According to a recent AP article, the federal government will soon be cracking down on credit card issuers who engage in “unfair and deceptive” practices. More specifically, the proposed rules would prohibit:

1. Placing unfair time constraints on payments.

2. Unfairly allocating payments among balances with different interest rates.

3. Unfairly raising annual percentage rates on outstanding balances.

4. Levying high fees for exceeding the credit limit because of a hold placed on the account.

5. Unfairly computing balances.

6. Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making credit available.

7. Making deceptive offers of credit.

Check it out… $1200 worth of credit cards offers!

It’s been awhile since I’ve put together a list of credit card signup bonuses, so I thought I’d spend a little time compiling the best offers out there. What follows is a list of fifteen credit card bonus offers worth $50-$200 apiece. While some of these cards have an annual fee, all but one are free for the first year.

A note about business cards… Believe it or not, anyone can apply for a business credit card. Simply list your name as the business name (this makes you a “sole proprietor”) and use your SSN instead of a Federal Tax ID. That’s it. No fuss, no muss.

Now, without further ado, here are the offers listed in order of the bonus amount… [more]

When I was a kid, my parents went to the bank to get traveller’s checks before every major vacation. And yet… Now that we’re in the final stages of planning for our Disney cruise, it struck me that my wife and I never get traveller’s checks before we travel. And I suspect that we’re not alone. As a wise man once told me, travellers checks are so 1987…

I’m guessing that the big difference is the prevalence of credit and/or debit cards now vs. then. Since we put pretty much everything on our reward credit cards, there’s little need to carry much in the way of cash or traveller’s checks. And yet… While the situation will be much the same on our cruise in that we’ll be able to charge pretty much everything to our cabin and/or pay with a credit card, I still find myself thinking about picking up some traveller’s check before we depart.

What about you? Do you use traveller’s checks? Why or why not?

The question of whether or not to pay your taxes with a credit card has been around for a few years now. According to conventional wisdom, the answer is “no” — the fees associated with doing this are simply too high. But what if your reward credit card is generous enough to more than offset those fees?

Edit: While there used to be a great 5% cash back promo floating around, it has since expired… When this deal was still available, you could couple it with payment through OfficialPayments.com, which charges a 2.49% processing fee, and you can earn a quick 2.51% by paying your tax bill with a credit card.

I would’ve been all over this deal myself this year if we hadn’t intentionally under-withheld to the point that our tax bill will be far larger than what we could reasonably put on a credit card.

Update to add: And no, your credit card rewards aren’t taxable.

Here’s a cautionary tale for those of you that prefer debit cards over credit cards… Earlier this week, someone at Dreamhost accidentally typed the wrong year into their billing software. The end result was a wave of inadvertent overbilling to the tune of more than $7.5 million.

Not only did this error annoy the vast majority of their customers, but it actually caused serious financial hardship for some. Indeed, although they’re refunding everybody’s money, those that had debit cards on file lost the money straight out of their bank accounts, and many ended up with overdrafts (read through the comments here). At least one customer even reported have their mortgage payment bounce because of this error. Not good. But for those that had credit cards on file, it was no big deal. Dreamhost restored the funds and life goes on.

So… It looks like my list of reasons that credit cards rock and debit cards suck just got longer.

Awhile back, I noted that we had received a mysterious collections call, and later learned that we had been inadvertently sent to collections by our local Urgent Care facility. Unfortuantely, I had used up my free annual credit reports when I first got the call, so when we later learned what was going on, I wanted to check to see if anything had subsequently shown up on our reports. [more]

Last week I wrote about four credit cards with signup bonuses, including the Amex Preferred Rewards Gold Card, Amex Preferred Rewards Green Card, Discover More Card, and Chase Freedom Cash Rewards Visa.

Well, Discover has apparently decided to suspend their $40 signup bonus at the end of this month. So… If you’re looking for a Discover card and are interested in snagging a nice little signup bonus, be sure to apply before the end of the month.

Okay, this just makes me laugh… According to a blurb in the most recent issue of Bottom Line/Personal, many jails accept credit cards for posting bail. But wait, it gets better:

“Cardholders can go home quickly - and may get reward points on their credit cards.”

So if you’re looking for another way to make use of your reward credit card, look no further than you local jail.

This is just a quick note to let you know that American Express has rolled out another couple of promotions… For a limited time, if you apply for the Amex Preferred Rewards Gold Card you’ll get 10,000 bonus points, which can be exchanged for a $100 gift card, after your first purchase. Alternatively, if you apply for the Amex Preferred Rewards Green Card you’ll get 5,000 bonus points, which can be exchanged for a $50 gift card, after your first purchase.

Here are the details:

» 10,000 bonus points with first purchase (= $100 gift card)
» Access to “Gold Card” events (concerts, shows, sporting events, etc.)
» Membership Rewards program and Purchase Protection Plan
» $125 annual fee, waived for first year

» 5,000 bonus points with first purchase (= $50 gift card)
» Membership Rewards program
» Purchase Protection Plan
» $95 annual fee, waived for first year

And here are a couple more cards with ongoing signup bonuses:

» $40 bonus on approval
» 5% cashback in select categories, 1% on all else
» 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers
» No annual fee

» $50 bonus after first purchase
» Up to 3% cash back
» Save up $200 in rewards, get $250 (= 25% bonus)
» No annual fee

Two weeks ago I asked readers to name their favorite credit cards. That post spawned over 40 comments, so I thought I’d distill down the results for you guys. What follows is a breakdown of the cards that received more than one mention in the comments, with the most highly recommended cards at the top. [more]