- MS Can Be Really Bad for Your Health by Rapid Travel Chai. Nothing like a free cupcake when you MS.
- Balance Due: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic by WSJ via VFTW. Interesting to see how much this industry is growing at the moment, hopefully this means bigger sign up bonuses and benefits for cardholders.
- How Uber knows your phone battery is dying and more by CS Monitor. I don’t really see why Uber needs access to this type of data if they don’t plan to use it.
- $100+ in Amazon Sample Box Credit- How to Spend the Credits by The Deal Mommy. Useful links for those who jumped on this deal, there are still some boxes left if you want to get in on it. I didn’t think the eligible items were great so I passed.
- Samsung Pay Announces Support for Membership and Loyalty Cards in the U.S. by Business Wire. This was always going to happen, surprised it took this long.
- Seashells – Spare Change Round Up Rewards: 15% Gift Card Bonus and $2 Referral Credits by Maximizing Money. I like this since your can link any debit or credit card you like and don’t have to use a special Seashells card. Going to look into this more as I wouldn’t mind some Hotels.com gift cards at 15% off.
- Walmart steps up their game: now offering a free 2 liter AND cookies! by /r/churning. Wow HIGHEST BONUS EVER! I’ve only ever seen them offer 2 liter or cookies, never both. This is BIG, if true. Added this to our list of hilariously bad sign up bonuses.
The WSJ article was fascinating (and worrisome). DoC is right that it is good for us who can control our spending and are exploiting the credit card companies. More and bigger promotions may be coming our way. But it’s bad if it leads our country as a whole another debt disaster.
I am curious how the 1 Trillion figure is computed. I am guessing that it means adding up all the balances being reported to the credit bureaus for all cards held by US consumers. That is however a much bigger thing (and very different) from the amount of debt Americans are CARRYING. I never carry any CC debt — I always pay in full. But my balances have been very high at certain points — e.g. during the month I was funding my Citigold my statement balance was 20k. I’d love to know of that 1 trillion how much is being paid off each month and how much is being carried. The WSJ piece used language that could mean either one.