How to Improve Your Credit by Using Credit Cards and Store Cards

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Frequent Flyer Credit Card
The amount of air travelers is growing every year. As this trend continues there is growing interest in airlines to earn the business and trust of these travelers. Most airlines today offer some type of frequent flyer benefits.

American express and Southwest Airlines were the first companies to offer such packages. Customer loyalty was rewarded with free trips after a threshold of fligh... Read credit cards article



Bad Credit Home Loan To Get You Out Of Debt
A "bad credit home loan" can help you climb your way out of debt and get you started back on the road to upstanding, good credit. There are many lenders who are willing to make bad credit home loans to you - a loan based on your equity in your home even if your credit has slipped or isn't as perfect as it could be. By taking out a bad credit home mortgage or home equity loan, you can consolidate a... Read article



How to Improve Your Credit by Using Credit Cards and Store Cards
If you have bad credit or no credit or even a bankruptcy, you can improve your credit score.

First, you should get copies of your credit report. The three major bureaus are: Trans Union http://www.transunion.com/, Experian http://www.experian.com/ and Equifax http://equifax.com.

You need all three bureaus as not all creditors report to all the bureaus.

Once you have a copy of your credit report, check it for accuracy. You can dispute incorrect items online. This is what credit card companies and lenders look at: Number of outstanding accounts and high balance. If your balances are high on many accounts, this lowers your FICO score. Pay them down.

The trick to improving your credit score is to have low balances on your accounts. Primarily on installment and credit card balances.

If you have no credit or a bankruptcy, the easiest thing to do is apply for a secured credit card. Make sure the card you get reports to the bureaus.

A note about bankruptcy: usually once the bankruptcy is discharged, you will get more credit card offers in the mail than you can stand.

Be sure to check the terms of the card. Many have tons of fees. A typical Bad credit card offer will have as much as $250 in fees and give you a $350 limit. You get a whopping $100 line of credit. Shred that one. There are better offers. You should be able to get one with little or no fees.

Use your credit cards wisely, but do use them. Use them and pay them off right away. This does two things: the credit bureaus see your good history and the credit card company will increase your limit.

Doing this just once can improve your FICO score 20 to 50 points.

It will take some time but over time your FICO score will continue to improve. After about a year or so, apply for another card with a low or no interest rate. When you get that one transfer your balances to the better card and close the other accounts.

You now have a clean credit report.

I hope this informatin has been helpful to you.

If you would like to apply for a credit card good, bad, or no credit go here: Credit Source

Wayne Meyers has been in the finance business for over 20 years. Experienced in Business and Personal Finance. Including Mortgages and Sub prime Lending, Credit Counseling and Bankruptcy.

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Credit cards - Make Free Money From Balance Transfer Offers

Its All About the Details

In Part II of this article, we looked at some of the things that people to need to watch out for in implementing this balance transfer arbitrage strategy. It wasn't the complete list, but it was enough to make it crystal clear that careful attention has to be paid to the details - the fine print - in order to profit from balance transfers. As I mentioned in Part I, the details are in the terms & conditions of the offer. Today, we're going to examine the terms & conditions from an actual balance transfer offer I received in the mail to determine if it is good enough to make some free money with if we accept the issuer's credit card. I recently received an offer from American Express for its Blue Cash card, so we are going to take a look at the terms & conditions for Blue Cash.

Here's What We're Looking For

Here are 4 things to know when screening balance transfer offers for this arbitrage strategy:

(1) The APR for the balance transfer;
(2) The transaction fee to transfer the balance and the caps;
(3) The annual fees; and
(4) The length of time for the promotional interest rate.

In reviewing at the terms & conditions for the American Express Blue Cash card, I noticed the following:

(a) There's a 4.99% APR for the life of the balance on balance transfer requests submitted with the credit card application - any subsequent balance transfers will be subject to the substantially higher, standard purchase APR; (b) There's no balance transfer fee with the offer, but subsequent balance transfers may be subject to an unknown balance transfer fee; (c) No annual fee; and (d) The 4.99% APR is good for only 6 months.

A few other details: American Express has its own bank and by accepting their offer to transfer credit card balances to that bank, you authorize it to forward the balance transfer check to the credit card company the balance is being transferred from. The card also offers up to 5% cash back on purchases and has a 0% APR on purchases for the first 6 months of membership, but after that the purchase APR rises significantly. Depending upon your credit history the purchase APR, which is a variable one, could range from 13.24%, 15.24% or 18.24%.

The Verdict is In

If you've read Parts I & II of this article, you know that the objective of the balance transfer arbitrage strategy is to make a profit on the spread between what it costs you to borrow the money and the net interest you pocket on the borrowed money after you pay off the card balance. The greater the spread, the greater the opportunity to make a profit and the narrower the spread, the smaller the opportunity to make a profit. Based upon its terms & conditions, the American Express Blue Cash card offer is an extremely poor candidate for the arbitrage game. For starters, the balance transfer APR of 4.99% makes our cost of funds too high to overcome. 0% APR is best. Second, the 6 month time frame is too short. Look for a 12 to 15 month time frame. Lastly, by accepting the offer, a cardholder authorizes American Express' bank to issue and forward the balance transfer check to his or her old credit card issuer. This completely knocks out any chance of making money with this strategy! The offer must permit a cardholder to write a check to himself/herself, and must be able to do so without the check being treated as a cash advance. Oh well, its time to google "balance transfer offers" because, I really don't want to sort through stacks of junk mail again.

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All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted provided it remains as is and all links remains intact.

Ray Harris writes articles on credit, investments and personal finance. He is the webmaster of a website that provides information on a variety of credit card offers, including balance transfer offers.




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How to Improve Your Credit by Using Credit Cards and Store Cards
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