When you make a purchase on your Rapid Rewards Credit Card you will earn 1 mile/point for every $1 that you spend. You can earn 2 miles/points per $1 spent when make Southwest Airlines or Rapid Rewards Hotel and Car rental purchases.

International Travel Options: You can use your points to purchase flights on more than 50 global carriers to over 800 international destinations.

Don’t travel that much? No problem because your points can be use to get gift cards, experiences, cruises and more. There are a lot of options to spend your points on.

Each anniversary you own the card you will receive extra bonus miles.

More information about the Rapid Rewards Credit Card:

• You get unlimited reward seats. This means if there is a seat available you get it. Some programs limit the number of reward seats on the aircraft.
• There are no black out dates so you can use your reward points any day of the year.
• As long as you have flight or Partner earnings every 24 months your points will not expire. Continue to use your card and points and they will not expire. No activity for 24 months and your points could expire.
• Bags Fly Free!

You can also get great online customer service and account management tools.

Apply Here for the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card from Chase

The fine print:
Travel is subject to the government-imposed September 11th Security Fee of up to $10 per round trip. Number of points required to redeem for free flights is dependent on fare availability, destination, time, and day of travel, which are subject to change. Travel good on Southwest Airlines published, scheduled service. Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Visa credit cards are issued by Chase Bank USA, N.A. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Annual credit card and balance transfer fees apply.

As of now the application is only available on the iPhone, but look for it to be released on the Android market in early December.

There are two new features that make this app a must have for Chase customers.

[See the iPod Checking Account Promotions}

1. Deposit Checks with Your Camera.

Instead of driving to the bank to deposit your check now all you need to do is take a picture of the front and back of the check press send and your funds will be deposited. The app makes an attempt to recognize the routing number and account information on the check from the picture.  If the information is unreadable to the camera you can manually input the numbers.  The funds will remain as pending until Chase processes the transaction.

If you want to use this feature you will have to enroll in Chase Quick Deposit which is a free service, just like the app itself is free.

2. Send money quickly and securely.

If you sign up for the free Chase QuickPay service, which is similar to Paypal, you will be able to send funds with your phone to other people with as little information as just an email address.  Neither the sender nor the receiver of the funds will be charged and the recipient  does not need to be a Chase customer.

More info regarding the Android Release

Reportedly the Android version of the app is completed and is supposed to be released onto the Android market next month. The guys at Phandroid apparently caught wind of an internal email that went out to most Chase employees stating…

Nov 15 2010

“GET READY FOR NEW ANDROID APP!

A new Chase Mobile application will be available for users in early December! This new application will allow Android users to access accounts, pay bills, transfer funds, send wires, make mobile Quick Deposits and locate Chase Branches or ATMs. However, customers will not be able to make QuickPay payments with the new application at this time.”

Looks like Android will be minus the QuickPay option at this point, but none the less this great banking app will be released to just about everyone now.

Wells Fargo is no different than Bank of America, Chase, US Bank or any other major banking institutions. If you feel more comfortable putting your money with a large bank then it’s all about where you look. None of the certificates of deposit offered at Wells Fargo will come close to the national averages for CD Rates.

If you take a look at our last CD Rate board For September 3rd, you will see how low these rates are from Wells Fargo.

Take a look at how low the short term rates are from Wells Fargo:

• 3 Month CD – 0.10% APY
• 6 Month CD – 0.15% APY
• 12 Month CD – 0.20% APY

Those were the interest rates on a minimum of $2,500 deposited.

If you can increase your minimum to $5,000 Wells Fargo will give you better rates on its longer ‘odd’ term CD rates.

• 23 Month CD – 0.90% APY
• 33 Month CD – 1.15% APY
• 54 Month CD – 1.90% APY, which the national average return for a 60 Month CD is 1.72% APY.

The main reason why someone would want to buy into these CDs is for security reasons. Most major banks are insured and while the U.S. government won’t allow them to fail, smaller banks and even some credit unions are still at risk.

Long term certificates of deposit are still not impressive and probably isn’t worth your time or money to buy at this current period of time. You are more likely to make your money back by investing into something tangible, real estate or something else that you can keep your cash free from penalty. CDs require you to keep your money in for the term or risk losing most all of your interest and possibly even some of your principle.

Be sure to check out our CD rate tables for the best deals nationally.

BUT HURRY! This offer is only good until August 14th.

This is how easy it is to qualify for this promotion:

1. Get the Coupon
2. Head into a local branch or sign up online.
3. Sign up for Direct Deposit OR
4. Complete 5 Debit Card transactions.

And THATS IT!  Pretty simple for a $100 dollar reward.  Plus Chase is a nationwide bank with 15,000ATMs nationwide.

That is a bank that can serve you.

Check out all the Checking Account Specials.

Here is where you get your coupon for chase.

And a little of the fine print for you.

• Cannot be an existing Chase checking customers.
• Must be a new Chase Checking^SM account with a $100 minimum deposit of new money (money not currently held by Chase or its affiliates).
• You have 60 calendar days of account opening to complete the direct deposit or have at least five debit card purchases posted to your account.
• You will get the reward within 10 business days after meeting one of these requirements.

For the rest of the fine print please visit chase.

Terms and Conditions:

• Get your coupon code here and take to your local Chase branch.
• You have to deposit $500 within 30 days of opening the account.
• Offer is valid until December 31, 2009.
• To qualify you much open one of the following accounts:
  • Chase BusinessClassicSM Checking
  • BusinessClassicSM Checking with Interest
  • Chase Advanced BusinessCheckingSM
  • Advanced Business CheckingSM with Interest
  • Commercial Checking
  • Commercial Checking with Interest
  • or Chase BusinessPlus® Extra Checking account

• Account opening and award of premium are subject to approval (interest bearing accounts available only to sole proprietorships, non-profit organizations, and government entities).
• Limit one business checking account-related premium per customer per calendar year. Chase reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time without notice.
• Attempts to earn multiple premiums may be voided by Chase, at its discretion.
• Cash premium will be deposited automatically into your checking account within 10 business days after the minimum deposit requirement is met.
• Cash bonus may be considered interest reportable on IRS Form 1099-INT.

Last year if you had a CD at 5% with WaMu and that CD is now maturing as a Chase CD, it is very important to NOT allow it to automatically renew. You have a choice to not allow your CD to renew automatically, while some banks do not practice auto renewed cds, there are still those banks who like to keep your money as long as they can. This story comes from the site Bank Deals who reported about Chase’s early withdrawal penalty.

“A friend of mine had a Chase/WaMu CD flip over. It used to be at WaMu. To Cancel this Chase $100k CD, Chase wants $3k + $25. At the new interest rate of 0.20 for 12 months, that is a 15 YEAR interest penalty for canceling the CD. I know of no other bank in the world that charges this.”

Let’s say if you are on vacation and your $100k CD or even a $10k CD is coming up to maturity date. If you forget to close the CD during the grace period or the CD automatically renews, you will be liable for the early withdrawal penalty if you decide to try to get out of a second CD term. As Bank Deals’ reader found out, the penalty is much more than the usual six months of interest. Here is Chase’s disclosure (page 11), of the early withdrawal penalty for a 12 month CD:

‘For terms of one year or more, the early withdrawal penalty is equal to $25 plus 3% of the amount withdrawn.’

Plus your penalty may eat into the principal:

‘Early withdrawal penalties may require a reduction in the principle amount if the amount of accrued and unpaid interest on the deposit is less than the penalty.’

So by missing the grace period and doing an early withdrawal of the full amount, you will have to pay a large penalty to get your money out of the CD. An example is a $10k CD for more than 1 year you will have to pay a fee of $325.

Currently the Chase CD rates are not competitive, you can easily find better deals, higher interest and less penalties by going with a different bank.

Chase’s standard 12 month CD rate for Texas is only 0.25%, which you can find better rates just by searching for them. One positive note about Chase is they are a very financially sound bank and your money will be safe.