WHARTON MBA COURSES OFFERED FOR FREE ONLINE: The Wharton School of Business is putting most of its first-year MBA curriculum online for free. There are four courses currently available: financial accounting, operations management, marketing, and corporate finance. Friday evening wine and beer events are not yet available online, however.
ANYBODY INTERESTED IN A TIMESHARE-FUNDED TRIP?: If anybody wants to get cheap travel in exchange for sitting through a timeshare presentation, here’s 2 nights in Vegas, a $200 Hilton certificate, and 15,000 Hilton points for $199. The phone number is 877-719-4482, code HHNSEP. There’s a similar deal for Orlando: 3 nights, 15,000 points, the $200 certificate, plus $150 in theme park tickets. Just promise me you won’t actually buy a timeshare.
ANOTHER WELLS FARGO FOLLOW-UP: Following up on this post and this post, I just received my first statement for my Wells Fargo credit card. If that seems quick, it was. My statement’s billing period was August 28 to September 6, so it looks like the promotional period is more like 5 months than 6.
Demonstrating that it’s still new to this credit card thing, Wells sent me this email a day before I got my statement. It’s a welcome email for the Wells Fargo Home Rebate card, a card for which I did not apply and which in fact would be completely useless to me since I don’t have a mortgage with them.
Fortunately, the statement cleared up any doubts: I do in fact have the Cash Back card, not the Home Rebate card, and I verified that the bonus cash back posted correctly.
SPEAKING OF BANKS GETTING BACK INTO THE CREDIT CARD GAME: American Banker just ran a piece entitled “Regional Banks Eager to Return to Credit Card Issuance“:
Not too long ago, regional banks were eager to get out of the credit card business. A number of those institutions are returning to the business, while others are seriously considering it.
Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) in Columbus, Ohio, and KeyCorp (KEY) in Cleveland have begun issuing their own consumer credit cards. In 2011, Regions Financial (RF)bought a $1 billion credit card portfolio that carried its name from Bank of America (BAC), and later took over the servicing. Industry observers expect more banks to enter the fray.
I recently wrote about Huntington’s return. As for KeyCorp, I checked out their rewards program and my goodness, I think they’ve overtaken PNC for the Most Confusing Rewards Program award–I need to devote a full blog post to that one.
Those of you who are salivating over more lucrative credit card offers, read this:
Key and Huntington have no plans to become major credit card players on a national scale. Executives at the banks say that they will only offer cards to existing customers.
“I don’t have any intention of competing against Capital One Financial (COF),” Bowen says, referring to the McLean, Va., company that held roughly $79 billion in credit card outstandings at June 30.
But check this out:
Throw in the Durbin Amendment, and its cap on interchange fees for debit cards, and bigger banks that lacked a credit card were put in a vise. KeyCorp realized that it could not regain lost interchange income by directing debit card users to credit cards.
“When the Durbin tide went out, you saw who was swimming naked without their own credit card,” Bowen says.
Very interesting… the Durbin Amendment pretty much killed off debit rewards cards, but apparently an unintended consequence of that unintended consequence is that small banks now feel the need to get back into credit cards since it’s so hard to have a debit card relationship. Ladies and gentlemen… the Durbin Amendment!
In any case, keep an eye on smaller local and regional banks for good deals.
CORPORATESPEAK, PART 2: Following up on yesterday’s comment about Best Buy describing its rewards cuts as a good thing, reader HikerT pointed out in the comments that Cost Plus World Market has done something similar. “You can earn rewards faster with a $10 rewards for every $200 spent,” reads the marketing material. The old rewards scheme was $10 for every $100 spent. Granted, the old scheme only included food, but still… faster?
Sadly was denied the Wachovia/Wells Fargo CC. Apparently they wanted an established relationship with them.
About timeshare: you can get discounted Disney World tickets – hilton has booth in the hotel lobby setup for timeshare, and you get $100 off on Disney World tickets.
Many people have reported that, I’m starting to wonder why I was approved. Though of course others have reported being approved with no relationship. Wells is being quite mysterious.
Just curious about your Wells Fargo spend – how much are you generally spending in a month & have you done any large spend at drugstores, grocery stores (ie buying gift cards)? Any red flags?
Sorry, one more thing…do you know if the citi thank you pref (5x on most categories) is still being offered at the banks branches If so, which card do think is better – Citi or Wells Fargo? Or both?
Thnx for a great blog…very informative!
My spend hasn’t been that high, I’ve bought a couple of GCs @ $500 each. I haven’t read any account of people being shut down over large purchases, just for spending more than their credit limit.
Last I heard the Citi 5X deal was still being offered at bank branches. That deal is 12 months, vs 6 for WF, plus Citi seems to approve more people, so that one would be my first choice. Note also that WF’s 5% is in the form of cash, while Citi’s is in the form of ThankYou Points–whether cash or TYP is better depends on your preferences.
Maybe you haven’t slept around as much as me? Got quite a few inquires this year (apply in ~90day cycle).
That’s actually a good point–I haven’t. My last big round of apps was late last fall, then I quieted down to do a mortgage refi in the spring. Since then, I’ve done a couple of biz apps but this is actually my first new personal account of the year. Maybe Wells is being clever with their underwriting criteria?