Some of the credit card offers we’ve told you about in recent months have gotten better.

Easier-to-earn rewards, bigger rewards, more time to apply.

These are some of the new features you can expect to find with these credit card offers.

Here’s what’s new:

It’s now easier to earn the $200 cash-back offer for opening a Chase Freedom Visa credit card.

Instead of earning the full reward after spending $1,500 in the first six months, as we told you last week, Chase now will give you the cash-back bonus after you spend $500 in purchases during the first three months.

This new offer, however, does come with a higher purchase annual-percentage rate than the previous offer.

You’ll be charged a variable 15.99% APR to 22.99% APR (prime rate plus 12.74% to 19.74%).

Chase also has boosted its offer on its line of Ink small business cards.

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Credit card companies often manage to combine general ineptness with being brilliant con artists, but an email we received today from a reader takes their idiot genius to a whole new level. Like the best comedy, it made me laugh at the same time as shaking my head at the sheer lunacy involved. Essentially, his credit card company hiked his limit without asking him and then wouldn’t reduce it without doing a salary check. At the risk of sounding like Richard Littlejohn you really could not make this up Email from JH: Recently I received revised terms from my credit card bank saying: ‘If we decide to increase your credit card limit we will give at least 30 days notice in writing unless you have specifically asked us for the increase.’ I didn’t request an increase but have now received a letter saying ‘Your credit limit has been increased from … to …  Ho Read more…

Public Savings Bank has one of the best deals in the country on secured credit cards.

Its Classic Secured Visa Card has a one-time application fee of $75, and that’s pretty much it.

There’s no annual fee and if you pay your balance in full every month (there’s a 25-day grace period) the card will cost you nothing more.

With some heavily promoted secured credit cards charging outrageous maintenance and processing fees, signing up with Public Savings can literally save you hundreds of dollars a year.

Secured credit cards require you to pay first and charge later. They’re designed for consumers with little or no credit history — or a terrible credit history — who can’t qualify for a standard credit card.

With Public Savings Bank’s card, you can deposit anywhere from $300 to $1,500, and that becomes your credit limit.

It remains on deposit at the bank, which is based in Huntington Valley, Pa., unless you default and it must be tapped to pay your bill.

There’s

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As you may or may not be aware – today, February 22, 2010, is the first day in which President Obama’s new credit card reform became active. During the past nine months of the run-up to this new law, credit card companies have been taking full advantage of their freedom. They were jacking up interest rates across the board (one card even carried any APY of 80%). They created new fees and cut credit lines from even the most established borrowers and they even closed down millions of accounts. But is the new law really going to change the way in which credit card companies do business for the better? A recent article on Yahoo Finance suggests new implementations (as well as old credit card tricks) made by the major credit card issuers may begin to become more prevelant as this new law sinks in…

Major Adjustments Made by Credit Card Issuers to Counter New Law:

(Further Reading @ Yahoo Finance)

1) Resurrected annual fees – Annual fees, common until about 10 years ago, have made a comeback. Dur

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0% APR for 9 months with CitiBank credit card

December 9th, 2009 Posted in Credit Cards

Below is a fairly nice credit card deal offered by CitiBank.

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Win up to $1,000 with your VISA Classic, Gold or Platinum card

Well once again we noted a high yield checking account and found that the Credit Union issuing the checking deal also had some noteworthy credit card promotions as well. Yesterday, we made note of United Federal Credit Union’s 6.0% checking account, and today BankVibe reader Stephan pointed out a great contest in which UFCU has going on until December 26. Here are the details… (please note this is only available to members with a VISA Gold, Classic or Platinum Credit Card issued by UFCU).

Use your United Federal Credit Union VISA Classic, Gold or Platinum credit card and have a chance to win $100 each week from October 19 through December 26. UFC

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