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Select Citi Credit Cardmembers: Get 5% Back on Up to $500 in Online Purchases

Citi Credit Cards

From November 24 through November 30, 2020, select Citi credit cardmembers can spend up to $500 and get 5% back on their online purchases, for a maximum of $25 cash back through this offer.

To see if you are eligible for this offer, log into your online Citi account or the Citi Mobile app. If logging in through the Citi website, while viewing your credit card account, scroll to the bottom and click on the “All Offers” button. In the app, you would find the offer under Services >>> Products and Offers.

This offer starts November 24, or the date you enroll–whichever is later–and ends on November 30, 2020. Eligible Cards Include: Citi credit card, Citi-branded consumer and small business credit cards and retail cards (including, but not limited to, Best Buy, Macy’s, Home Depot, L.L. Bean, Shell, Sears) as well as authorized users of the Costco Anywhere Visa consumer and small business cards and CitiBusiness/ AAdvantage Platinum Select card.

Visa, MasterCard Agree to $7 Billion Swipe Fee Settlement

Visa, MasterCard SettlementVisa, MasterCard and banks that issue their credit cards have agreed to pay $7.3 billion to some 7 million U.S. merchants in a lawsuit over the fixing of credit card and debit card fees. The settlement, which includes $6.05 billion in payments for past damages and a temporary reduction in fees valued at $1.2 billion, is believed to be the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history.
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Get a $20 GC for Every $200 You Spend at the Mall with your Discover Card

Discover’s popular Holiday Mall promotion is back and is bigger than ever. For every $200 you spend on your Discover card at one of 160 participating shopping centers between November 1 and December 31, 2007, you’ll receive a $20 Discover gift card. There is a limit of five gift cards awarded per account.

For more details and to see a list of participating malls, see this link.

Are Discover’s Days Numbered?

On Friday, Morgan Stanley spun-off Discover Financial Services to focus on its higher-growth, core businesses. Already, there is speculation that Discover will be bought out in the near future:

“We believe there is a reasonable likelihood of a sale of Discover over the next two years,” wrote Eric W. Wasserstrom, a UBS research analyst, in a report initiating coverage on the company with a “neutral” rating.

Potential suitors include Citigroup, General Electric and Wal-Mart.

Fair Isaac to Change FICO Scoring System to Close Loophole

A couple months ago, I described how some were exploiting a credit scoring loophole for profit. It appears that Fair Isaac, the company that develops the FICO score, has noticed this trend and is moving towards stopping this abuse. As part of its planned overhaul of its credit scoring system in September, Fair Isaac will no longer consider authorized users on an account when calculating a credit score, thus effectively closing the loophole.

While this move should end this abuse of the system, it also has other ramifications. No longer will it be beneficial to add someone with a limited credit history, such as a child or a spouse, as an authorized user to help jumpstart their credit. Overall that is probably a worthwhile tradeoff to make. Lenders must have confidence that the score, which should only reflect an individual’s probability of repaying a debt, is not so easily manipulated.

No Balance Transfer Fee Within 30 Days of Chase Application?

A poster at FW is saying that many new Chase accounts actually have a 30 day period in which to make their initial balance transfer without paying a fee:

Chase just sent a memo to it’s credit supervisors telling them that some accounts that required a BT at the time of application to avoid BT fees, actually had a 30 day period in which to make a BT with no fees! Mine was one of them. So they must have had more complaints than just mine. So I moved 50% of that card’s cl to my interest bearing acct without any BT fees!. I think that the language on the application was very unclear and that is what caused all of this. SO if you got stuck paying a BT fee on a new account call Chase and see what they can do.

Sounds like this won’t apply to everyone, but the info may be useful for some rate surfers.