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Credit card 101: Facts about credit cards

by JQ Adams

Created on: January 21, 2009

Credit card issuers are constantly trying to out do one another with better promotions and offers, and the quality of the promotional offers seems to increase around the holiday season. Card issuers are competing for their share of the holiday shopping spending.

This is a good time of year to take advantage of credit card offers, particularly if you've got reasonably good credit. Want to make money off the credit card companies? Just consider it revenge for all the people out there who are struggling to pay extremely high interest on their credit card accounts and are barely keeping their heads above water.

Here's what you do: First, look for a credit card that's offering a 0% promotion for twelve months. You're looking for a specific offer that includes 0% interest on cash advances for twelve months. These are not as common as credit cards offering 0% interest on new purchases or balance transfers, but they do exist.

Once you find it, apply! While you're waiting for your card or cash advance checks to come in the mail, you'll want to find a high interest savings account that you will use to deposit your cahs advance in for twelve months to earn as much interest as possible.

Consider:

Ing Direct 12 month CD 4.80% APY
Capital One Direct Banking 6 month CD 5% APY
E*Trade online savings account 5.05% APY
When your cash advance is available, deposit as much as you're allowed to take out into the high interest earning account of your choice, and leave it there for twelve months. Just make the minimum payment each month on the credit card (as you aren't paying interest on it anyway). At the end of twelve months, you pay back the remaining balance on your credit card cash advance and the rest is what you've earned! Making money on credit card lenders money what could be better than that?

To give you an idea, if you invested $5,000 for twelve months, at 5% interest, you would have $5,256 at the end of the year. So you earned over $250 on someone elses money! Then, you can simply look for the next credit card offering the 0% interest offer on cash advances and do it all over again! Leave your earned $256 in the account along with your next cash advance deposit, and you'll earn a little more because of the higher deposit.

To give you an idea, if you invested $5,000 for twelve months, at 5% interest, you would have $5,256 at the end of the year. So you earned over $250 on someone elses money! Then, you can simply look for the next credit card offering the 0% interest offer on cash advances and do it all over again! Leave your earned $256 in the account along with your next cash advance deposit, and you'll earn a little more because of the higher deposit.

Learn more about this author, JQ Adams.
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