partners) that required the least points or miles, you got so much more of your rewards than any cash back or merchandise stuff that credit cards program offer.

Well, I guess Amex have me hooked and a couple of years back, I upgrade my card to the Platinum Card. Part of reason was to check out the concierge service and the companion ticket features (which has since been discontinued). The other reason was I really wanted to write a solid review of this card and could not do so without having it?

Along the way (and at present), I carry a few cards. But the main card I use now continues to be my Platinum Card. I have nothing but good things to say about Amex (though some would disagree), but they have been good to me. But anyone looking for a good reward card, I would have no hesitation recommending starting off with the American Express Rewards Gold Card.

I’ll write another post soon about all the other cards I have and why I have them. But in the meantime, please share with us :

All we had to do was to sign up at the Buick booth, which they set up outside the Mall. We had to fill in a couple of forms with details like your home address, name, phone number and email (though I did not fill in my email) and our driving license number (which had to be checked). Once this was done, we simply waited 5 minutes for our turn to test drive the car around the huge King of Prussia parking lot.

The car was quite cool. It was very quiet and had cool blue lights that lighted up at night. The person that was sitting beside me explained the details of the car and its features. There was absolutely no sales pressure at all. At the end of it, he gave me my $25 gift card (which was an Amex gift card) that can be used anywhere at King of Prussia Mall. Mrs Credit Card got hers too. In fact, they weren’t even bothered that we were spouses. They happily gave us our gift cards (so we got a total value of $50).

We decided to have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and used our card there. The total bill came up to $63 and we gave a $10 tip. So the total bill was only $23 for us!

We bailed out GM, so might as well get something back – GM was bailed out by taxpayers, so my rationale is that at least we get a token $50 back. We have absolutely no intention of changing cars or buying a new one anytime soon. The whole process took 5 minutes to register, a couple of minutes to wait and 5 minutes to test drive. No high pressure sales tactics and it was a breeze.

Since a part of your taxes were used to bail out GM, you might as well get something back for it even if you have no intention to buy from them.

Test Drive available in cities nationwide this Saturday – Upon chatting with the folks at the booth, I also found out that GM will be having this test drive and $25 gift card giveaway next weekend at the same place, but also at cities nationwide. So if you are reading this, let me tell you that this is one of the easiest $50 gift cards I’ve ever got. Consider this a tax rebate! Go out next weekend and give it a spin. Bring family and friends along and have a nice meal afterwards at GM’s (uh..actually our own) expense!

P.S. – In case you are wondering, I knew I was going to blog about this, so I had my camera prepared!

Regular readers will know that I’m a card holder of the Amex Platinum Card. American Express allows you to book your travel items with them. They also allow you to book with their travel site (which resides in the Amex site). Turns out that the travel site is powered by travelocity.

One incentive that they give is that you can earn “double points” if you book online with their travel site rather than calling their travel agents (or in my case the concierge service).

So for this trip, I did just that. Part of the reason we are taking this trip is that Mrs Credit Card canceled a US Airways ticket last year. Rather than refund her, they said she can book any other ticket within a year. Well, that one year is almost up! So I booked the trip with the online Amex Travel Site and essentially used up all my existing miles.

I also booked the Hotel through Amex. We booked the Luxor (at $50 a night with 2 queen bed) for 3 nights. The reason we did not want to book directly with Luxor was we can earn double points with Amex! After Las Vegas, we are going to the Grand Canyon and leave from Phoenix Arizona next Wednesday.

We also have a very good friend whose parents lives in Flagstaff (which is about one hour and a half) from the Grand Canyon. But they have always welcomed us to visit them if we ever visited the Grand Canyon. Well, they did not reply to the emails we sent them before booking and managed to get in touch with us after we had booked everything.

When we arrived two days ago at Las Vegas, we spoke to them over the cell phone and Mrs Credit Card said we should shorten our stay in Vegas. At Luxor hotel, I tried to do that but it turns out that I could not do so. I was told that since I did not book directly with them, they cannot refund me and that I needed to get the refund from Travelocity.

I was ignorant about how hotels and travel agents worked. So I proposed the following. I said that if I cannot get the refund, I would like to book two extra adjacent rooms for the two nights (but requested one be complimentary). That way, I would pay for 4 rooms in 2 nights, rather than 3 rooms for 3 nights. Win- win for both (or so I thought). Turns out that they cannot give me the complimentary room as well. (if you are wondering why I want extra rooms, let’s just say that 3 kids in a room means no private time for Mrs Credit Card and myself!)

I was pretty frustrated and so I called Amex. It turns out that I cannot get a refund if I reduce my stay for a day because under the terms and conditions, I have booked a “prepaid”. I really do not recall seeing that. Upon further probing, it turns out that most hotels booked under the Amex Online Travel site are under “prepaid booking” which means you cannot get a refund even if you requested a change 48 hours prior!

I also learned that from the hotel’s perspective, if I cut short my stay by one day, they will not get paid by travelocity (or whoever the travel agent is), it is my responsibility to get the refund back from the travel agent that I book from. That was why they were not willing to give me the complimentary room because they would not be getting the money for my “phantom third night stay).

I guess the lesson here is be very careful when you book hotels with Amex Online Travel site (or any online travel site for that matter). You have to check the refund policy. If I had booked directly with the hotel, I could have changed my dates (no problem) since the hotel had my money!

August 25 to 28 – Las Vegas
August 28 to 29 – Grand Canyon
August 29 to 31 – Scottsdale via Sedona
August 31 to Sept 2 – Phoenix Arizona

This is our 2nd day in Las Vegas and already there are lots of travel and credit card stories to tell. So watch this space.

I had to go to a conference in Miami. It was a last minute thing and I booked my flight on Thurday. No discount and they cost much more than if I had booked it months or weeks earlier. My flight was with American Airlines and it was supposed to leave at 6:10 am. Before I left for the airport, I realized I did not have any cash. So I headed off to the Bank of America branch near my house to draw some money from the ATM.

I then headed for the airport. I managed to check in and got through security. My ticket says that there ws no food served on board and that you had to pay for any food on the plane. So I decided to queue up on a long line and get a sandwich from the only store that was opened. When I finished paying, I rushed to the gate.

I thought I had made it just on time. But loh and behold, the American Airlines personel said she had just closed the door! To my horror, I had just missed my flight! I begged her to open the door again but she refused. She said she could put me on the waitlist for the next flight. But the flight was at 1:30pm! She told me to check with US Airways at the other terminal to see if they had seats for the 9:55am flight.

To say that I was pissed was an under statement. I sat down on the chair, ate my hot sandwich and then decided to call American Express Travel, who booked my flights. The travel agent who picked up my call actually recognized me. ‘Mr Credit Card, I believe I booked your flight two days ago. How can I help you?”.

I told her the problem I had in my hands. She told me to wait a minute and checked my ticket. She said that my ticket was non-refundable and said I could either be on the waitlist for the 1:30pm flight or book the US Airway 9:55am flight, which was available. She said there may be a chance the all the seat available then on the 1:30pm flight will be booked by 1:30pm. I decided not to take the risk and so I booked the 9:55am US Airways flight. The ticket cost over $300!

To backtrack a little, when I arrived at the airport, I was not too sure where to park. There was a “short term parking” sign and a “garage sign”. I did not know the difference so I parked at the short term parking. As I was heading to the next terminal, I decided to ask the person behind the information counter. She said I should move my car as the rates were very high!

So I went and moved my car from the “short term parking” to the “garage parking”. It cost me $11.00 just for parking for two hours! The “garage parking” will cost $17 a day. It was more expensive than the “economy parking” at $9.00 a day. But as I was coming back at midnight, I did not want to take the bus and walk around a carpark in the dark looking for my car.

Things got a little better after that. In the plane on the way to miami, the chief steward actually made an annoucement asking change for a twenty dollar note! Also, by booking my hotel with American Express, I got a free complimentary upgrade to the executive suite! My room had a separate bedroom and a living room! I even checked in on the 23rd floor!.

All seemed to go well until I realized I lost my bank ATM card. It looks as though I had left it in the machine when I withdrew the cash earlier in the morning. I called Bank of America to have it canceled and replaced. It was Sunday and I still had to write up the 82nd Festival of Frugality.

When I got home on Monday midnight, I realized that I had lost my cell phone! But there was no time to moan as I still had to finish the festival of frugality- which I did at 2:00am.

So to sum up my trip and day.

1. Missed a flight
2. Paid extra for car park.
2. Lost my bank ATM card.
3. Lost my cell phone.

Sometimes, sh*t happens. If this had happened when I was much younger, I would have been really mad with myself because it would have screwed up my budget. Fortunately, this does not really mess up my budget or savings plan at this stage and moment in my life. If this happened when I was younger and my finances was a razor edge, then it would really be unpleasant. I think it just goes to show that aside from being frugal, save (and all that personal finance stuff that we like to talk about), it is very important to increase your monthly cash flow either through higher pay, career advancement or any other cash flow investments. It is good to have some breathing space when it comes to money.

Another thought that came to my mind when I reflect on the airport incident was that I was really glad I had my American Express Platinum Credit Card. If I had booked this with any other card, I bet I would not have gotten such great service. In fact, I have now made that travel agent my permanent agent. Her name is Maria and she has given me the 5 digit extension where I can reach her.

Have you had a day where everything just went wrong? Why not share your story here.

I checked for flight availability from Philadelphia to Atlanta and it turns out that US Airways was the best choice. I then keyed in my preferred itinerary into US Airways’ website and the total cost came up to $292, with taxes, it was about $312.18 (if I recall correctly).

So I called American Express Platinum’s 1-800 number. I selected travel and then chose the Domestic Companion flight menu and was taken to a travel agent. The company that runs this program for Amex is API (can’t remember what it stands for).

I was told that the minimum cost of an airline ticket (without the taxes) is $299. Hence for the flight that I wanted, I still had to pay $299 even though it was quoted at $292. But there were other taxes and fees as well. Here is the breakdown :

$41.18 – tax per ticket (multiplied by two since I was getting a companion ticket)
$15.00 – ticketing cost per ticket (ditto)
$411.36 – total cost

Being who I am and that fact that I wanted to blog about this experience, I asked the agent what the $41.18 tax consist of. This was the breakdown he read from his cheat sheet :

$20.38 – US Airways Tax – (huh! kinda like the ‘bogus tax’ that cell phone operators charge?)
$6.80 – airport tax
$5.00 – fuel tax
$9.00 – federal tax

If I had bought two seperate tickets, it would have cost $624.36. Hence, both Jim and myself saved $106.50 each. Had Mrs Credit Card been my companion, we would have saved $213.00. Given that the annual fee of the card is $395, I guess that a couple more free companion flights would cover the annual cost (By the way, you can use the companion ticket feature four times in one calendar year).

This was a very pleasant experience for me. I must say this feature is impressive because I can choose my own flights, unlike some other reward programs that only give you the flights if they have not sold out their ‘allocation’! I will using definitely be using this feature again later this year. It really looks like the $395 annual fee will be covered by my next trip with Mrs Credit Card.