Best Cards of 2015 as of January

Hey all! Here we are in the new year! A new beginning in our journey to collect points and travel. 2015 seems to be a good year based on the positive buzz being generated around various credit cards/checking accounts and generally any kind of banking relationships. There is increased focus on consumer activities and generous targeted bonuses are doing the rounds. The marketing teams in big financial firms are creating their strategies in attracting more customers with bigger incentives than ever.

Some examples: Barclayscards US, which has been issuing the US Airways card for US Airways has increased the sign up bonus to attract new customers before this business is handled by Citi post merger of US Airways with American. Barclays will still continue to maintain the existing accounts and hence there are a lot of initiatives to target customers.

Barclays card here: http://www.worldgotbigger.com/us-airways-credit-card/?campaignId=2062&cellNumber=8&referrerid=PTRBAEMWELG

Note that Citi gives a similar card for American but that also has a $99 annual fee.

Chase, as usual has some exciting cards, primarily:

Chase Southwest card: Again started with the 50k points offer after 2k spend.

Chase Slate Card: I have not tried this card yet but it seems a standout primarily because there is a 0% APR and ZERO FEE BALANCE TRANSFER .. balance transfer fee is the transaction fee that is typically 3% or 4% of the transaction amount and makes a significant change. Chase Slate waiving of this fee makes it the only card, apart from the Navy Fed CU GO card which waive the balance transfer fees. That is a huge savings there if you want to transfer over the balances. I am planning on doing this sometime this month. Fingers crossed on getting approved.

https://creditcards.chase.com/credit-card-search.aspx?F42G=Y71UH0&CELL=63WS&jp_ltg=leftnav&list=4,2,1

There are reconsideration lines which are rather soul draining and honestly not worth that much given that there are so many offers available that are not limited to just one bank these days.

Over the course of this year, this blog will start having posts that are not just limited to credit cards but also other kind of financial services as well as evolving into a money blog. Not that we are going to post stock tips here but would post different strategies that are out there and try to split the wheat from chaff. A lot of noise in financial world and jargons are very difficult to lay man as well professionals to comprehend completely. On top of that there is often subliminal data to convince people that a particular strategy or solution is the best one. This blog would try to distill some of these thoughts and ideas and have actionable items that would make this whole exercise less stressful. Same way, managing credit cards offers and spending is one of the prime goals of this blog.