Some of you are aware that I have a few pages with various credit card offers listed in categories like airlines, hotels, and flexible bank rewards programs. These became seriously outdated in the last few months as I was distracted by other things. There were dead links, links to inferior offers, and just in general an inconsistent and difficult to read presentation.
Well, I spent the weekend cleaning up those pages. I hope you’ll find them a lot cleaner and easier to understand. Every card comes with a mini review, and I’ve even tried to weed out my comments about individual companies and focus on the benefits of the cards themselves. Not the easiest thing for an opinionated guy like me! I hope you find these updates valuable, and with no distractions in the near future, I expect I’ll be able to do a better job of keeping them up-to-date.
Several bloggers with higher profiles than mine have already been contacted directly by American Express to announce a new 30K offer for the SPG American Express card that will go live tomorrow (the usual is 25K). Hopefully I’ll be able to continue providing email referrals for this card at the higher offer, but if not, I’ll be directing you to someone else instead. UPDATE: Yes, I have the improved 30K offer available! So send me an email if you’re interested in getting a referral. Later this week I plan to add another page dedicated to small business cards, and I’ll also update the information I provide on how to improve your chances of a successful application.
You may remember when I first signed up as a credit card affiliate I created a bounty program, offering a $5 Starbucks gift card to anyone who found an offer superior to the ones I listed. That offer remains, although I’ve increased it to $10, and I’m happy to send a gift card for something other than Starbucks if you’re willing to wait for the snail mail (Starbucks lets me send them immediately by email from my phone, which is wicked cool 
). If you find a superior offer for any card, not just the ones for which I have an affiliate link, just be the first person to send me an email with the information and a link to the application.
Finally, a word about life as an affiliate. I’m still small potatoes compared to the big names, and I don’t make much from it, partly because I hate pushing them. I only get paid when an application is approved, not when you click on a link or submit an application. In the past two months I’ve seen three successful applications post to my account. Making it worse, only Chase is willing to do business with me because the other banks don’t like the word “Hack” in my title, and even Chase is slowly withdrawing links for several of its cards as you’ve probably noticed from reports by other bloggers.
This isn’t a plea to use my links. I only have them there because I figured if I’m going to collect the info, it would at least be nice to give you my link and not someone else’s. But it should be viewed as some evidence that this is primarily a service to readers and not a money machine for me. I have 39 40 cards listed on those three pages, and only four make any money (another two will earn me some bonus points) . The bounty idea is just my friendly way to encourage you to help me make sure that everyone is getting the best information available in one central location. I hope you’ll take me up on my offer.
About Scott Mackenzie
