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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Back in September I wrote about Dynamics Inc’s Card 2.0 and their newest credit card technologies. It turns out that Citi will begin rolling out some of these cards in what they call Citi 2G credit cards. The cards will likely be using the MultiAccount technology, where you can have two credit cards on one physical card, and Citi will let users pick if they want to pay with reward points or credit at the point of sale.

The cards will be the same size as current cards and contain a battery with a four-year lifespan, a smart chip, and the fancy buttons to let you pick how you want to pay. According to the NY Times article, it took “nearly a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop.” A few select customers will be testing them and it’ll be launched more broadly in mid to late 2011. The 2G test cards will be available for the Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard and the Citi PremierPass Elite.

When I first moved to Maryland for work, I rented an apartment with a friend of mine. He was a good roommate and a great friend, so much so that we even discussed buying a house together. We never got past the discussion phase because my parents recommended against it when I brought it up. His did as well. Since then we’ve looked back on that moment as a fantastic time to start taking our parents advice because buying a home with someone, regardless of who it is, can be a very tricky proposition.

That said, we are often put in situations of far lesser magnitude where we might be tempted to co-sign an agreement with someone. You might be asked apply for a joint credit card or co-sign a loan, I would be very careful about who you agree to do that with. In fact, I am pretty sure I will never co-sign a loan with anyone other than my wife.

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Reader Carl recently asked me whether or not you build credit with a joint credit card:

I’m a nineteen year old guy, and opened my first credit card account at Best Buy, in order to buy a laptop for school, along with other “necessities.” Mind you, this was in 2009, and it was incredibly hard to find credit, so I had to co-sign with my dad.

Now I hold a total of three credit cards: Best Buy, Express Clothing (my first independent credit card), and my Bank of America Visa card. My BB card has a $2,300 limit, Express $250, and Boa $2,000. During a recent conversation with one of the bankers at BoA, they informed me that my BB card really doesn’t help my credit report, as it’s not necessarily my “own” credit card. Should I close the first account, and attempt to reopen one in only my name?

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Kimberly Palmer is the author of Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing, and Giving Back, which was published by Ten Speed Press this week. The following post has been adapted from the book. She’s also the author of the Alpha Consumer blog at USNews.com, where she’ll be hosting book giveaways all week.

Shortly after meeting my husband, he tried to convince me that debt was a good thing. His student loans, after all, were not only funding his tuition but also many of our first dates. Using something called the “income smoothing theory,” he argued that it was better to borrow now, when we had little money, so we could live better than we otherwise would, and then pay it back later, when we (hopefully) had steady incomes. (Of course, to us at the time, living well meant being able to buy cheap Thai food and beer.)

While his theory falls apart if it’s taken to extremes, for the most part it makes sense. Debt can be a very good thing, as long as you use it wisely. Here are five ways you can use debt to improve your life.

I had a reader Jackson email me the other day asking about switching credit cards. It turns out that his current main credit card is being phased out and replaced with one whose rewards structure is less rewarding for him. The one thing holding him back is the thought that switching credit cards would hurt his credit score. As we traded emails, I learned that he recently bought a house, had a great credit score, and was generally very fiscally responsible. The only reason why he was concerned was because the whole credit scoring system was a black box.

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One of the biggest misconceptions about credit card security is that the sensitive information is located on the front of the card. While your card number, your name, and its expiration date are important bits of information, the magnetic strip contains that information and more. Dynamics Inc. has created a prototype of a card that would secure the magnetic strip of the card whenever you weren’t using it, requiring you to enter in a passcode before you could activate the card.

They’ve debuted two products:

• Hidden: Ten of the 16 digits of your credit card number are printed on the card, with an additional six “hidden” on a display. After you enter in your special passcode, the remaining six digits are displayed. When the card is activated, the magnetic strip on the bag will populate with your data and it is erased when the unit is “off.”
• MultiAccount: Instead of carrying two cards, you only need one. You select the card you want by pressing the button and the magnetic strip on the back is populated with the pertinent data.

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For years I’ve been accumulating reward points in Citi’s Thank You Network with my Citi mtvU credit card, usually turning them into student loan checks for ACS. With my student loans paid off and the conversion rate weaker (it used to be 2,500 point for $25, now it’s 3,300 for $25), I’ve been looking for an alternative in the gift card department. Unfortunately, none of the cards are really appealing and I thought we could convert the points into a charitable donation but I wasn’t sure how the deduction worked.

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