Things to do before canceling a credit card

If you are considering cancelling a card because you don't want to pay the annual fee that is about to become due, you may be able to reduce or avoid the fee, or get a worthwhile number of miles for paying it, or get some other good offer.

Most miles and points programs will cancel all of your miles or points if you do not have activity on your account for a certain period of time (usually 1½ - 3 years), and the trend is that this time period is getting shorter. So, charge something on the card so that it will post on the last statement before you close the account, thus giving you activity on your miles or points account as late as possible.
Before the fee is posted on the account, call customer service to see if you can wait until you see the fee on your bill before you decide to pay it. Most credit card companies will allow you to cancel the card and will refund the fee within 30 or so days of its posting. Find out that time limit. I call about 10 months after receiving the card, as sometimes I am offered a multiple miles/$1 spent for a month or so, just for keeping the card. Then I cancel it anyway.

If you can wait for the fee to post, do so, and call to cancel just before your deadline. By that time miles for renewal may have been sent to your airline, and may not be retrieved if you cancel.
Call the customer service number and tell them you do not want to pay the fee. They will send you to a special unit that will try to convince you to keep the card. Be politely insistent that you will not pay the fee. Wait for the offer you want - miles and/or no fee. Expect to be offered a not very useful free card that offers 1 mile per $2 spent. Refuse this, telling them that you can get a free card with 1 mile per $1 spent. (Be ready with the names of some, which you can find on my Free Cards Page. The Starwood card is always a good one to mention.) Your success will depend on how valuable a customer they think you are. Don't bluff. Be prepared to allow the card to be cancelled if you don't get what you want.

For many cards, it is possible to cancel them, wait awhile, then get them again, with the up front bonus again.

Is Bad Credit Good?

Could a bad credit rating save you from bigger problems? It has done just that for many young people. How can this be?

I am not recommending that you purposely try to get a bad credit rating, but if you already have one, it isn't all bad. The habits that got you there would probably get you into even more trouble if you could borrow more bad credit loans. Look at it as an opportunity to stop going further into debt, and a chance to learn better habits.

Start paying cash for everything. Pay down those credit card balances (the higher interest ones first). The moment you get those cards paid off, start setting aside money to buy a good used car for cash. When you've done that, start putting what would have been a car payment into a savings account, for a future down payment on house or a business (the only things you should borrow for). A bad credit credit card rating can be good thing, if you take it as a lesson and an opportunity.

Many money from P2P Lending

There are actually quite a few companies around the globe that offer P2P lending. You may want to consider diversifying a bit by purchasing loans from regular people like yourself after consdering the high returns of upto 12% for your money. Some of the peer-to-peer lending sites that have sprung up recently are:

1. LendingClub, Currently, LendingClub "lenders" are earning an average of 12.15%
Lending Club gives $25 bonus for new borrowers or lenders.

2. Zopa.com, Zopa "investors" are earning "up to 5.1%,"

3. Prosper - Offers $25 bonus for new lenders, Prosper lenders are earning from around 9.49 to 12.81%.

4. Loanio, which is not yet live.

5. Kiva, offers loans to people in 3rd world countries; lenders only receive their principle back, but do not earn interest. This is seen mostly as doing something good with your money and giving people an opportunity they may not have otherwise had.

These P2P sites works in the following way. Potential borrowers need money, for business expansion, debt consolidation, etc. These sites do thorough credit checks, gives borrowers a credit rating, and then lets potential "lenders" bid on their loans. "Lenders" can bid a minimum of $50 to a maximum of $25,000. When bidding, "lenders" specify the lowest interest rate they are willing to accept from the borrower. The lowest bids are accepted, and when, within a specified time (sort of like in an Ebay auction), the borrower's full amount is funded, the loan begins. The borrower makes monthly payments, which the "lenders" collect. P2P sites charge the borrower a fee and also takes a small percentage of the repayments.

FREE 10,000 Points from Hilton HHonors Credit Card

American Express has a special on the Hilton HHonors Platinum Credit Card. Sign up now and get 10,000 HHonors points for free, which is enough for free stay at certain Hilton Hotels. This is a great travel credit card if you stay at Hilton Family hotels.

1. Get 5 Hilton HHonors® bonus points for each eligible dollar spent on stays at over 2,700 Hilton Family hotels worldwide and for eligible purchases at supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations, dining establishments, the U.S. Postal Service, and for wireless phone bills

2. Get 3 HHonors bonus points for every eligible dollar you spend on purchases

3. No annual fee

How to Increase your Amex Blue Credit Card Credit Limit to 25K or 50K

A few people asked me how you can get a Amex blue card with a high $50,000 credit limit. It is very simple and I know some people who did this successfully. Amex doesn’t need any sort of a income verification process for any credit line increase of 25k and under. You can either call them during business hours or do it online anytime at http://www.americanexpress.com/cards/loc.shtml

I will guarantee that if you put in a 6 digit income(which they dont verify for requests under 25k) they will auto approve you to a 25k credit limit. Now if you are still wondering how to get a 50k limit on the card, it is just 1 step longer. If you have two cards say an American Express Blue rewards card, and a Blue cash card then call in to close the rewards card, but tell them you'd rather just consolidate the limits first of both cards (25k each at the time) and then just close the other card. They should be happy to do it, and dont require any verification at all.

Note that part of your credit score is your utilization rate on a card. If your credit limit is 5K and you owe $2,500 then your utilization rate is 50% and that looks pretty bad on your credit score till you pay it off. If you have a 50k limit and have a $2,500 balance, then a 5% utilization rate would look very favorably on your credit score.

Free credit card processing - Google Checkout

Increase your sales with Google Checkout™.

Google Checkout is currently running a promotional offer to process all of your Checkout sales for free until 2008. And there are no monthly, setup or gateway fees.

Google Checkout also helps you more effectively turn your traffic into paying customers. Lengthy checkout processes frustrate online shoppers who then frequently abandon their shopping carts. With Google Checkout, the purchasing information of each Checkout user is stored in a single account, so they can buy from you by simply providing their username and password.

Tip:
1) You can use arbitrage techniques along with Google Checkout to make more money.
2) Simply use a 0% APR credit card with a high credit line along with google checkout and deposit the money in a high yield savings account.
3) Note that you cant sell something to yourself, so you will need a seller to setup a Google Checkout account for legally processing your transaction.

Google checkout is at-par with other services like Merchantaccounts Company that offer Offshore services that also offer lower transaction rates.

Google Checkout's free transaction processing offer has now been extended to February 1, 2008. Click here to learn more about this offer.

Get Cash using Cash-out Refinance

Do you know that you can take cash out from the equity that you have built up on your home loan? Yes, you can. This can be explained easily with a scenario.


Consider that you have a home loan for $200000. If your home is worth $250000 then you can use that to draw cash by refinancing your home loan. You can refinance for, say $220000 and get a cash of $20000 from the lender upon closing your existing home loan.


You can refinance to any value between $200K and $250K and take the amount that is excess of $200K. People who need money immediately for some other purpose can use this method to get the cash needed.


In the case of home equity you can take a refinance loan for the amount that you need without changing the original mortgage.


There are many websites in the internet that help you compare the home equity loans and the cash-out refinancing option. A simple search on the Internet would give you access to these tools that might be very useful to you. Alternatively you can discuss with an expert to get the right picture about these options.