It appears that one of the easiest way to get a cashback offer on American Express TrueEarning credit card for Costco is not to use the card too much except at Costco.  I have got this offer every year since I signed up the credit card.  My shopping pattern for this card is I only use this card at Costco, and very occasionally I use it besides at Costco.  Then during the summer, American Express will mail me this offer of “spending $750 outside Costco in two month to get $20 bonus rebate” which is in addition to the regular cash rebate of 3% for dining out, 2% for travel, and 1% for everything else.

Such high percentage rebate amount doesn’t come by often.  So I’m going to put all of my purchase on this card, besides grocery/gas/drug which I can get 5% back on Citi Platinum Select Dividend Card.

Hmm, spending $750 for two months besides grocery/gas/drug is a little high for me.  At such time, I may simply prepay some of my bills that are payable by American Express, stock up on miscellaneous items, or take the penalty of paying a fee of $5.95 to buy the Simon Mall Visa gift card which I can always use anywhere later.  If you have any other good ideas on pre-spending without wasting money, please do let me know.  Thanks.

Identity thefts has been on the rise, because of its ease and its potential “return” on theft.  If you think from the perspective of a thief, it is much safer to steal your mails, rather than intruding your homes.  But the potential “returns” go beyond your household items.  The thief can simply buy the stuffs that he or she really wants or make a mortgage loan ON YOUR CREDIT.

What are the things that one can do to prevent ID thefts?  Here is what I consider the most effective methods:

1. Never give out your social security number or use it as any passwords.
2. Properly thread or destroy any important personal financial documents.
3. Call 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) to reduce the mails on credit card offers.  If you don’t get those junk mails, your mail thieves won’t get them either.
4. Carefully shop online.  Only do business with reputable vendors.  Use www.bbb.org (Better Business Bureau) to check out the integrity of online/offline companies.  Try using services such as Virtual Account Numbers provided by Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card, which allows you to generate multiple one-time credit card numbers for online shoppings.  This way your true credit card information will not be given out to unreliable merchants.
5. Regularly check your credit report for frauds.  Yeah, I know there are a lot of “free” offers with some strings attached.  But if you go to www.annualcreditreport.com, or click on Free Credit Reports on the right column of this page, it will take you to the only and truly free credit report site.  This site was mandated by government.  You can get one free credit report every year from the three credit reporting companies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.  The way that I use this service is that I request my credit reports every four months, but rotating through the three agencies.  This way I request credit report every year from each agency, but every four months I get to look at my credit report for any frauds.  The worst scenario is to have the fraud go undetected for four months.
6. If you are extremely worried, you can freeze your credit usually for a small fee, or you can place a fraud alert for free whenever you “think” your credits are misused.  A fraud alert message will stay in your credit report file for 3 months to 1 year, depending on which credit reporting agency.

Please let me know if you have other good tips.

The credit card issuers got more competitive again since the last time I shopped around. Because the average cost for Visa/Mastercard transactions is about 1.7%, and can be almost 3% for small merchants, I always thought that getting mostly 1% cashback out of 1.7% total on my Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card is pretty good already. I just found out an even better cashback credit card offered by Emigrant Direct. Here is the summary of some credit cards (all zero annual fee) that I think are worthwhile mentioning:

1. Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card: 5% cashback on gas/drug/grocery, and 1% on everything else. $300 max rebate per year. Cash rebate can be paid out once it’s more than $25. I currently have two cards because I usually run out of the $300 yearly limit. At 5%, you only need to have $6000 of gas/grocery bill to reach $300. (The term of this card has been changed, and I have replaced this card by two other cards in another post.)
2. TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express (AMEX): 3% for restaurants, 2% for traveling, and 1% on everything else. Annual fee waived with Costco renewal. Since Costco does not accept Visa/Mastercard, I also have this card. Two other American Express (AMEX) credit cards, AMEX Costco Cash Rebate and Blue Cash have tiered structure, and you will need to spend $11000 and $13000 a year separately to beat a flat 1% cash rebate card. Above those spending levels, you get only 0.5% extra back.
3. EmigrantDirect Platinum MasterCard (issued by Juniper Bank): this is my new find. It will pay a flat 1.40% cashback if your average daily balance of your EmigrantDirect Savings Account is at least $10000. Otherwise, it’s 0.50% cashback. It pays every six month, and goes into your saving account directly. I called EmigrantDirect, and have confirmed that the cashback will not be lumped in as part of the bank interest money on which you will need to pay tax. Since EmigrantDirect Savings Account earns 4.65% APY, this is really a no brainer deal.

Why is that I’m only interested in cashback credit cards? Other credit cards such as airline credit cards may end up giving you a slightly better value. However, accumulating airline miles or reward points is simply not straightforward enough. The credit card company can always change the reward schedule of airline or redemption point to their benefit. I prefer a simple straight deal of simply getting cashback.

P.S. I got most of my pointers from www.creditcards.com. It’s a pretty easy website to navigate, if you are interested in any other kinds of credit cards.