The offers on this page are out dated, you can find the latest news when the April update is released.

If you thought the offers from last month were juicy, this month is going to surprise you as some issuers are really pulling out all the stops. I’ve been watching balance transfer offers for years and it’s been quite some time since someone offered a $100 in cashback as part of a new account promotion and tied it to a card with a 0% balance transfer or 0% purchases offer. I think the issuers are starting to really get aggressive in competing with one another and you, the consumer, benefit from it.

The story last month was longer promotional periods, this month we get to see a little bit of bonus action on the front end coupled with more standard balance transfer promotional rate periods.

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The Supreme Court of California recently ruled that retailers do not have the right to ask for a customer’s ZIP code because a 1971 state law prohibits a business from asking credit cardholders for personal identifying information.

I’ve personally never minded when the cashier asks me for a ZIP code but I know a few people who don’t like it. They are concerned that it invades their privacy and they don’t see the purpose of providing it, I agree with them on both counts. That said, if push ever came to shove and I didn’t want to give my real ZIP code, I’d just make one up. I doubt my credit card would be declined though I’ve never put it to the test.

Is this something that concerns you or do you think the privacy issues are overblown?

One of the big lessons from the post-credit crisis era, and you could argue we’re still fighting through the crisis itself, is the idea that cheap credit and cheap debt are bad for you. In general, I’d agree that racking up double digit interest rate debt is a very bad thing, but having access to that credit can be a very good thing.

It’s been a while since I wrote a Devil’s Advocate post but I felt that it was time. There’s been a huge backlash against credit and debt lately, in part because they were a cornerstone of the credit crisis, and I think that anger and fear is a bit unfounded. For every irresponsible borrower, there’s a responsible one taking full advantage of credit and using it in a way that enriches their life. Today, we’ll look at just a few of the reasons why you shouldn’t abandon credit.

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Discover is running a new promotion where you can earn up to a 2% cashback bonus on up to $500 in purchases. It’s not going to be a crazy amount of cashback, since it’s 2% on $500 in purchases, but if you already use a Discover Card you might as well sign up and get the extra cashback.

There are four cards that are eligible:

• More Card by Discover
• Motiva Card by Discover
• Open Road Card by Discover
• Miles by Discover -you get double miles, instead of cashback

The promotion has balloons and says “Celebrate your BIRTHDAY” but it doesn’t appear that it actually has to be your birthday month. You just have to pick a month and you’ll earn double cashback on up to $500 in purchases retroactively applied to the start of the month. There doesn’t appear to be an expiration date. Here are the T&Cs:

Sign up to earn 2% Cashback Bonus on up to $500 in purchases from the first day of the birthday promotion month for which you enroll (or the date on which you sign up, whichever is later) through the last day of that month. Purchases earning 2% Cashback Bonus will not count toward your total annual purchases to determine your tier level. These purchases must post to your account by the last day of the month. Allow up to 5 weeks for this reward to be added to your Cashback Bonus account. See Cashback Bonus Program Terms and Conditions for further details about your reward program.

Just a quick word of warning if you have a Discover card you opened for a 0% balance transfer – any new purchases you make will accrue interest immediately since you’re carrying a balance. That and depending on how they put your payments, you may be paying a lot in interest.

When I was 18, I traveled to Europe as an exchange student. I really didn’t know how to protect my money while traveling, and kept all most all of it in pocketbook, in a single form. I was lucky: The only danger my money faced was being spent. If I had been robbed, I would have been hard-pressed to get my money back (although, as part of a student exchange, I would have had help dealing with the aftermath).

True, I was at a disadvantage: I didn’t have a credit card, and I didn’t have a debit card. (This was a looong time ago.) Traveler’s cheques were the way to go when traveling overseas. However, some of the basics of protecting your money never change. It is especially important to be careful of your money if you know you will be traveling to a place in upheaval. Plus, you never know if the country you are in might suddenly become unpredictable, as what happened in Egypt recently.

Before you head out of the country, consider these tips for protecting your money:
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The offers on this page are out dated, you can find the latest news on the best zero balance transfers here.

Once a month, every month, I’ll be providing an update on the “state of the balance transfer” on the first Thursday of the month. With the credit crisis abated and the economy recovering, a lot of credit card companies are resuming their credit card offers, including the once prominent 0% balance transfer. In these monthly posts, I’ll keep you apprised on how the landscape has changed in the last month along with a look at some of the more prominent cards in each category.

In the last month, we’ve seen the introduction of a lot of cards with longer 0% APR periods. We’ve even seen Discover bring in a card with no balance transfer fee, a staple during the housing boom but something that has fallen out of favor as of late.

Your typical trade-offs are still there – longer 0% period or lower balance transfer fee? Discover has a 5% fee but a 24 month 0% APR period but Citi has a lower fee but only an 18 month 0% APR period. The right card for you depends on your balance and how quickly you think you can pay it off.

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Long time readers of Bargaineering will know that in the last year I’ve been aggressively consolidating our financial accounts in a quest to simplify my finances. It seems fitting that, for Spring Cleaning Week, our second post of the series should be one about how to consolidate all the financial accounts you’ve accumulated in the last few years.

In an ideal world, you really need one checking account, one savings account, one credit card (debatable), and one brokerage account. We, of course, don’t live in a utopia, we live here. It doesn’t take long for financial accounts to accumulate like knickknacks on your bookcase or mantle. A change in job adds a 401(k), a change of address adds a new bank, and before long you have a dozen financial accounts you don’t even use every month with a few bucks here and a few bucks there.

While most of the battle is in just consolidating, I think that a few tips I picked up may help you in your quest.

This offer has expired.

Citi is starting a limited time promotional offer of a $50 statement credit after $50 in purchases on three of their student credit cards – the Citi mtvU Platinum Select Card, the Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card, and the Citi Forward Card. This is a $50 statement credit on top of the features the cards already offer. I’m personally a fan of the Citi mtvU card because it gives me 5 reward points for ever $1 I spend at books (Amazon.com included) and restaurants. Before I had the Citi mtvU card I was using their Dividend Platinum Select (which is still in my drawer) because I was all about the cashback.

These offers expire 1/15/2011.

Here are some more offer details:
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