Citi Diamond Preferred Card

By Doresa Banning

Editor's Note: Thank you for your interest, this offer expired and is no longer available.

Editor's Note: This offer expired and is no longer available. The Citi® Diamond Preferred® Card, issued by Citibank, is offering a 0 percent APR on both purchases and balance transfers for 18 months. To qualify, any balance transfer must be made within 4 months of opening your account. With this interest-free promotion, you can pay down or off existing debt on one or more credit cards or make and pay off large purchases -- over the 18-month period. Another plus is no annual fee.

Other information:

• See the Citibank online credit card application for full terms and conditions on offers and features.

Citi Diamond Preferred Card

By Megg Mueller

While it might appear obvious, one of the things I do for a living is research and write about credit cards. And yet, I've been sitting here with a credit card offer in my hands for about 10 days now, and I'm no closer to deciding if I should accept it than I was when I ripped open the envelope.

The offer is to upgrade my Bank of America Platinum Plus Visa, a card I have never used nor do I recall asking for, but got when I opened other B of A accounts. So for about four years, I've had this card I've never used, and all of a sudden I am being offered a Bank of America Cash Rewards Signature Visa. But I don't know if I want it. I can't tell, and that's just sad.

I got four credit card offers in the mail last week, and two via email. TransUnion, the credit scoring agency, reported last week that the number of new cards issued in 2011 rose by 14 percent, according to a story by Eileen AJ Connelly of the Associated Press. Now call me crazy, but that might have something to do with the fact that the Boston Globe reported that 4 billion credit card offers were mailed out last year. The adage "if you throw enough stuff at the wall, something is bound to stick" springs to mind.

Anyway, when I wrote about this for CardRatings.com, the thinking at the time was that banks were loosening their Read the full article »

By Megg Mueller

"Made in China" just took on a new twist, at least for one American bank. Citibank has just been given the green light to issue credit cards in the notoriously restrictive country, a coup that makes Citi the first Western bank allowed into China's rapidly growing banking market.

China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, but it has been very slow to warm to foreign financial institutions on its home turf. While foreign banks have been allowed to partner with Chinese banks and issue co-branded credit cards, the Citibank deal marks the first time the Asian nation is letting a non-Chinese company fly solo.

By Aaron Crowe

I went to Sears recently to buy a pair of shoes for my daughter, not knowing that paying for them would turn into a math lesson for the entire family.

I paid for the $20 shoes (on sale from the original price of $30) with a credit card, and was told by the cashier that the price would drop to $6 if I opened a Sears credit card on the spot. I'm usually happy to get 70 percent off, but I declined for a few reasons -- the main one being that I wanted to get out of the store quickly after finding the shoes...

By Megg Mueller

Here's a newsflash: Hackers can wreak havoc for credit card owners. As tales of identity theft and stolen credit cards become a seemingly almost everyday occurrence, you may be unclear what to do to protect yourself from high-tech thieves. And thieves thrive on your confusion.

I read about the Christmas Day attack on American think-tank Strategic Forecasting, a company that gives its clients political, economic and military analysis…all in the name of helping them reduce risk. The group that claimed responsibility was hacking group named Anonymous. The hack compromised the credit card numbers and personal information of more than 50,000 accounts of people who do business with Stratfor clients, such as Apple and the U.S. Air Force, according to CNET News.

By Aaron Crowe

Balance Transfer Day -- when consumers were urged to send big banks a message by switching their credit cards with money on them to companies that offered lower interest rates -- came and went without much splash on Dec. 11.

"Take that, big banks, we're moving our business to credit cards with balance transfer promotions," or some screech that customers were supposed to make. In other words, moving their business from one credit card to another was supposed to send a message. That's not much of a message of defiance if you're just going from one bank to another...