I finally got my Amazon.com gift certificates from Citi.  A month long process it was.  You can read more about it here.  Now to decide what to buy…maybe I should use it to purchase Christmas gifts…since that along with my free iPod could make some pretty nice gifts!

Yeah, so if you read about my recent rant about Citi and their dumb ThankYouNetwork policy on shipping to Hawaii or Alaska, you know that they:

1. Sent me the wrong gift cards.
2. Had problems with processing orders for Amazon.com gift certificates.
3. Are pretty UNfriendly when it comes to customer service.

Well, the story gets better.  They did call me back, but it doesn’t end there.  I really want Amazon.com gift certificates if you didn’t know already.

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After the rant and all the hype on redeeming my points for Amazon.com gift certificates, I get a call from the ThankYouNetwork, and the representative leaves a voicemail…

“Sorry Freedumb, but apparently we are having some problems with shipping Amazon.com gift certificates.  We should have the problem corrected in 10-14 business days.  We have credited your account back with 20,000 points.  Call us if you have any questions.”

Uhh, yeah, do I have to place my order again??  I appreciate the call I guess.  At least I know they didn’t lose my gift cards…now about the 74 cents of postage?!

I called them, looks like I’ll just have to try again in a couple weeks to check.  They did “notate” my account yet again.  Ah, well, I’ll have to postpone my purchases until next month I guess.

Evolving my original ideas of how to use your reward points, I’ve found that Citi ThankYouNetwork offers a unique opportunity to stretch your dollar even further while helping out your fellow bloggers.  That is IF I get my Amazon.com certificates from Citi…if you haven’t read my other post on why I’m a little pissed at Citi, click here.

Redeem your points for Amazon.com gift certificates.  Why?

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I recently redeemed my ThankYou points.  Unfortunately, one of the problems of living in a state that is not directly connected to the continental US, is that we have funky shipping rules.  It sucks.  Anyway, I couldn’t place my order via the ThankYou website because of my shipping address, so I had to call.

Calling was fairly painless, no long wait, and I got in touch with a person after just pressing a few buttons, excluding my member number.  I place my order.  She says, “Sorry Freedumb, the Amazon Gift Certificates require additional approval from my management because they are not ‘cards’.”  Interesting.  What difference does it make?  I’d assume a paper certificate would be lighter than a card anyway.

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I hope you are.  The Citi Dividend Rewards and Professional cards are my choice.  Combined I can get 3-5% back (in the form of gift certificates) for everyday purchases, stretching my dollar.  Not too shabby.  It is important to know the benefits of using any credit card, but one in particular may help prevent a would be thief from using your hard earned credit, Citi Photocard.

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Is the world coming to an end?  Sort of like Phillip Morris advocating quitting smoking, but with a little less flare.  Practical money skills doesn’t mean you have to give up plastic.  In fact, with a combination of practical money skills and plastic, you could stretch each dollar even further.

Click here to visit the Visa site.

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Just looking over my current financials, and the almost $32,000.00 in credit card debt just sticks out. I don’t like having debt, and as much as I know 0% is playing in my favor, it still kind of sucks knowing I have to pay it off eventually.

Anyway, I decided to take a look at my credit card limits (credit Claire @ Tired but happy) in hopes that my debt to credit limit ratio is fairly low. So here we go:

CC1: 14,400 (used: ~10,000, 0%)
CC2: 15,000
CC3: 9,000
CC4: 15,500
CC5: 16,000 (used: ~790, paid off monthly)
CC6: 22,000 (used: ~20,000, 0%) Total Credit: $108,100

Well, that puts me at around 30% credit utilization. Unfortunately, I think it’s not overall credit usage that affects your credit score, but utilization per credit card? Anyway, come the end of the year CC1 will become a zero balance credit card. CC6 is good until Sept 07.

I’m going to post my credit score because I think it’s very beneficial since a lot of people have the question, “How will opening ________ 0% credit card affect my credit rating?” So I’ll share my results with you.

My credit score: 762

The problem is that I don’t know what my score was before opening the 0% credit card, so I don’t know what effect it really had. Regardless, the effect could not have been that drastic.

In March of 06, I opened my Chase credit card and did a balance transfer. I’ve done 4 of these in the past, and so I was sort of concerned my credit score was being impacted, but not really…mainly because I didn’t have any large expenses in the near future, like a house. Fast forward to today, I got my credit score, and was pleasantly surprised at the score. So apparently, whatever the effect opening credit cards may have, it doesn’t always have a drastic effect on your score. But since I don’t know the real process behind the credit score, effects may vary, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’d be interesting to hear if anyone else saw the same thing?

If you need more info on a 0% Balance Transfer, check out my previous post on it…

Sure you can get a free credit report every year, but I’m not quite sure how effective it will be to find out something odd on your credit report up to a whole year after the fact. A lot of damage could already have been done.

So, I went through the process of trying to find some “credit monitoring” or “credit protectors.” Just to clarify, there are credit card protection services that will cover your debt should something happen, but have nothing to do with monitoring for fraud. Then there are credit card protect services that monitor for fraudulent activity.

Be aware that some credit monitoring services only monitor for changes weekly, while others check daily.

I looked some up:

Citi Credit Monitoring
9.95/mo
http://www.creditmonitoring.citi.com/index.asp?source=CMN00001

IdentityGuard
http://www.identityguard.com/se/landing_se_fam.asp

Amex CreditSecure
https://www124.americanexpress.com/cards/loyalty.do?page=creditsecure

You are in the best position to decide if credit monitoring services would be good for you. To learn more about the American Express Credit Aware Service, call our toll-free number 1-800-964-3594.

I may consider something like Citi Credit Monitoring, but I’m still not sure if it’s worth it. At almost $120/year, that’s not cheap for credit monitoring, but should someone happen to try and steal your identity you would find out very quickly, and that would make $120/year seem like a steal. Are you using a credit monitoring service?