Although most of us are familiar with the threat of identity theft, few of us are prepared or even know what to do in the event that our identities are stolen. According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft in some form is a crime that affects 9 million Americans a year.  Even worse, 140,000 incidents of identity theft occur against children, with many more incidences not being detected until the child becomes an adult and needs his or her own credit card or loan.
As technology progresses, identity theft not only becomes more difficult to combat, but the face of identity theft changes and progresses as well.

Forms of Identity Theft

The most basic form of identity theft is probably the oldest and involves literally stealing a person’s identity. Decades ago, thieves could actually kill a person and assume their identity. Believe it or not, this still happens but isn’t as easy to get away with as it was before everyone had to carry and provide multiple forms of picture identification for a wide range of everyday activities. Other basic forms of identity theft involve just simply stealing a person’s wallet or purse. More advanced methods these days involve phishing which is usually a fake email message from a big company or bank which asks you to send your personal information.

Skimming

Skimming occurs when special devices are used to steal credit and debit card numbers as a credit card is processing a legitimate payment. For instance, skimming has occurred recently in restaurants where employees have scanned customers’ cards into the device in order to use the information later. Gas stations have also fallen victim to the skimming method.
Regardless of the method or form of identity theft that the thief chooses to engage in, integral information that identifies consumers is stolen whether it is a credit card number, social security number or even just a name and address. This information is then used to open other accounts under your likeness, or may even be used as false information in other criminal cases. For example, when a person commits a crime and uses another person’s name and personal information. Eventually when the ticket isn’t paid or the person doesn’t show up for court, a warrant is issued in the name of the person whose identity was stolen. This mars an innocent person’s background and also creates problems when they are actually apprehended for a crime they have no knowledge of. Thieves have used other people’s identities for decades in order to acquire credit and bank accounts as well as take part in a variety of other nefarious activities.
The different forms of identity theft alone are enough to prove that it isn’t just the invention and popularity of the Internet which results in 9 million cases of identity theft per year. However with each year that passes, criminals find newer ways to scam trick and steal information from consumers in order to steal their identities.

How Do You Know Your Identity Has Been Stolen

Often times a person may not know for years that his or her identity has even been stolen. If you have no need for a new loan or credit, you may not find out until applying for a new car loan. Imagine going to the bank and finding out you have credit card and loan accounts on your credit report that you don’t recognize and never applied for.

Sometimes you may be contacted by creditors for payment and receive letters threatening to sue for debts you don’t recognize or have any knowledge of. This happens because thieves rarely pay the bills for the credit cards, loans and accounts they acquire. In the meantime, the creditor will be looking for their money…from you.
Other times you may be notified by a company if there has been a security breach. These instances don’t usually result in entire identities being stolen and are caught before any real damage can occur. A good example of this is the security breach that occurred earlier in the year with Sony PlayStation Network. During this unfortunate event, the personal account information for over 77 million accounts had been exposed. Although it cost Sony millions of dollars to correct and a loss of millions in revenue to repair, the problem was addressed before it could become a full blown identity theft dilemma, which could have been a lot worse for Sony PlayStation users.

What to Do If You Are a Victim of Identity Theft

If you are one of the 9 million annual victims of identity theft, you will want to move quickly in taking care of any damage that has resulted. First of all, your credit report is going to take a huge hit because of negative account reporting. Second, you will likely and understandably feel violated because a stranger has actually stolen something from you, albeit something you cannot actually touch. Unless you are the victim of an archaic thief which has killed you and is walking about pretending to be you, there are remedies.

How to Stop Identity Theft

File an Identity Theft Complaint with the FTC. This document will assist you in also receiving the Identity Theft Report which secures many of your legal rights as a victim of identity theft. Once this report is entered into the Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse, it assists law enforcement in tracking down and stopping identity thieves. This report also helps law enforcement track down identity thieves. Being included in the database also means you will be able to keep up to date on the process of your own case much easier.
File a police report as soon as you feel you are a victim of identity theft. This means whether your purse is stolen or your credit card number has been stolen online. A police report is important in the process because it provides the information needed to file an Identity Theft Report. Without the Identity Theft Report, you can lose many legal rights that are required in reporting the identity theft to the credit bureaus. There are also a number of uses for the Identity Theft Report including the ability to block fraudulent information permanently from your credit reports and bars collection agencies from being able to continue to harass you for payment of the fraudulent accounts. Besides the fact that if you need to request copies of the thief’s information such as the application completed for a credit card, you will need to have a copy of the police report. The entire process will be a good deal more difficult without one. You will need to take the Identity Theft Complaint that you filed with the FTC when you file the police report.

If you are notified by some other means than your credit report of the crime, you will want to make sure you request reports from all three credit bureaus. You should immediately contact all three credit bureaus and place alerts on your credit files. Once you have placed these alerts, you are entitled to a free credit report from each in which you can then scan for other accounts and instances of theft. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, both the credit bureau and the credit card company, bank or business that provided the information must correct any fraudulent information that is on your credit report. For each fraudulent account you will need to send a letter which states the information that is fraudulent and incorrect and a copy of the Identity Theft Report.  This will seem to be a painstaking process, but the good news is the credit reporting agency must either block the fraudulent information on your report within 4 business days or let you know why they are not (for instances of fraudulent reporting of identity theft).

Close any fraudulent accounts. Although this probably goes without saying, you will need to contact the companies and close the accounts. It is in your best interest to send copies of evidence, your Identity Theft Report and Police Report by certified mail. Once the issue has been resolved, ask to receive notification by mail so that you have this documentation in the event that the account shows up on your credit report again or you are contacted in the future for payment of the account.

Place a Credit Freeze on Your Credit Report Files

This is optional and varies by state but you may want to place a credit freeze on your credit reports in order to prevent any new credit from being obtained. The credit freeze allows current creditors to continue to monitor your credit but new ones will not be able to access your credit reports and will thus not be inclined to approve credit for would-be identity thieves. In some states it’s free to identity theft victims to freeze their credit files, and in other states there is a small fee.

Most of the time if a company has had a security breach such as the one mentioned with Sony, you will not need to go through these steps. Most companies will offer you free credit monitoring which you will probably want to take advantage of to make sure nothing fraudulent comes up on your credit report. These kinds of breaches are usually handled by the companies themselves, mostly because it’s just bad publicity and bad form not to.

From the beginning to the end of these steps it is also recommended that you keep a journal or log of every person, company and account that you encounter and speak to. Any correspondence mailed should be sent certified return receipt requested. If anything, it will make things run a little smoother if you have all of your information in one place and help keep track of who you have contacted and which accounts have been resolved.

As a last resort, if for some reason you cannot resolve fraudulent accounts or your identity continues to be stolen, you may want to consider a new social security number. This is not only a last resort but sometimes not even effective as the credit bureaus may even combine the report from the messed up social security number with the new social security number into one anyway. If they don’t, you still have to deal with the issue of having absolutely nothing on a credit report of a brand new social security number.

How to Prevent Identity Theft

Ideally, we would like to stay ahead of the thieves and should attempt to prevent identity theft. Having to deal with it after the fact can sometimes be a frightening experience as well as a huge headache trying to clean up and restore our credit and identities back to normal.
The methods of preventing identity theft depend a great deal of course on the form of identity theft. In order to deter trash bin divers for instance, you will want to make sure you shred all documents before you toss them. This includes bank statements, credit card statements and preapproved credit card offers. In fact, shredding and destroying any paper that has personal information on it is a good practice to make a habit. For shredding, it is recommended that a cross shredder is used which shreds both ways. Believe it or not, trash bin diving identity thieves have been known to actually piece together information that has been shredded and a cross shredder makes this possibility a little less likely.

Preventing Phishing

If you receive an email from a large company asking you for your password or other personal information and you aren’t sure, call the company. In phishing incidences, you may also be asked to click on a link which may take you to a site that looks like the real site. If you type the link into your address bar instead of clicking on it, you may be able to see that way if the link is legitimate also. Another good indication that an email is spam or phishing is if words are spelled incorrectly or the grammar seems off. Because of phishing being such a common threat, most companies will not email you when they need information but will instead contact you through another means.

Telephone Scams

Sometimes identity thieves will contact people via telephone and pretend to be legitimate companies that are asking for personal information. Legitimate companies will not call you and ask you for personal information. If it is a company you actually do business with, they have no reason to call and ask you for your account number. One of the most popular theft scams involved calling people and telling them they won a lottery for a large amount of money and only needed to provide bank account information to receive it. Never give out credit card numbers

Internet Safety

Having strong passwords for your accounts online is probably the most important and most effective way of preventing identity theft from occurring online. Make sure you choose strong passwords that include letters and numbers and are not easily figured out. Also refrain from using the same password on every site and every account. Consider the problems you would have if a thief figured out your password and suddenly had access to everything online. It is also equally important to keep spyware and virus protection software up to date to protect your computer from problems occurring with your computer as well as personal information being stolen. When you make purchases online you will want to make sure the website you are purchasing from is a secure site. If the site in the address bar starts with “https” the information you send will be encrypted. Also look for privacy policies on the sites that you shop from and if you are not sure, you should be able to contact the retailer and ask.

Review Your Credit Report Annually

It is important to check your credit reports regularly to make sure there isn’t anything odd or fraudulent being added. This is also an important step in finding and reporting errors to your credit report. It has been reported that nearly 80% of credit reports have some kind of error so it is wise to continuously check up on the credit bureaus.  All consumers are entitled to at least one free credit report per year, so there isn’t any reason to not check those reports at least yearly.

Credit Monitoring Services

There are a number of legitimate companies which provide credit monitoring services. This service notifies consumers anytime something changes on their credit report allowing for almost immediate notification of new accounts or at least as soon as they report. Credit monitoring services save consumers a great deal of time in correcting fraudulent situations because of the ability to notify so quickly. Without the service, it could be years before a consumer may become aware of new accounts on their credit reports and by that time, the thieves are usually long gone having stopped paying the accounts and ditching them for the victim to deal with.
Sometimes no matter how careful one is, criminals will find a way to get the information they are looking for. Being aware and careful are the most important steps for victims recovering from identity theft and those who take measures to prevent it and maybe stay a little bit further ahead of the identity thieves.

Discover More has announced their rotating categories for 2012. There are some significant changes and we will highlight those versus the categories from previous years.

Below is the 2012 rotating categories:

January-March: Gas, Museums, Movies (cap of $1500 in spending in these categories)
April-June: Restaurants and Movies (cap of $1500 in spending in these categories)
July-September: Gas, Movies, Theme Parks (cap not announced yet)
October-December: Department Stores, Electronics Stores, Toy Stores (cap not announced yet)

The first observation is that Discover has completely removed the “travel categories” of airline, hotel, car rental and cruises for 2012. In 2011, these categories were available in the first quarter. Groceries, drugstore and home improvement categories are also no longer available. For 2012, the movie and gasoline categories appear for two quarters. For gasoline, you can earn 5% in the first and third quarter. For the movie category, you can earn 5% rebates in the first and second quarter. This makes it a very good gasoline card since there are hardly any cards that pay 5% cash back on gas these days. The fourth quarter category looks like it is geared up for the holiday shopping season with department stores, electronic stores and toy stores all earning 5% cash back.

Overall, I would say that Discover has taken away some categories (negative), and extended a couple of existing categories for two quarters (positive). What is not clear is why were certain categories removed. Were they not popular or was it too popular?

Discover Rotating Categories for 2011

January – March 2011: Airlines, car rentals, hotels, cruises, restaurants. Sign up now for your January through March rewards.
Also in March 2011: Grocery and drug stores.
April – June 2011: Home improvement, department stores, clothing stores.
Also in June 2011: Gasoline.
July – September 2011: Gas, hotels, movies, theme parks.
October-December: Restaurants and fashion, department stores

The 2011 rotating categories for Discover is slightly different from 2010. Firstly, the first quarter categories are changed to include mainly travel categories. In 2010, the first quarter categories were grocery and drugstores, which is only available as a 5% category in March 2011. The second quarter categories resembled those of 2010 with home improvement being the most prominent category (since most home improvement starts in spring!). The third quarter categories are also almost the same as 2010 except that they have added the theme parks. So for those who love to go to theme parks during the summer break will enjoy a 5% rebate (which is equivalent to a discount). Finally, the fourth quarter is essentially unchanged from 2010, though they added department stores in the last minute.

Discover Rotating Categories For 2010

Jan-March 2010: 5% cash back on purchases at grocery stores and drug stores.
April-June 2010: 5% cash back on home and fashion. This includes home improvement stores, department stores, and clothing stores.
July-Sept 2010: 5% cash back on gas, hotels, and movies. This includes purchases at gas stations, hotels, movie theaters, and on movie rentals.
Oct-Dec 2010: 5% cash back on restaurants and fashion. This includes purchases at restaurants, department stores, and clothing stores.

Discover in 2010 added what we would term a 5% rotating category to their cash back rewards. What this means for card holders is that you can earn 5% when you use the card at stores which belong to these categories. Bear in mind that they change every three months. But having 5% categories that change every three months allow Discover to continue to pay 5% rebates for cardholders. In contrast, there are hardly any cash back cards today paying 5% rebates on a category for the whole year round.

Here is an update for those of you looking to take advantage of the Continental United merger to get extra sign up bonuses. The Continental United Merger will be officially done in 2012. What is more important is the holders of the Continental OnePass Cards will be converted to the United Explorer Card. When the Continental United deal was first announced, the very obvious strategy for churners and folks who want to get sign up bonuses was to get both the Continental and United cards (spaced out over a couple of months since they are both issued by Chase). Then a real bumper harvest came along when Chase offered a 50,000 bonus sign up for both their Sapphire Preferred Card and the Ink Bold (Ultimate Reward points can be transferred to Continental Miles at a one for one ratio – and Continental Miles are transferable to United Mileage Plus account).

However, when United issued their new Explorer Card (in place of their four old Mileage Plus Visas), one of their terms and conditions was as follows:

United Mileage Plus Explorer cardmembers will only receive one 25,000 bonus miles award if they apply for both the United Explorer Card and the Continental OnePass Plus Card after 7/19/2011

To add to the confusion, some folks are getting targeted offers of 50,000 or 60,000 sign up bonuses for Continental or United cards. The way to find out if you have been targeted is to log into your OnePass or Mileage Plus accounts and check what sort of bonus is being offered on their credit card page.

Now that we are getting close to the period where Continental OnePass Card will be converted United Explorer Card, what should you as a holder do? Below are some scenarios we can think of.

1. You Got The Continental Card Before 19th July 2011 And You Want To Get More United Sign Up Bonus – In this case, the answer is pretty clear. You should cancel the card because once it converts to the Explorer card, you cannot get their sign up bonuses. Whether you want to apply for the Explorer Card now or wait for a larger sign up bonus is totally up to you.

2. You Got The Explorer Card After 19th July 2011 – You’ve already got your sign up bonus on the Continental Card. If you fly Continental and United and value the free baggage feature and do not want any interruptions on that, keeping the card may make sense. It will eventually convert to the Explorer Card. The downside of keeping it is that you may miss the opportunity of getting a big United sign up bonus (I say may because cancelling the card and applying for the United Explorer Card down the road is not without risk).

You could cancel the card and apply for the United Explorer Card. The upside could be that you do get extra sign up bonus. There are some risk to this. It is not clear in the terms and conditions of the Explorer if you can only get “one sign up bonus” even if you canceled the Continental OnePass Card that you applied after 19th July 2011. It also depends if Chase put that terms and conditions there just to deter folks, but not really enforce it.

The more interesting question would be what happens if you have not applied for any of these cards but want to churn them both? This is really tricky. There are more risk if you apply for the Continental Card now. It will probably take a good month for your sign up bonus to get into your OnePass account. ( Here is the timeline: If you get it now and get approved instantly, you’ll get your card within the next 10 days. If you use your card immediately, then you will have to wait for your first statement in about 25 days). By then, your card may already be converted and you will not be legible for the Explorer sign up bonus.If you card is not converted by the time you get your bonus, then you face the risk that Chase might put you in the jailhouse for canceling a card too soon.

The answer on whether to get the Continental Card now if you have not gotten one might depend on whether you get a targeted mega 50,000 bonus miles offer. At present, the current sign up bonus of Continental is 25,000 miles after the first purchase. You get 5,000 miles after adding an additional card member. That makes it a total of 30,000 bonus miles (OK but not impressive). You get an additional 10,000 bonus miles if you spending $25,000 every year. But if you purpose of getting the card is to churn, then the anniversary bonus doesn’t really matter in this case.

If you have received the targeted offer and it is 50,000 bonus miles, it might make applying for the Continental more attractive.

Conclusions – After going through the various scenarios, it appears that if you applied for the Continental Card before 19th July and you want to get the extra United sign up bonus, then you should cancel the card and get the United Explorer Card (either now or wait for a better sign up bonus). If you got your Continental Card after 19th July and have had it for a few months and you want to get the United sign up bonus, it probably makes sense to cancel it and get the Explorer Card. The worse case scenario would be that Chase refuses to give you the sign up bonus, but you would still be in the same position. The best case scenario would be that United has a mega sign up bonus and you now have extra miles in your account.

If you do not have either cards now and want to churn, it probably makes sense if you get the targeted 50,000 bonus miles offer.

If any of these sound dicey to you, the safest option to get more Continental United Miles would be to get both the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and the Chase Ink Bold. Both offer 50,000 sign up bonuses and you can get a total of 100,000 bonus miles, which can be converted to Continental OnePass miles (then to United Mileage Plus).

We have just completed a study that reveals the number of reward points required to redeem Apple products from all of the major credit card issuers. The purpose of the study was to see if it made economic sense to actually use reward points to get Apple products and also to see which reward program required the least points.

The credit card issuers involved in the study included Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Capital One, and American Express. The investigated reward programs were the Ultimate Rewards from Chase, Thank You from Citi, World Points from Bank of America, Capital One’s reward program (no name), and Membership Rewards from American Express.For the online shopping portals, we looked at Ultimate Rewards, Citi Thank You, Bank of America Add It Up, Capital One’s Perk Central and Discover’s Shop Discover Online.

Methodology – To conduct the study, we picked a few Apple products that were widely available in these reward programs. While we found that most had almost a full range of Apple’s products, we understood that choosing just a handful would be sufficient and not affect the results at all.

The products that we chose included the Apple iPod Touch 8GB version, the iPad 2 16GB with Wi-Fi and 3G with either AT&T or Version, MacBook Air 13 Inch and the MacBook Pro 15 inch version. Both the iPod Touch and iPad products led to easy comparisons because unlike the MacBook Pro, the internal components were very much standard and not subject to consumer customization. The MacBook Pro was a little trickier because different reward programs had slightly different specifications. Hence, we had to go beyond just looking at the number of points needed to redeem for the MacBook Air and Pro. Instead, we also had to look at the specs and then compare the price it would cost at an Apple store versus the points required from a reward program.

Explanation of the Value of Reward Points – For most reward programs, the average value of one hundred points is one dollar. Let us assume for the moment that for the most part, you will earn one point when you charge one dollar to your reward card. That means when you get one dollar of value from one hundred points, you essentially get a 1% return or rebate equivalent.

To ascertain if it is worth using reward points to redeem for Apple products, we first determined the price of the product. To do so, we simply took the standard price from Apple’s online store. Once we have the price of the product, we know that to achieve a one percent reward return from reward points, the number of points required would be the price of the product multiplied by one hundred. For example, if a product cost $1000, then to achieve a 1% return, 100,000 reward points are needed. If more than 100,000 points are needed (in this hypothetical example), we would conclude that it is not worth using your points to redeem for the products because most other basic rewards like gift cards and cash back will yield one percent.

Results of Study

iPod Touch 8GB – The iPod Touch 8GB cost $199 on the Apple store with free shipping. That means that the benchmark to watch out for in terms of points required is 19,900.

The Chase Ultimate Rewards program requires 19,400 points, but you need to pick up the product from a Best Buy store. The Membership Rewards requires 37,100 points, which is almost two times the number of points required by the Chase Ultimate Rewards, though shipping of the product is provided. Citi’s Thank You requires 23,700 points and requires store pickup. But the version on their reward program is the 4th generation and not the 5th generation. Capital One requires an amazing 54,500 points and Bank of America requires 22,000 points.

For the iPod Touch 8GB, the Chase Ultimate Rewards is the only program that that makes it worthwhile to exchange your points for it (based on the price of $199).

iPad 2 – with Wi-Fi and 3G – For the iPad 2, we used the 16GB model with Wi-Fi and 3G. The price on Apple’s store is $629. Therefore, we will be looking at reward programs that require about 62,900 points or less. Chase Ultimate Rewards requires 64,200 points. Membership Rewards requires 118,400 points. Capital One requires 163,250 points though it comes with casing and cover. Citi’s Thank You did not have this item. Bank of America requires 75,300 points. Once again, it appears that the Ultimate Rewards from Chase provides the best value using reward points for the iPad 2.

MacBook Air 13 Inch – For the MacBook Air 13 inch, the specifications is as follows. The processor was the Intel i5 Core, 1.7GHz and 256GB Solid State Drive. The price on Apple’s store was $1,799. Chase Ultimate Rewards needed 152,800 points. Membership Rewards needed 293,500 points. World Points needed 176,200 points. Citi Thank You did not have this model. Instead, they had the Core Duo with 128GB of Solid State Drive.

MacBook Pro 15 Inch – The last time is trickier because the specifications differ with different programs. The model we chose has Intel Core i7 with 2.2GHc Processing speed, 4GB Memory, 500GB SATA Hard Drive and Intel high-definition Graphics3000 and AMD Radeon HD6750M. On Apple’s online store, a similar model cost $1799.

Chase Ultimate Reward Points required 174,200 points. Membership Rewards has a very similar model on as the first model from Chase – Intel Core i7 2.2GHz processing speed, 4GB memory, 750GB Hard drive, Intel high-definition Graphics 3000 and AMD Radeon HD6750M with 1GB GDDR5. So it has a slightly more memory in the hard drive and AMD graphics. But the number of points required is 409,700 points.

Citi Thank You had a Intel Core i7 2.2GHz, and almost similar specs to Chase and Membership Rewards. The number of points required is 210,200 points.

Capital One requires 409,500 points. There were no specs on their website. Bank of America’s World Points does not have MacBook Pro in their reward program when we checked.

Observations

From this study, we can make the following observations.

1. If you would like to use reward points to redeem for Apple products, the Chase Ultimate Rewards program is the only program among the major credit card issuers that makes it worthwhile to do so. By using the Ultimate Reward points for Apple products, you are getting about one percent return or rebate equivalent.

2. The Ultimate Rewards program requires the least number of points for Apple product redemptions. Close behind is Bank of America’s World Points program and Citi Thank You.

3. Membership Rewards from American Express and Capital One require the most number of points.

4. All reward programs, with the exception of Capital One, listed detailed specification of the products in their catalog.

Conclusion

For the most part, using reward points in exchange for Apple Products in a credit card program yields less than 1% rebate or return on your reward points. The exception to this rule is the Ultimate Rewards program from Chase where you do get 1% and slightly more. Citi’s Thank You Rewards and Bank of America’s World Points require slightly more points than Chase and yields just slightly less than 1% in returns. One should avoid using Membership Reward points or reward points from Capital One for Apple products.

Here is the 5% Cash Back Rotating Categories for the Chase Freedom. I actually got this because I am a member and I got an email asking me to sign up for the first quarter. Here is the list.

January 1st to March 31st – Gas Stations, Amazon.com
April 1st to June 30th – Grocery Stores, Movie Theaters
July 1st to September 30th – Gas Stations, Restaurants
October 1st to December 31st – Hotels, Airlines, Best Buy and Kohl’s.

Chase Freedom 2012 Rotating Categories Compared To 2011 and 2010

Here are a couple of initial observations I have made. Firstly, there are two quarters where the “gas” category appears. This is actually good news because for six months, cardholders can get 5% rebates from gas stations. Secondly, I was surprised to see the addition of Amazon.com during the first quarter. I was also surprised and happy to see Kohl’s and Best Buy in the category for the 4th quarter, but as we will find out soon, it comes at the expense of the “department store category”.

In 2011 and 2010, grocery and drugstores, dining, utilities and child care were in the 1st quarter. This year, none of these categories appear in the first quarter and instead, it has been replaced by gas and purchases at amazon.com. In 2011, the second quarter category was main home furnishings and home improvements. For 2012, Chase has not even included this category at all. Instead, it has been replaced by grocery stores and movie theaters (great for folks who watch the latest summer releases). In the third quarter of 2011 and 2010, Chase had airlines, hotels and gas in the category. For 2012, it’s just gas and restaurants. Instead, they have shifted the hotels and airlines to the fourth quarter and added Kohl’s and Best Buy (which I think makes lots of sense). However, in 2010 and 2011, they did have the “department store” category in the 4th quarter and I’m sure that has helped many folks save lots of money. However, by including only Kohl’s and Best Buy, they have narrowed by the field and this is probably not such a great thing for cardholders the next holiday season.

To sum up, I think that having two quarters where you can earn 5% on gas is a great thing. Folks use the card for home improvement purchases in spring will not be too happy. It is also a shame that they took away the “department store” category in the fourth quarter of 2012 and instead replaced it with Kohl’s and Best Buy only.

Below is a screenshot of the email that I got.

Chase Freedom 2011 Rotating Categories

Jan 1 to March 31 – Grocery and Drugstores
April 1 to June 30 – Home Improvement, Lawn and Garden, Home Furnishings
July 1 to Sept 30 – Airlines, Gas, Hotels
October 1 to December 31 – Dining, Department Stores, Movies, Charity

Chase Freedom 2010 Rotating Categories

Jan 1 to March 31 – Dining, Utilities, Education/child care
April 1 to June 30 – Home Improvement, Lawn and Garden, Home Furnishings, Drugstore
July 1 to Sept 30 – Airlines, Gas, Hotels, Auto Rentals
October 1 to December 31 – Grocery Stores, Department Stores, Movies