Archive for 'Fun Money' Category

By Jim Sloan

For those just out of college or starting fresh, a break in the form of traveling to another state or country is usually near the top of wish lists. Finding ways to fund traveling however, can be a significant barrier to actually realizing this. If you're good with credit cards, though, a new promotion from Capitol One may be able to help you with your travel ticket.

Traveling in reach?

Capital One has rolled out a new Venture Rewards credit card promotion with a "Match My Miles" promotion that will match the number of miles you have accumulated on another airline credit card up to 100,000 miles.

You earn the additional 100,000 miles--the equivalent of $1,000--if you put at least $1,000 on the card in the first three months.

The offer is good for new Venture and Venture for Business primary account holders. Current Capital One cardholders who want to upgrade to the Venture Rewards card or swap their existing Capital One card will get the mile match if they get approved, said Sukhi Sahni, a senior communications manager with Capital One.

The company will continue the offer this until they've given away a billion miles or until May 13, 2011, whichever comes first--it's a first-come, first-served proposition.

Miles on top of miles: How does it work?

If you have airline miles on one of 13 airline credit cards currently on the market, Capital One will match

By Joe Taylor Jr.

Take care of your credit, and credit card companies will want to take care of you.

Banks have put together some hard-to-find credit card offers to attract consumers with high FICO scores. If you've built a strong credit history, you can earn unusually high cash back rebates, travel perks, and low interest rates on balance transfers. According to CardRatings.com, five credit cards rank highest at offering great perks to consumers with excellent credit:

1. Discover More Card--Over the past few years, Discover Card has made some of the boldest moves to attract more consumers with high credit scores. Earn this card, and you can enjoy a zero percent balance transfer for 18 months with just a 4 percent transfer fee. During your first six months with the card, you'll pay no interest on purchases while earning between 1-5 percent in Cashback Bonus rewards.
2. Simmons Visa Platinum--You've probably never heard of Simmons Bank, and they're probably okay with that. Simmons saves its credit card invitations for consumers with the very highest credit scores. Apply via one of their credit card applications online, and you can surf your other debt to a Visa card with an APR as low as 7.25 percent and no balance transfer fee.
3. Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express Card--One of the best cash back credit cards on the market requires you to maintain a brokerage account at Fidelity Investments. If your FICO score
   

By Peter Andrew

Time was when it was, "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." Nowadays, young and old, male and female seem pretty focused on the subject year-round, although Valentine's Day may well trigger many to seek out their perfect partner through an online dating site. But at what cost?

How not to get dates

When I was on the dating scene, in the days before the web, I had a tried and tested five-step process for attracting new partners:

1. Meet friends at appropriate bar/club
2. Pick from a distance the person/people I wanted to chat with
3. Drink bladder-bursting quantities of beer in order to build up Dutch courage
4. Eventually, stagger across to the object of my desire, and slur--in a haze of foul alcohol fumes--some corny chat-up line
5. Receive a withering put-down/slap/false phone number

Yes, it was tried and tested, and it almost invariably failed.

How to get dates

If I were in the market for a new lover now, I'd save a fortune in bar tabs, and do my liver an enormous favor. Because I'd almost certainly try online dating. And why not? It sure can work: the last two weddings I've attended have both been the result of Internet encounters through matchmaking websites, and one 2010 study suggested that 17 percent of new marriages over the previous year had come about this way.

But what I would save in beer, I could easily spend on dating site fees. Because online dating can be quite expensive.

Putting a price on love

It's not

By Peter Andrew

I'm not expecting any sympathy, but it's not easy writing product reviews. That's because it's rarely possible to rank different features in a way that's meaningful to everyone.

Take televisions as an example. I badly need a new one, and recently started reading TV reviews. All I've discovered so far is that there isn't a perfect model, or certainly not one in my price range. One has a brilliant picture, but slightly lower sound quality, or vice versa. Another is great except for occasional motion blur during action sequences. Yet more are good, but ugly, and don't fit in with my living room decor. When I eventually come to make a choice, I'll have to decide which of these factors are most important to me personally.

And it's the same with credit cards. I can tell you all about the Chase Sapphire? credit card, but whether it's the best for you will depend on your individual needs and wants. What I can say for sure is that it is a good all-rounder, and that you should almost certainly include it on your list of potential cards.

Not for everyone

But let's begin by identifying those who should think carefully first before including it on their list of possibilities. If your credit score's going through a down patch, the chances of your application for a Chase Sapphire card being accepted are remote. This is a premium product that's reserved for those with great credit.

In

By Jim Sloan

I never really paid much attention to the rewards programs offered by different credit card companies. I was raised to use credit cards only for emergencies and not for everyday use, so my sole criteria for getting a card was that the interest rate be as low as possible.

But then a friend of mine told me he was planning a trip to China, and was going to pay for his plane ticket through the rewards he was earning on his credit card.

"I'm paying for everything with my card," he said. "All my monthly bills - the rent, the groceries, the phone bill, everything. Then at the end of the month, I just write a check to the credit card company instead of eight or 10 checks to all these other places."

And it worked. After several months, my friend and his wife were able to get the tickets for next to nothing--all thanks to the judicious use of their credit card.

The fine print of rewards cards

Even if you're not planning a trip to China, this approach can work for anyone, provided you keep a few things in mind as you decide which rewards credit card programs works best for you:

• Rewards cards usually carry higher interest rates than non-rewards cards. That means if you're not paying off the balance every month, your interest payments will quickly exceed your rewards.
• Look for rewards that you'll use. The points you earn

By MoneyBlueBook

Reviews of the Best Paid Online Surveys: Avoid Internet Survey Scams

If you are searching for a genuinely legitimate paid online survey, you're at the right place. The following is a recommended list of popular online marketing firms that are offering free paid surveys and is a nice resource for people looking to make some money online from home or earn a little bit of extra cash on the side by filling out short survey questionnaires. After much research with a lot of trial and error, I've compiled a list of what I've found to be the top paid online survey programs that compensate participants with either cash or gift card rewards for completed surveys.

If you've already conducted an online search via Google.com or Bing.com for the best paid surveys, then you've probably already noticed that the vast majority (95%) of those search results invariably lead to some rather scammy looking links or to websites that try to convince you to fork over a membership fee for exclusive access to some secret list of paid surveys. It's a sad and rather sobering sight to see, but the Internet is littered to the brim with such misleading resources and self interested clutter. Don't buy the marketing hype or misleading online promotions that suggest that you must actually pay money to gain access to some super secret list. If a survey company starts asking you to pay an upfront charge, run away as fast as you can - lest you unwittingly succumb to the online scam. There is