With the summer months quickly approaching, credit card issuers are scrambling to create incentives on their travel reward credit cards. It’s no secret that a good bonus attract thousands of new cardholders, and Chase has decided to go after customers by increasing one of their cards’ bonus offers. For a limited time only, Chase is offering a 25,000 point bonus for new holders of the Chase Sapphire® Card, which is redeemable for $250 in cash or travel rewards. Chase will add these bonus miles to your account after you make $3,000 in purchases within the first three months of card ownership. When you take a look at what other credit cards are offering, the $250 and additional perks is about as good as you’re going to find.

Chase is not including an introductory offer such as a 0% APR for a certain amount of months with the Chase Sapphire® Card. The standard purchase and balance transfer rate is an average 15.24% APR and the rate for cash advances is 19.24%. If you default on your payments to Chase, the bank will penalize you with a rate of 29.99% APR. There is no annual fee. You’ll need excellent credit for Chase to approve your application.

The rewards program on the Chase Sapphire® Card is fairly straightforward, offering points on two different types of purchases. Points never expire and there is no limit to the amount of points that you can earn each year. Here is the breakdown for the points:

• Two points for every dollar spent on dining
• One point for every dollar spent on all other purchases

Live representatives answer all customer service calls. I recently shared by experience dealing with Chase customer service related to a different card. No matter the time of call, a human being will always be on the other end. One of the largest complaints customers have about credit cards is the inability for automated response systems to provide useful information, so this is not an issue with the Chase Sapphire® Card.

When looking for an overall credit card, the important aspects for most customers include the interest rate, rewards program, annual fee and bonus offer. This card comes out on top in all four areas plus a big positive for customer service. If you’re looking at applying for the Chase Sapphire® Card and the limited time $250 cash back bonus or would like to find more information about the card, visit the card’s secure application page.

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If you’re a celebrity, politician, or otherwise in the public eye, you may be on VIP lists maintained by the credit reporting bureaus, granting you a different level of customer service. According to lawyers who have sworn testimony from employees, this two-tiered system favors the well-connected by granting them access to immediate corrections on erroneous reports, unlike most customers whose requests are handled by automated systems.

Though some credit reporting agencies are denying this list exists, consumer advocates seem to have proof that the best customer service is reserved for those whose credit reports are deemed to require more accuracy by the bureaus. For the rest of us:

Their complaints are often electronically ferried to a subcontractor overseas, where a worker spends, on average, about two minutes figuring out the gist of the matter, boiling it down to a one-to-three-digit computer code that signifies the problem — “account not his/hers,” for example — and sending a dispute form to the creditor to investigate… Consumers who have trouble fixing errors through the dispute process can quickly find themselves trapped in a Kafkaesque no man’s land, where the only escape is through the court system.

Charging a higher fee for better customer service is a legitimate way of operating, although some might argue that even this method of operation unfairly discriminates against those who can’t afford the service. Despite some objections, offering VIP service to anyone who pays for it is usually justified. But in this case, VIP service is not differentiated by cost.

Credit reporting is something most people cannot opt out of — without major changes to their finances that involve never using debt of any sort, including a mortgage. Credit reports and credit scores are services for businesses researching individuals, not for individuals, so the companies’ first priority is serving their real customers — those who pay for access to other people’s reports and scores. The credit reports and scores in the systems are commodities, being purchased by companies evaluating creditworthiness or other factors.

It’s in a credit reporting bureau’s best interest to provide accurate data, because if they didn’t people deemed creditworthy would end up as bad customers for the agency’s clients at a higher rate. There is a threshold, however, at which point the cost of ensuring accuracy outweighs the benefit of increasing that accuracy. From a business standpoint, “accurate enough” is all that is necessary to maintain happy customers, so the bureaus can find a way to limit service to the secondary customers whose only concern is the accuracy of their personal data.

New York Times

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