Business Green Rewards From American Express

February 12th, 2009

The Business Traveler magazine has awarded the Business Green Rewards from American Express as the best credit cards rewards program. The membership rewards program from this credit card allows you to earn points for each dollar spent. At the same time, you can redeem points for goods, travel and other business requirements.

The Business Green Rewards from American Express is actually a charge card. It expects you to make the full payment of purchases made with the card as soon as you get monthly bill. A late payment attracts the fees that equal the higher of $30 or 2.99% of the unpaid balance. It has an annual fee of $95. It is great for you if you don’t want the piling of credit card debt.

It comes with a 0% introductory annual percentage rate (APR) on purchases and balance transfers. If you can manage to pay your monthly bills on time, then the point-based rewards program is appropriate for you.

Privileges Of Holding The Card

The points you get by using the Business Green Rewards from American Express do not have any limit and are valid as long as you hold the card. The card is a great way to let you handle your expenses comfortably. You get 5000 bonus points after you make the first purchase. Due to the extensive redemption program, you can redeem your points in quantities as low as 400.

You can also register and get extra Business Green Rewards cards, for your employees. The cards will automatically connected to your Membership Rewards Account and give you points for every dollar your employee spends on the card.

You can go for the OPEN Savings scheme. It does not need any codes or coupons and the savings will be added to the other discounts that you may have already got. The OPEN Network gives discounts to businesses on services such as shipping, telephone, printing and car rentals. The program gives extra cards without any fees and has no predetermined spending limit on the card.

The network news updates you about the benefits and promotions, useful business articles, expert advice and business tools and resources. The Expense Management Reports make you aware of the business card expenses in terms of type of spending, time-period for each card holder in terms of the information available for the present year and previous 2 fiscal years. This facility is free.

Extra Perks

The purchase protection plan safeguards from/against theft and accidental damage for up to 90 days from the date purchased. The return protection allows you to return an item within 90 days from the date purchased. In that case, you will be given the whole refund of the price, up to $300 per item.

The rewards program of Business Green Rewards from American Express consists of emergency card replacement, insurance protection, access to 24-hour customer service, travel accident insurance up to $100,000, car rental insurance, check cashing assistance and an increased choice of payment that allows you to pay for expensive purchases over time.

Affinity Credit Cards

February 12th, 2009

Affinity credit cards are one of the most widely used type of plastic we hold nowadays. This is more important because the craze for balance transfer deals and associated things goes on decreasing. Initially, the focus was on saving money by transferring credit card debt, but today it has shifted to making profit from using the card, or at least to derive certain benefit from our regular spending habits. This shift in focus has caused a massive growth in the number of rewards and cash back cards available in the market. The question is: what is the status of affinity cards?

In simple terms, an affinity card is a card that links the cardholder with a certain company, organization, or area of interest. The card will normally have a picture to denote this association. It will also provide some benefit connected with the affinity subject. A good example is an affinity card for a certain clothing store. If you shop a lot at this particular store, and use your credit card associated with this store, then you can get benefits like discounts, gift vouchers etc.

This is an example of where affinity cards and rewards cards fuse and overlap. However the affinity card will offer more focused reward scheme than the regular card.

Another variety of affinity card that has become popular nowadays is a charity credit card. These cards can be regarded as variations of cashback credit cards, in which a small portion of all your expenses on the card is refunded. However with this card, instead of the cashback being credited to your account or given to you as a check, it is normally donated to the charity or charities associated with the card. The most popular are animal charities and health research charities, but the range is vast and you are certain to get a charity card supporting a non-profit of your choice.

Closely associated with charity cards are sports affinity cards. They work a lot in the same way, but instead of giving donations to charitable organizations, they give it to your favorite sports team. Holding this type of card allows you to provide financial support to your team, and at the same time asserting your support by inscribing your team’s logo or badge on the card.

The last type of affinity card can be called a lifestyle card, and instead of offering you direct rewards or supporting your favorite organization, they are just commonplace credit cards that pictorially show your interest or hobby like an artwork or your favorite sport. For obvious reasons, these cards are not highly popular nowadays, since there are other cards offering more useful benefits.

So is it worth using affinity cards? In general, they don’t provide such a wide range of features as major credit card, but if you can manage to get one that closely matches your lifestyle, then they can be quite beneficial and worth applying for.