From: tpradeep@cs.tamu.edu (Pradeep K Tapadiya)
Subject: Incentives offered for using credit card - Summary
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:19:43 GMT

Howdy netters,

A few days ago I had asked on the net, using Citibank's citidollars
scheme as an example, if there are any other banks which offer
incentives for using their credit cards.

Following is the summary of reponses I have received.
In general, citidollars seem to be useless. One card
which you may find interesting is Ford Visa. There is no annual
fee for this card and you can get a cash back of 0.5 to 1.5% on
your purchases.

Pradeep
tpradeep@cs.tamu.edu

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From tamsun.tamu.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!usc!chaph.usc.edu!girtab.usc.edu!not-for-mail Thu Oct  8 08:32:48 CDT 1992

I have a Visa from Bank One, Columbus OH, that gives me 1 Northwest
World Perk mile for each dollar charged.  I know there are similar
cards offered for American Airlines and US Air.

For my card:
Annual fee: $35
Interest rate: 18.9%
No other perks (no flight insurance, buyers assurance plan, etc.)
Grace period : at least 25 days

Netters on rec.travel.air may no of others
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From dbinford@neptune.convex.com Wed Oct  7 17:46:38 1992

I found a VISA card that has a simular program as the Discover card.
It has no-annual fee, 28 day grace period on purchases, 19.8% interest,
and gives you cash back (0.5% -> 1.5%) on your purchases.  Perfect for
the person who pays their bill monthly in full, and likes a little back
once a year.

The card is the Ford VISA (as in Ford Motor Company), issued by:
	Associates National Bank (Delaware)
	1-800-638-FORD

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From FF76@vaxb.acs.unt.edu Wed Oct  7 22:45:20 1992

I don't know about you, but I find Citidollars of no value.  The prices are the
same as and sometimes marginally higher than what you can get at discount
stores, so that it's not worth locating an advertisement that has the price on
it and then sending it to them to get the "double difference."

Citibank has a Aadvantage-Citibank VISA or mastercard that accumulates 1 mile
for every dollar you charge to the card on American Airlines AAdvantage
frequent flyer program.  Unfortunately, the annual fee is $50.  Although I have
used it for about a year, I will probably cancel it soon.  It's just too
expensive when there are so many cards that are free of annual fees.
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From nfs@princeton.edu Thu Oct  8 09:32:36 1992

First Chicago has a card which gives you 1 mile on United's flyer
plan for every dollar spent.  The annual fee is $60, which is
pretty steep (I figure you pay extra for accumulating miles with
a solvent airline :).

You would have been better off asking in misc.consumers, methinks.

Norbert
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From mirin@hpnmdla.sr.hp.com Thu Oct  8 14:36:12 1992

I used to have a Citibank Visa card that offered Citidollar$, and now I
have a Chase Manhattan MC that has bonus dollars.  In both cases, I have
found these "bonuses" to be useless.  The merchandise that is offered is
not at particularly good prices, compared to comparable products, especially
since I usually don't buy something unless it's on sale to begin with.
Even with their money-back price guarantee, you will most likely find it
difficult to collect on it.  A common trick is to offer a different brand
or a special model that you can't find elsewhere, so they can just say that
you're not comparing to EXACTLY the same product.  On top of that, you
have to pay shipping charges on your purchase, which you can't add on when
you're comparing prices.  In all the years that I had these two cards, I've
never used any of the "bonus" dollars at all.

As for cards that offer frequent flyer miles, just about every airline offers
such a card.  The catch is that there's ALWAYS an annual fee, ranging from
$30 to $55 per year or higher.  If you charge a lot of money on your card
each year, I suppose this could be worthwhile, but otherwise you're just
throwing money away.  I'm in favor of no annual fee cards myself, so I don't
own any of these.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Mirin Lew