Chase Credit Cards
Chase offers many credit card options. There are credit cards of different colors, styles and flavors, but probably the biggest factors are sponsorship and bonus programs. Chase does sponsorships for every organization you can think of, but most big companies do so this really isn’t a deciding factor. When it comes to bonus programs there are all kinds of them. Lets explore them.
Cash Back
Cash Back is one of the biggest promotional elements that chase offers on their cards. I mean who wouldn’t want to get a percentage of what they spend back, just for spending it right? Its typically not as straight forward as it seems. They often offer a cash back percentage of say something like 5%, but thats only on qualifying purchases. Most purchases will earn your 1% or less. The average person pays something like 18% interest on their purchases, so Chase wins hand over foot in this kind of setup.
What happens is they offer a low or no introductory rate. I my self have used such deals, and if you are diligent then you can take advantage of the no interest and pay it off before the interest is up. However if you do not pay it off during the intro period, anything you have will incur interest. Any interest rate, even a small one is likely to be more then the cash back rate you have. So you are losing money.
If you happen to miss a payment or are late on a payment you can forfeit the intro rate and skip straight to the highest rate, which is typically 29%. This happened to me one Christmas and I wound up paying 30% till I could pay it off. In my experience they would never lower the rate. I had other cards at the time and I would call them every 6 months and ask for a lower rate, most of the time they would drop my interest rate by 1-2%. Chase always refused to do anything. After a year and a half when I finally got my finances in order and called to cancel my chase account they didn’t even try to save me as a customer and offer me a lower rate, they just canceled it. To me it seemed as if they didn’t care about me and I was nothing to them, bad feeling to be giving your customers in my opinion. I have since always refused to get another chase card. They hound me and I deny them every time.
Points
Points is another bonus promotion that chase credit cards employ. The premise is rather simple. You get X number of points for purchases, typically 1 point per dollar. However some purchases will earn you more points then others, similar to case back, but rather then a set dollar value you spend the points in s store chase sets up. You can buy anything from gift cards to TVs and everything in between if you have enough points. Chase cancelled my points program at one point, for no good reason. They just decided they didn’t want me to cash in on my 30,000 points which would have been good for some nice stuff. Make sure you know the terms of point programs when you get started.
Business
Chase offers various business perks programs as well. Things like zero liability and ease of management online for employees. Points and cash back programs are also common on business cards as well as other bonuses for high rollers.
Overall
Overall chase has convenient online management options for their credit cards, and as many sponsorships and bonus programs as anyone. Just watch out, I got burned on every chase credit card I ever had. You think I would have learned after the first one, but I certainly will never have another chase credit card in my life.
Incoming search terms:
- chase credit card
