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CitiBusiness ThankYou Card Review

This article was written by in Credit. 1 comment.


Citibank wants to lure more business owners away from American Express and Chase with a credit card that cribs from its competitors’ playbooks. Like the original Platinum Card, the CitiBusiness ThankYou Card streamlines expense reporting and adds significant purchase protection benefits. While its APR and rewards offers don’t stack up to Ink from Chase, strong service features could make the difference for professionals who don’t intend to carry a balance.

Small spending plateau triggers Citi’s signup bonus

According to Citi’s website, a new CitiBusiness ThankYou cardholder can trade their 15,000 bonus points for $150 in merchant gift cards after spending just $3,000 with the card over 90 days. New Chase Ink Cash members have to spend $5,000 to qualify for a bonus $150 cash rebate, but Chase also offers an extra $100 credit upon first purchase.

CitibankLike Chase, Citi offers its ThankYou members bonus points for purchases in a variety of rotating, seasonal categories. Qualifying purchases earn three ThankYou Points per dollar spent at eligible merchants that include computer stores, advertising companies, airlines, restaurants, and phone companies. You’ll earn one ThankYou Point for every dollar you spend elsewhere on the card. Citi also kicks in bonus rewards for managing your account online and registering for paperless statements.

Earning awards gets easier if you share your personal ThankYou balance

ThankYou points carry the most value when you redeem them for merchandise or for gift cards. For instance, at a penny per point, an Amazon.com gift card reward can let you earn the equivalent of a 3 percent rebate on featured category purchases. Because every employee using CitiBusiness cards earns points, your company’s balance can grow fast.

Chase and American Express both offer stronger redemption rates on their business rewards cards. However, Citi offers a feature that can make the ThankYou program more appealing. Carry both a CitiBusiness card and a personal Citi credit card, and the bank will let you swap points between your accounts at no charge. If you choose to keep all your points for yourself, merging your earnings can help you reach higher rewards levels faster.

Citi makes up for average account terms with extraordinary protection

At the moment, the CitiBusiness ThankYou Card offers a six month, no interest teaser, followed by an APR above 13 percent. There’s no balance transfer teaser in effect, either. With no annual fee and no charge for issuing employees their own cards, CitiBusiness makes a decent card for cash flow management. This card really shines for companies that take advantage of money-saving features, including:

  • Extended warranty. Add one year to the manufacturer’s standard warranty on each purchase.
  • Retail purchase protection. You’re covered for up to $10,000 in loss or damage for 90 days after each transaction.
  • Auto rental insurance. Never pay for a collision damage waiver again.
  • Travel accident insurance and assistance services. Automatic coverage, and a round-the-clock help desk to keep you safe.
  • While frequent flyers may prefer AmEx’s Platinum Card’s airport perks, the CitiBusiness ThankYou Card replicates many of its competitors’ most compelling benefits.

Personal Business Assistant

Concierge services have quickly become the must-have benefit for elite business credit cards. Citi skews the trend with its team of Personal Business Assistants, specialized service professionals who can perform high level tasks on behalf of companies instead of cardholders. Like other cards’ concierge desks, the Citi PBA team can book you a reservation at a hot restaurant or confirm your next travel itinerary.

These assistants add even more value by researching supplier costs, sourcing vendors, and handling more complex requests related to meetings and conferences. Issuing a CitiBusiness ThankYou Card to each employee on your team gives them the power to offload routine tasks and busywork via a secure, online portal. That could be the signature feature keeping this card in the competition for space in your wallet.

If the above features appeal to you, apply for a CitiBusiness ThankYou Card today to receive the 15,000 bonus points opportunity.

Photo: Kien Wai

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Repair Cafe: Bring Your Broken Doodads and Gadgets

This article was written by in Consumer. 10 comments.

We live in an era of cheap, disposable goods. My closet full of clothing, much of it rarely worn, even though I sort through my wardrobe about once a year to eliminate items I no longer need, is a good indicator of this situation. For a good period when I was a kid, I wore hand-me-down clothes — as the eldest child, I received clothing from a family friend — and when an item became damaged, my mother fixed it with her sewing machine.

Prices for clothes have certainly increased over the last few decades, but clothing is not expected to last. When a piece of clothing becomes damaged, it’s easier and cheap enough to replace.

Broken ToasterBroken kitchen appliances, lamps, and other household devices past their warranty periods can’t be fixed with a sewing machine. Many would need specialized care by a professional, and with today’s disposable consumer culture, many people just opt for replacement rather than finding a repair shop and paying nearly as much money as they would to buy a new item.

Additionally, retailers and manufacturers have embraced the concept of planned obsolescence. To keep manufacturing costs low and to maximize profits, there is little concern for making products that last as long as their owners. This is a primary feature of high technology — a house phone sold fifty years ago may still function properly today, but a cell phone purchased five years ago not only doesn’t keep up with the latest technology, but it likely doesn’t work at all. Furniture built in the eighteenth century was made to last in a family for generations; IKEA furniture might last a few years under regular stress of use.

In Amsterdam, there is a small movement in opposition to this disposable consumer culture. The community has come together to repair its members’ broken items. Volunteers bring their tools and sewing machines to an open building several times a month and offer to fix any broken item brought to the gathering. This Repair Café helps reduce waste by encouraging reuse of broken items, and makes fixing an affordable alternative to replacement.

The government in the Netherlands, private groups, and individual donors have helped the Repair Café Foundation raise $525,000 over the past few years, and these funds have helped the organization create these gatherings at various locations across the country. These Repair Cafés provide a chance for consumers to make better use of their goods and for volunteers, particularly those with repair skills that might no longer be in demand, use those skills for a good cause.

Would Repair Cafés; be welcome in the United States? It’s not exactly a profitable business venture, and as such, is unlikely to draw much attention. The model, however, could easily be recreated, perhaps in low socioeconomic neighborhoods, to provide a money-saving alternative for spending money to replace slightly damaged items. Strong marketing encouraging consumers to exist in a cycle of buying and replacing comes at a price to retailers and manufacturers. If these expenses were redirected towards making better, durable products without planned obsolescence, consumers might lose the desire to constantly have new items, and would be able to hold onto the same products for a longer period of time. There would be less waste. Companies and their shareholders would find they have more loyal, life-long customers. Customers would shop with a focus on the differentiation in quality rather than with their tunnel-vision focused solely on price. Companies that build their products to last would succeed while those focused on the short-term would fail.

Could Repair Cafés be an answer to the consumer culture of disposable products? Would the availability of free repairs in the United States change the way consumers buy goods, and thus force companies to build products that are made to last rather than go obsolete? Is the trend towards disposability reversible at all?

Photo: phozographer
New York Times

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JetBlue Card From American Express Review

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The JetBlue Card from American Express is offering 10,000 points after your first purchase. Each purchase on the card earns one TrueBlue point per dollar, and some purchases can earn up to eight points per dollar. Is the $40 annual fee worth these and the card’s other benefits?

JetBlue operates major hubs in New York, Boston, Long Beach, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale. If you live or work in one of these cities, you might even have tried JetBlue as an alternative to a legacy airline. Industry experts credit JetBlue with shaking up their business by blending the service of a traditional airline with the pricing model of an upstart discount carrier. They also installed free DirecTV monitors in every seatback, freeing passengers from the tyranny of boring, in-flight entertainment.

JetBlue’s TrueBlue frequent flyer program resembles the kind of rewards points system used for certain Chase, American Express, and CitiBank credit cards. Instead of earning miles based on your flight distance, you earn six TrueBlue points for every dollar you spend on airfare at JetBlue.com. You’ll earn a bonus point for using your JetBlue Card on the airline’s website, along with the regular point for every dollar you spend with the card.

Converting TrueBlue points into airfare

Earning up to eight points per dollar can lead to free tickets pretty quickly. Scanning JetBlue.com, I found a sample weekend flight from JFK Airport in New York to San Francisco for just under $480, round trip. I’ll need 35,800 TrueBlue points for the same journey, plus just $5 in taxes and fees. If I just used by JetBlue Card for everyday purchases, that’s about a 1.3 percent rebate, in line with the most popular cash back credit cards.

However, if I’ve been using my JetBlue Card almost exclusively for airfares, I’ll only need to spend $4,475 on JetBlue.com if I want a free coast-to-cost trip. That’s a 10.7 percent rebate, which blows nearly every rewards credit card out of the water, including American Express’s own Blue Sky series. Of course, reward values can vary based on market demand. However, JetBlue promises reward round trips for as few as 10,000 points, making this one of the fastest ways to earn free travel.

Getting more from the JetBlue Card

As with any airline credit card, you’ll only get the most value from the JetBlue Card if you’re willing to make most of your trips on a single carrier. That’s not a hard commitment to keep if you live near one of JetBlue’s hubs. Yet, this American Express credit card carries additional benefits that can make it a valuable addition to your wallet, even if you’re just planning to save your TrueBlue points for occasional leisure travel.

Like other American Express cards, the JetBlue Card comes with purchase protection that will reimburse you for lost, damaged, or stolen merchandise that you replace within 90 days of your original transaction. The JetBlue Card also extends the warranty of most consumer goods for up to a year after the expiration of the manufacturer’s warranty. You’ll even get roadside assistance included with your card, saving you money if you replace similar, paid coverage from another provider.

Seasoned road warriors may notice a few perks lacking from the JetBlue Card. The airline doesn’t operate traditional airport lounges, so you won’t get that popular perk that comes with some Delta or American Airlines cards. On the other hand, JetBlue lets you check your first bag for free, a privilege that many traditional airlines now save for their elite customers or cardholders. With a moderate annual fee and a middle of the road APR, you’ll want to ring up and pay down big balances every month to really make this card pay for itself.

To take advantage of the 10,000 points offer, apply for the JetBlue Card from American Express today. You will need excellent credit in order to be approved, and be aware of the $40 annual fee.

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Three Credit Card Benefits You’re Paying For

This article was written by in Credit. 7 comments.

I wrote about three credit card benefits you’re paying for but not using for GoBankingRates and BusinessInsider. Whether you pay interest on your carried credit card balances or whether you’re just subject to the natural increased cost of products due to retailers’ card processing fees, you’re paying for the cost of benefits that card issuers provide to their users. It’s not just cash back — benefits include extended warranties, purchase protection, and price protection. If you’ve never used these “free” features, you’re not taking full advantage of what you’re paying for.

  • Extended warranties, if your card offers this feature, can extend the manufacturer’s warranty, usually up to one extra year. While retailers often try to sell you extended warranties on products at the point of sale, the option from your credit card issuer is often “free” and automatic.
  • If your card offers purchase protection, you don’t have to worry about accidental damage for a period of time after the purchase. Even if you drop the item, the credit card might be able to replace it.
  • Purchase price protection will help you receive from the issuer a refund if a product you buy is advertised in print at a lower cost than the price you paid.

There are some caveats to the coverage, and not every card offers the same features. Read the article for more information.

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American Express Credit Card Reviews

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Best Buy’s Buy Back Program

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