SimplyCash Preferred Cash Back Credit Card Annual Fee Goes Up

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American Express Cash Back Credit Card

Amex’s annual fee cash back credit card is going through a bit of a facelift, including receiving a higher annual fee. However, existing users will be able to continue paying $79 per year.

With a new $99 annual fee, there is a promotional bonus of 5 percent cash back for the first three months, capped at $300. What this means is that you can spend a total of $6,000 in three months or $2,000 each month to catch this promotion.

Also, there is no more spending limit on 2 percent cash back. This card comes with some insurances, such as emergency travel medical, travel accident insurance, and car rental theft & damage insurance.

The 2 percent return on all spending is a good cash back rate, but there are other Canadian cash back cards that offer the same return. MBNA Rewards World Elite (2% flat), Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite (4% on selected categories), Scotia Gold American Express (4% on selected categories), BMO Cashback World Elite MasterCard (1.75% flat, but has various added perks) are just a few.

On the no-annual fee side, Amex has its own SimplyCash card that earns 1.25 percent flat on everything. Some other no-fee credit cards to consider include Rogers Platinum MasterCard (free for Rogers customers, 1.75% cash back), Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card (2% flat on selected categories), and the RBC Cash Back MasterCard.

Here are some links to my YouTube video on cash back credit cards I have released in the past:

Which Credit Cards Give the Most Rewards Points of Cash Back?

What Are Some of the Best Cash Back Credit Cards?

Still paying banking fees?

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Stop Paying Bank Fees

Are you still paying banking fees? If you are, you should look at free banking options. A monthly fee of $12 or $15 can trun into a considerable amount over the years. Follow these steps to eliminate banking fess.

A. Consider banking online with a finanicial institution who gives you lots of value added services. An example is President Choice Financial. I get free checks (which TD, CIBC would never give) and earn at least $100 in free groceries just for using their services. It's like a double-dip bonus. I am banking free and getting free money for free banking.

B. If you are not comfortable with online banking, find out what is the threshold to avoid bank fees at you local branch. Usually this threshold level is $1000 but it can vary bank to bank. Shop for the best deal and never pay any transaction,ABM or checking fees.

C. Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) provides interactive tools, cost of banking guide and information about different types of accounts and banking service packages available in Canada on their website. Click on the above link and then click on For Consumers and it will take you to a page where you can do your research on banking and other financial products and services.
First Published: June 22, 2007 ADawnJournal.com

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

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Entrepreneurs and Affiliate Marketing

A great many of us spend time looking for ways to make a little bit more money. Whether it is because our current job doesn’t pay us enough, or because business is our job, the ideal situation for us would be to find a way of making money without actually doing anything. This is impossible, of course. Isn’t it? Well, to some extent it is, but there are ways of setting things up so that you can make money for yourself without ever having to do a great deal. It does require a bit of work up front, and a little bit of knowledge too, however, so it is not the fabled “money for nothing” situation for which many of us would give our eye teeth. It is as close as most of us will get, though.

The practice of affiliate marketing is becoming more and more popular for Internet savvy entrepreneurs who know enough about the vagaries of business to be able to harness the power of the web and make hundreds, even thousands of pounds without needing to do a great deal. It is actually a fairly simple practice, although there is some amount of corkscrew logic involved in getting to the stage where it is up and running, and paying money to you on a regular basis. There is also some amount of caution required, as the Internet is as riddled as any other marketplace with fraudsters and tricksters. Once you are in, though, you may be surprised by how much money you can actually make.

The idea of affiliate marketing is that businesses gain promotion from an individual or another business placing an advertisement for a product or service on their website. The mere placement of an advertisement, however eye-catching, is no guarantee of a profitable affiliation. The website on which it is placed does much of the work for the affiliate. If we say, for example, that the company looking to advertise is one which sells a range of sunglasses, beach towels and other holiday paraphernalia, the person looking to act as an affiliate would be well-served by setting up a travel blog or website. Therefore, visitors to their website will come to read about traveling and holidays, spot the advertisement and potentially click through to buy a parasol (for example).

As long as the affiliate marketer is aware of the way to do things – and this is usually agreed at the point of making an affiliation – they can earn commission from each customer who buys from the merchant’s website after clicking on “their” ad. The success of an affiliate marketing campaign depends on the marketer pre-selling, however subtly, a product which is then advertised on their site. It can be summed up as telling someone that they need something, and telling them where they can get it, without ever making the link explicit. You leave them to make that link themselves.

First Published: June 8, 2009 EntrepreneurJourney.com

The Best Cheapest and Worst Days to Fly

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Best and Worst Time to Fly

There are various factors that affect plane tickets. If you are flexible to choose when you want to fly, picking some days over others may be beneficial to your wallet.

Worst Time to Fly

Christmas and New Year Season – Those two weeks around Christmas and New Years should be avoided. Peak worst days at this time can be the long weekend or the weekend before holidays.

Spring Break – Though this season can vary based on where you are, in general early March to mid-May can be hectic to fly.

Summer – Summer is a bit tricky. It can be the low season for hot destinations and high season for cold destinations. Long weekends are the worst time to buy tickets. June, July, and August are in general peak time for summer destinations.

Thanksgiving – A couple of days before and after Thanksgiving are the worst time to fly. But the day of Thanksgiving itself offers great discounts if you can fly.

Worst Days to Fly

Fridays and Sundays are the most expensive days to fly.

Best Days to Fly

First Cheapest Days to Fly – Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Second Cheapest Days to Fly – Thursdays and Saturdays.

Best Time to Fly

Fly when most people don’t want to fly due to inconvenience. For example, very early in the morning, overnight flights (red-eyes), lunchtime, and dinnertime.

Last Word

Sometimes no rules will work if you want to take certain flights that only operate once a week or only certain days of the week. Also, if you have several legs of a continuous trip and can’t match the full trip to one of the cheaper days, try to make at least half the leg of the trip fall on the cheaper time frame to save money.