American Express has temporarily brought back their 25,000 Membership Rewards point offer for their Premier Rewards Gold Card from American Express®, which is one of their upscale-oriented charge cards where you must pay off the balance each month. Offer expires October 12th.

• Earn More: earn 25K Membership Rewards points after you spend $2K during your first three months of Card membership. MR points are very versatile, and can be converted to 25,000 frequent flier miles in a number of programs in various increments, or you can simply get $250 in gift cards at several stores like Home Depot, Crate & Barrel, or Macy’s. (The usual offers are for 10,000 or 15,000 bonus points.)
• No annual fee for your first year. Another important feature, you can get the sign-up bonus and also try out this card for free for a year. If you keep the card after that, there is a $195 annual fee.
• Offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations and at U.S. stand-alone supermarkets, and 1X points on other purchases. The traditional versions only offer 1 point per $ spent, so these are an extra perk for those that spend a lot on airfare.
• Earn an additional 15,000 Membership Rewards bonus points when you spend $30,000 within one calendar year. This means that if you spend $30,000 in a year ($2,500 per month) that you’ll get at least 25,000 for sign-up + 30,000 on spending + 15,000 bonus = 70,000 points total, plus any extra for gas/groceries/airfare.

For those that charge a lot, especially with reimbursed airfare, that’s enough for 70,000 frequent flier miles (possibly two flights to Hawaii) or $700 in gift cards. If you don’t, there’s still that $250 upfront bonus with only $1,000 minimum spending. Terms and Restrictions Apply.

Now that I’m flying a lot more again, I’m back in the hunt for some frequent flier perks. I just came across the new Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card from Chase, which has a pretty nice mix of perks for travelers.

Sign-Up Bonus: Free Flight

• 25,000 Bonus Miles after first purchase (no minimum amount) for first-time Continental Airlines personal Cardmembers. That’s enough already for one free round-trip airfare within the continental US.
• No annual fee the first year. The regular annual fee is $85, but is waived the first year.
• 5,000 Bonus Miles for adding an authorized user to your account. This is another easy one to get. Remember, just because you add someone doesn’t mean you have to give them the card. 😉
• If you spend $25,000 on the card annually, you’ll get another 10,000 bonus miles. Since you earn 1 miles per $1 spent as well, this works out to 1.4 miles/dollar when you reach that mark.

Travel Perks

• Free checked bag. If you fly on Continental, you and up to 9 travel companions will all each get your first checked bag for free. That’s a savings of $50 round-trip, per person.
• Primary rental car insurance. Almost all personal credit cards only offer secondary rental car insurance, which means you have to file a claim with your own auto insurance first, which means you have to pay the deductible and possibly face higher future premiums. With primary collision damage waiver (CDW) even for personal use, you get coverage for damage or theft without having to make a claim.
• More travel insurance that isn’t on all cards, like trip cancellation insurance up to $1500 for a illness with doctor’s note , delayed baggage coverage up to $300 if you have baggage delayed more than 18 hours and need to buy items to get by.
• If you decide to keep this card past the first year, you’ll get two free passes to their First-Class airport lounge.

As you may have heard, Continental and United are merging, and the resulting airline is supposed to have the name United. Here’s a chance to rack up some miles that will eventually merge together – this card and bonus may not be available in the future. Until when they actually do merge, I should also note that Continental’s OnePass is known as one of the better programs when it comes to redeeming miles for trips.

Besides the Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card, you can get a more flexible $625 travel bonus from the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, as well as other cards worth $500 in airfare.

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Visit the 3-in-1 Credit Report with Score page at Equifax and click on “Buy Now”. You’ll have to register on the website or log in with a previously created account. There is no need to enter credit card information. When you are able to, enter the promotion code NOC431 and the price will show as $0.00. Via littlepenguin of SD. Users have reported mixed success with many people getting some sort of error, but it worked fine for me:

You will end up with your credit reports from all three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) as well as your official FICO score based on your Experian credit report. (You know you have 3 different FICO scores – one from each bureau – right?) A pretty good deal, although I wouldn’t say it’s worth the $39.95 retail price. I wouldn’t wait too long on this, the code could expire at any time. (Update: Appears to be expired, some people are calling in manually and applying the code with success.)

Going back to school? Citibank has some good card options for college students:

• Citi mtvU Platinum Select Visa Card
• Citi Forward Card for College Students – $75 Statement Credit

Both the mtvU and Forward cards offer 5x rewards on bookstores, movies, music, and restaurants – boy do they know students. 5x ThankYou points amounts to 3.45% cash back or 5% back in the form of gift cards from certain retailers. Great deal if you can handle credit responsibly. I’m pretty sure I applied for my first credit card in college in exchange for a cheap t-shirt with a Cal logo on it and no rewards whatsoever. Good thing I’ve always hated owing other people money…

As noted previously, 5x points on bookstores also includes anything bought at Amazon.com (a bookstore!). Would go perfectly with your free year of Amazon Prime.

When you charge something on your credit card, the merchant usually pays about 2-3% in transaction fees for the convenience and benefit of accepting these cards (it makes it easier for people to spend money with them). In order to get their specific card “in your wallet”, issuers often rebate part of these fees in the form of % cashback rewards or frequent flier miles. This makes sense, because many people with good credit and/or higher spending don’t carry balances so that the primary source of profits is from these transaction fees.

Here are some popular cards and their current rotating categories. Also, new cardholders can combine with current sign-up bonuses of up to $100 upfront.

Citi® Dividend Platinum Select® Visa® Card
Reward categories change quarterly. From April 1st to June 30th, you can earn 5% cash back on

• Home Depot
• Home Furnishing purchases
• Home & Garden Purchases

After you get your card, you must enroll by logging into your account or calling 1-800-231-0891. There is no cap on the 5% back, except for the $300 overall cap on all dividend rewards annually. All other purchases do earn a standard 1% with no tiers, and rewards do not expire as long as you have activity once every 12 months.

Chase Freedom Visa – $100 Bonus Cash Back
Reward categories change quarterly. From January 1 to March 31, 2012 you can earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 spent in the following categories:

• Gas Stations
• Amazon.com

You must enroll at ChaseBonus.com. All other purchases do earn a standard 1%, with no tiers or expiration of rewards. Currently, the Chase Freedom Visa – $100 Bonus Cash Back has a promotion offering a $100 check if you sign up and make $500 in purchases in your first three months.

Discover More Card
Reward categories change quarterly. From January 1st to March 31st, you can earn 5% cash back on up to $300 spent in the following categories:

• Gas
• Entertainment

In September, you can also earn 5% cash back on up to $200 spent in grocery stores and drugstores. You must enroll online to activate the rewards each quarter. Discover card has a tiered cashback rate (1% unlimited Cashback Bonus on purchases after your total annual purchases exceed $3000; purchases that are part of your first $3000 earn .25%.).

PenFed Platinum Cashback Rewards Card
Bonus categories appear and change regularly for this card, but not on a set schedule.

You can view all the eligible merchants. You don’t need to enroll. This is in addition to the year-round rewards structure of 5% cash back on gas purchases (must pay at pump) and 1% cash back on everything else. Rewards are credited monthly on your next statement.

Note: To get this card, you must also have membership to the Pentagon Federal Credit Union (you can apply for both at the same time). In general, membership is open to the military, US government employees, or the family or household of existing members. However, anyone can become eligible by joining the National Military Family Association (NMFA) for a $20 one-time fee. PenFed also offers other competitive financial products, including low-rate mortgages and long-term CD rates.

In order to keep track of all these, I usually just cut off the top part of a Post-It note with the sticky backing, and use it to label each card in my wallet. Here’s a pic of one of my cards:

Update February 2011: Use coupon code FICO25 for 25% off!

I am not a big fan having to purchase credit scores. I can understand why a lender would pay to get a calculation of your likelihood of defaulting on your loan, but if it’s based on our data, why do we have to pay just to see it? Even if I am declined for a loan, I can only see my report, not the numerical score that supposedly defines my financial life.

There are plenty of “FAKE-O” credit scores out there, but the only place to get your real FICO score is myFICO.com. If you must order your score, use the promotional code CPPSAVINGS to get 20% off.

For the Equifax credit score only, you can get it for $10.95 using the code SW94608, which is over 30% off. You enter the promo code relatively late in the buying process, right before entering your credit card information.

Whenever you do buy a score, I would recommend trying to correlate your score and the current information on your report. Then you can start to learn what changes really affect your score. I’ve applied for 12 credit cards and canceled 5 with almost no appreciable affect to my scores (see credit score myths) – despite all the “rules” – only to have a huge balance on my mom’s credit card (with me as authorized user) show up and drop it by 30 points.

There used to be a bunch of great cashback cards for gas, but now the only one that still offers 5% back to consumers is the PenFed Visa® Platinum Cash Rewards Card. It offers:

• 5% cash back on gas purchases (must pay at pump)
• 0.25% cash back on everything else.

No annual fee. The rewards are credited on each monthly statement, so that you don’t have to wait to meet any $50 thresholds or remember to call in. If your family spends $200 on gas per month, that alone will have this card paying you $120 per year in rewards.

The catch? You must also be a member of the Pentagon Federal Credit Union, and you can apply for membership as part of the credit card application. In general, membership is open to members of the military and affiliated organizations, US government employees, or the family or household of existing members. However, anyone can become eligible by joining the National Military Family Association (NMFA) for a $20 one-time fee (and it goes to a good cause). PenFed also offers other competitive financial products, including low-rate mortgages and long-term CD rates.