by PointsGuru | Feb 13, 2015 | Charity
Discover Card tried a biodegradable card a few years back but it was not as generous as this new card from Commerce Bank out of Kansas City. Sustain:Green MasterCard is a unique card with a set of features designed to fight climate change and sustain the planet. This card reduces your personal carbon footprint, funds rainforest preservation and reforestation, and is a biodegradable card with every dollar you spend.
This biodegradable credit card comes with no annual Fee and a low APR of 1.99% on Purchases and Balance Transfers for 6 monthly billing cycles after account opening, then a competitive rate of 12.24% to 18.24% APR.
You can reduce your carbon footprint by 2 pounds for every dollar in Net Merchandise Purchases. Plus, Sustain:Green will reduce your carbon footprint by an additional 5,000 pounds of carbon offsets when you make your first purchase within 90 days. Spend at least $1,250 in a calendar quarter and Sustain:Green will reduce your carbon footprint by an additional 2,500 pounds, up to an additional 10,000 pounds per year.
You can use their carbon calculator to figure out your personal carbon footprint and our tools to monitor how you are doing in reducing your footprint and aiding the fight against climate change. You can also earn additional carbon reductions by referring friends and family.
How do they do this carbon footprint reducing? This green-friendly card issuer has partnered with the non-profit American Carbon Registry and the Mata No Peito rainforest initiative to achieve their carbon reduction goals. Mostly by automatically retiring carbon offsets on a monthly basis through the American Carbon Registry.
They also provide typical Mastercard benefits such as environmentally friendly E-Statements, Optional Auto Pay, 24/7 Customer Service (except holidays) and Online Account Access, and $100,000 Travel Accident Insurance.
Overall it looks to be a great card when you want to feel better about your consumption and what it’s doing to the environment. Although, I prefer to get the rewards myself then decide what charity or green organization deserves my money from “hard earned” shopping.
by PointsGuru | Feb 13, 2015 | Discover
If you ask me hands down the Best Superbowl commercial 2015 goes to Discover IT card who we have always been behind as one of the best cards for rewards. You just have to watch this if you have not seen it yet because it can already be a hassle to talk to a rep normally on the phone although truly with Discover a call is like this at first. He calls in and gets a human and that did NOT happen a year or so ago so this is a great change for the company. I called in and was ‘surprised’ myself a human answered I thought I called the wrong number.
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by PointsGuru | Feb 11, 2015 | US Bank
US Bank features the Edge cards such as Chase has the INK cards and Capital One provides the Spark cards series. Make sure that when you apply you are actually getting the specific card in the Edge brand of cards such as the “Business Edge Select Rewards Card”.
The Business Edge Select Rewards Card is a card where you can decide which 3% back categories similar to the Cash Plus card from US Bank on the personal level. With this card you decide once and you are locked into that category and do not have the opportunity to change it again. So no quarterly changes. Earn 3 points per dollar on net purchases in the category of your choice and one point per dollar on all other net purchases. The categories you can select from include:
- Day-to-day expenses, such as shipping, advertising, utilities, office supplies, telecom and professional services.
- Automotive, such as gas, service, tires, tolls, dealerships, car washes and repairs.
- Travel and entertainment, such as airlines, auto rental, hotels, restaurants and travel agencies.
Before we go any further let me point out that we highly recommend the Business Edge Cash Rewards Card over the Select version:
These Day-to-day expenses according to a representative at US Bank include a range of random things. Including insurance, tax prep, accounting, bookkeeping, direct marketing, computer services, data processing, management consulting, PR, legal services (8111), misc. business services, computers, equipment and software, stationery, blue printing, photocopying, commercial photography arts, laundry services, dry cleaners, uniform rental, cleaning janitorial service, exterminating disinfecting, equip rental, furniture rental, carpet upholstery cleaning, trucking moving storage, postal government only, courier services air group freight, publishing, ad services, employment agencies, temp help, tax payments, telecommunications equip telephones, long distance carriers, computer network info services, cable, utilities such as electric, gas, water, and sewage. Now that is a long list of things the card covers at the “3%” cash back in points.
We were excited in that you can pay taxes on this card and get 3% back and it really just comes to 2% back or less when you go to redeem the points. The problem is that when you go over to redemption it gives you a far less ratio than 1:1 that you would expect. The gift cards pay a bit higher as I was able to redeem an Amazon gift card for 7,000 points but only for $50. With many cash back cards you would get $70.00 statement credit or gift card for those 7,000 points. One example of redemption is with 7097 points you would only get back $47.55 statement credit. You may redeem as few as 2,500 of your Points for a statement credit of $16.75. Points can only be redeemed in incremental values of $0.01.
Another example is 5,000 points = $33.50 Reward. I am not too happy about really not getting a 3% back or full 1% back when it comes to a redemption that devalues my earnings. Therefore, I plan to cancel this card as soon as I can redeem any points I have left in the next billing statement and trade it in for a Business Edge Cash Rewards Card which will pay you at a 1:1 ratio.
Another thing I found out after I redeemed for an Amazon Gift card was that you can get a $50 U.S. Bank Rewards Visa Card
for the same 7,000 Points.
It’s been a real struggle
It has been an experience with this Business Edge Select Rewards Card from day one. First, I applied for the Business Edge Platinum Card somehow instead of the Rewards Card. I am not sure how the applications were switched up online but it happened. You really have to double-check then maybe triple check what card you are actually applying for after clicking around. I then noticed I was not earning rewards nor did I get the $100 bonus it talked about in the bullet points. I called in and I had the wrong card and why would I want a Platinum card with no rewards? I don’t and did not intend to apply for that. They changed my card to a rewards card and I was so excited to get this card I could get 3% back on utilities and business expenses. After finally getting my utilities changed over to this card I find out it does not pay back on the 1:1 ratio for statement credits or gift cards. Yes, after all these months and work of trying to figure out their system and getting the cards straightened out. But that is why there are sites such ass this one to get in the know before you apply for a card. I will also say that the phone customer service takes awhile to pick up so be sure to have lots of time on your hands. While I had such a horrible experience with this card I should not have assumed I would get a full ratio cash back and had not had assumed I would get the correct card after applying before charging on the card. You always have to check all of this. I do enjoy other US Bank cards and they have been great to me with the Cash+ Visa and the Club Carlson Business Visa and I do plan to keep using these cards.
by PointsGuru | Feb 11, 2015 | International Travel
Etihad Guest is doing tons of promotions and these two will take a few minutes of your day just to sign up for a chance at 1,150 miles plus a luggage tag, lightning cable, or iPhone screen protector. You’ll receive 1,000 bonus miles, when you complete your first earn transaction before 31 March 2015. That could be for flying with Etihad Airways or one of their partner airlines, paying with an Etihad Guest credit card, or spending with our non-air partners. For example hotels, car rental companies and retail partners.
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