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The great mystery of the 2016 presidential election cycle: why doesn’t Scott Walker get a 0% balance transfer?

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Here’s an interesting headline from National Journal a few weeks ago: Scott Walker Is Paying 27.24 Percent Interest on $10,000-Plus in Credit-Card Debt:

Gov. Scott Walker has two credit-card debts of more than $10,000 apiece on separate cards and is paying an eye-popping 27.24 percent interest rate on one of them, new federal financial documents disclosed on Monday show.

The Republican presidential candidate has cast himself as both a fiscal conservative leader and a penny-pinching everyman on the campaign trail, often touting his love of Kohl’s, the discount department store. His newly published financial disclosure shows that, like many Americans, Walker has few assets, some major debts (including more than $100,000 for student loans for his children), and a punishing interest rate on his credit-card obligations.

Walker incurred one credit-card debt with Barclays in 2014, according to the financial disclosure form, and owed between $10,000 and $15,000 at a 27.24 percent interest rate as of July 2015.

It’s not only Barclaycard, though:

One of Walker’s credit-card debts, to Bank of America, dates back to 2011, his first year as governor, according to the disclosure form. Walker currently owes between $10,000 and $15,000 on that one, with an interest rate of 11.99 percent.

…On the Wisconsin form, Walker also listed a $5,000 to $50,000 debt to Sears Master Card as of the end of 2014. That debt does not appear on Walker’s federal disclosure, suggesting he paid it off.

Seriously, what gives here? I know it’s hectic being governor and running for President, but c’mon, it takes five minutes to apply for a new card with a 0% promo rate. Isn’t there a campaign intern who could take care of this?

On a related note, here’s a cool graph from NPR that shows how likely people are to pay their credit card bill in full, broken out by FICO:

cardholders-paying-balance-by-fico

I know Americans have lots of credit card debt, but this is surprising. Even at the 700 level–which is not great but not terrible either–only one quarter of the population pays off their balance every month.

A great Avios deal, a Upromise question, and a guide to obscure airline programs

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GREAT DEAL ON TRANSATLANTIC BUSINESS CLASS FARES: If you’re enrolled in the British Airways loyalty program–and really, who isn’t these days?–there’s a great deal where you can get business class fares for 50% off the normal price of an Avios redemption:

Iberia is running a heck of an award sale for bookings made through January 7, 2014, for travel through April 8, 2014. They’re offering 50% off redemptions on Iberia metal, which is potentially extremely lucrative since Iberia only imposes very mild fuel surcharges on award redemptions.

If you’re an Iberia Plus member just log-in and search for award redemptions and you’ll automatically see the discounted prices. Through this promotion one-way economy class between Boston, Chicago, Miami, or New York and Madrid will cost you just 10,000 Avios, while one-way business class will cost you just 20,000 Avios. A one-way from Los Angeles to Madrid will cost you just 12,500 Avios in economy class or 25,000 Avios in business class.

The catch is that you have to already be enrolled in the Iberia program to transfer your Avios there since there’s a three-month waiting period before you can transfer in Avios. If you’re not enrolled, this would be a good time to make sure you can get the next good deal that comes along.

IS ANYBODY ELSE USING THIS THING?: I recently got the Upromise MasterCard and I have to say I’m pleased with it so far–there are some good cashback deals to be had with this thing. Nothing world-changing so far, mind you, but I’ve had some favorable transactions and I do see potential. Keep in mind the selling point of this card is that it will match the first 5% of whatever the Upromise portal has, so if the portal offers 5% cash back, you can get 10% cashback when ordering online. Note that the cashback is uncapped.

I’ll add the standard disclaimer that this is an affiliate link, so I’ll be knee-deep in cash if I can convince enough of you to apply. I’ll also point out that I have a lot of affiliate links which never see the light of day, but I did feel that this one was worth a mention. Some cards give you lots of easy money right off the bat, and some cards give you money if you’re patient and willing to do a little legwork–this one seem as though it may be in the latter category.

That said: is anybody else using this card? I so rarely see it mentioned anywhere.

A GUIDE TO OBSCURE FREQUENT FLYER PROGRAMS: This is a nice resource–Travel Is Free has assembled a great amount of information about lesser-known frequent flyer program redemptions. These are programs which are partners with Amex. Why should you bother with them? As TIF puts it:

Stopover rules are sometimes more generous. Heck, sometimes the routing rules are more generous on these airlines as they haven’t pinned things down yet. I won’t go into detail about that though. :-p

Prices are better. It’s pretty simple, the more award charts you have access to, the more likely you are to get a deal. If I’m flying to Europe, I have tons of options. Short BA flights, AA off peak, Lufthansa Mileage Bargains… We know of these. But there are other deals! Like Air Berlin.

Availability is better when you have more alliances to search.

Availability is better, period. That’s reason enough. Listen, airlines open up less seats for their partners than their own memebers. Pretty simple. Want to fly to South America but don’t see availability, try LAN or another Latin American airline. – See more at: http://travelisfree.com/2013/09/23/hidden-gem-airline-redemptions/#sthash.5WD6yfAS.dpuf

CREDIT SCORES WITHOUT CREDIT HISTORY: An interesting article in the New York Times about bringing credit scores to nations without a whole lot of credit history:

Banks in 16 countries are using a psychometric test to predict future behavior — specifically, whether someone will pay back a loan. Originally a Harvard doctoral project, the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab’s test has increasingly won the confidence of risk-averse bankers in places where, many economists believe, credit bottlenecks are severely stunting growth.

It’s an interesting article, and best of luck to all parties involved with both sides of that effort. I’m just wondering how long it is until millionnuevosolsecrets.com or whoever teaches Peruvians the correct answers for that psychometric test.

TODDLER RIPS UP LIFE SAVINGS: Toddlers and life savings are a dangerous combination:

D’oh!

 

2% debit card rewards! Plus Discover IT bonus now at $150, and First Bankcard to offer free FICOs

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A 2% DEBIT CARD: One mile per two dollars spent is for suckers! The Justice Federal Credit Union is offering 2 points per dollar spent on its debit cards from November 1 through December 31. And if two months doesn’t sound like a lot of time, keep in mind this isn’t the first time JFCU has run this promotion this year.

Justice FCU

JFCU’s target customers are in law enforcement. Here’s a list of who’s eligible to join–it’s court employees, police officers, that sort of thing. You can also join by being a member of law enforcement association, such as the National Sheriff’s Association.

If this thread is to be believed, however, being a member of the NSA or some such group does not make joining JFC a slam dunk, as at least one person has reported being denied for not being a citizen. There is also apparently a hard pull to join the credit union, though you may be able to use that same pull for your debit/credit application.

Finally, please note that the points are CU Reward points, and redemption levels vary from credit union to credit union. As far as I can tell you can usually at least come close to one cent per point, but I don’t have any data on Justice.

So is joining worth it? Not for me, probably not for most of you, though I imagine some of my more creative readers could come up with some ideas for a two-points-per-dollar debit card promotion.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: (Thanks Slickdeals!) Yesterday I mentioned that you could get $100 for the Discover IT card, but now the bonus is up to $150. Since I like to extrapolate trends, I’ll be disappointed if we don’t see a $200 bonus tomorrow.

SPEAKING OF 2%: Did you know the no-annual-fee FNBO Direct Visa card effectively gives you 2% cash back on everything for the first 12 billing cycles? Obviously the Fidelity Amex is a better choice since there’s no expiration of the 2% cash back, but it’s nice to know there’s an alternative out there, even if it’s only a year-long alternative.

SPEAKING OF FNBO: FNBO subsidiary First Bankcard will start giving out free monthly FICO scores:

First Bankcard is working with Fair Isaac Corp., creator of FICO scores, starting Monday to provide customers with free access to their scores. Also provided will be information about the factors contributing to their scores and recommendations to improve it.

All of the information will be updated monthly at no cost to customers and they can see their scores and other information when they log into their credit card account.

…”This is a significant step forward for consumers,” Jay Seaton, president of Consumer Credit Counseling of Northeast Ohio, said today.

“I would anticipate offers such as these will spur some additional financial institutions to do the same,” Seaton added. “This will pick up speed quickly as a competitive offering.”

Let’s hope so! First Bankcard underwrites a bunch of cards you probably don’t have in your wallet, such as the Chrysler cards, the Sheetz card (I don’t live anywhere near a Sheetz, but the card gives 5 points per dollar spent there in case anybody’s interested), the Orvis card, the La Quinta card, the Alitalia card, and some others. Oh, and of course there’s the World of Warcraft Visa for some reason. The oddest card of their I found was the Independent Purchasing Cooperative MasterCard for Subway franchisees, which gives 3 points per dollar at this list of businesses.

SPEAKING OF THE IPC: I’m pretty sure I just became the first blogger to provide coverage of the Independent Purchasing Cooperative MasterCard.

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