Credit Cards Archives - Your Mileage May Vary

The Confusing Rules When Applying For Reward Credit Cards

I’m almost finished with meeting the spending requirement for the last credit card we were approved for, so that means it’s time to find and apply for a new card. As always, you should not be bothering with this if you have credit card debt. If that’s the case, your main goal should be to pay off the debt and increase your credit score, and THEN you can start applying for credit cards.

When applying for credit cards, it’s important to know the rules that you’ll need to follow for each bank when applying for a credit card, because they’re all different. Knowing these rules will allow you to continue to get approved for cards and collect the bonuses that will add to your balances. That, in turn, will allow you to meet your travel goals.

I’m going to stick to the “major” banks that issue reward cards (American Express, Citibank, and Chase and Barclays) because they are the ones you’ll be dealing with most of the time.
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What Are Authorized Users On A Credit Card And Should You Add Them?

When applying for a credit card you’ll usually see a place to add authorized users. The banks will phrase it like “ADD UP TO FIVE PEOPLE TO YOUR ACCOUNT FOR NO EXTRA CHARGE!” If you do this, the bank will send credit cards to everyone. Great, right? Maybe, maybe not. Here’s a quick rundown of what an authorized user is and why it may be a good, or a bad, idea to add one to your account.

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Analysis Of The Airline Pilot On Grindr While At Work, The Bag NOT To Check, Great Credit Card Checklist, & More

Happy Sunday to all of our travel friends, both near and far! Here are some articles we’ve read from other bloggers (and other sources) that we think you may like, as well, so we’re passing them along.

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Chip + PIN Cards; Why You Should Have One

By now, I’m sure you have a credit card with a chip, or EMV chip to be specific, in your possession. It’s that thing on your card that makes the person at the checkout tell you, “You need to use your chip in the bottom thingie,” or makes them say when you try to insert your chip card, “We don’t use that chip thing yet, so you need to swipe your card.”

amex-everyday-preferred — That thing on the left side of the card is the “chip”

In the U.S.A., we like the think we lead the world in just about everything, but when it comes to credit card security we are decades behind the curve. EMV ( Europay, Mastercard and Visa) chip technology was introduced back in the 1990s and rolled out throughout Europe in the 2000s. The chip in the card is used to confirm the information instead of reading the information off the magnetic strip on the back. This technology is harder to counterfeit and, supposedly, cuts down on fraud. The banks in Europe rolled out this technology first because credit card fraud was, at the time, much more common there. When the chip cards were introduced and helped prevent fraud, the criminals went to the least protected market, the USA, so they could continue with the scamming. Lucky us.

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Ten Things You Should Do Before You Go Out Of Town

When you’re traveling for any amount of time, you have a lot of thing to remember before you go away. What to bring and what not to. All your prescription and over the counter medications. All your electronics and the stuff to ensure you don’t fry them. And the list goes on and on.

There are also some things you should do that may not be utmost in your mind when you’re getting ready to go out of town. Here are a bunch of them:

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