Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

20 July 2003: Credit Card Special: free flight; long term cheap rate; the shuffle; a tipple of a tip PLUS free cash bonus tip

This info may be out of date. Read this week's emails

Update Note: Added to the end of this is the text of an extra free cash tip sent out on 23rd July. Martin

The following is the text of Martin's Money Tip Email
sent out on 20th July 2003

An independent, consumer help email from www.moneysavingexpert.com

Free Flight from a Credit Card

Sign up for a new FlyBMI (British Midland's budget carrier) credit card and you'll get a free return flight anywhere in Europe (though you must pay taxes). It only requires one purchase to be made on the card. Frankly, after that just forget the card as it's not special in any other way. To sign up click here. If you're worried about the impact on your credit score of signing up for a large number of cards there's an explanation in the Regular Q&A section of the site.

Been turned down for credit cards – do the Credit Card Shuffle

I receive many e-mails from people who are turned down for top introductory rates on credit cards. As such I've written a special guide on how to reduce your interest even if plastic providers are saying NO. To read it click here. And to read a guide to how credit scoring works (i.e. explaining why you may have been turned down) then click here

Guarantee yourself a long term low credit card rate

Interest rates are now at historic lows. This lead me to a thought, it means it's the perfect opportunity to guarantee yourself cheap credit for the future. The markets best offer is from the Co-Op, it has two credit cards where the interest rate is fixed for 5 years. On its Platinum card the rate is 8.9% on the Gold card 9.9%. While there are many better introductory special offers, for a standard rate these are damn good even now. So here's the logic – to be assured of cheap credit in the future, get one of these cards now. Don't use it, as cheaper debt is still available elsewhere, but keep it as insurance against a rate rise. To see the Co-Ops cards click here

Wine Drinkers Special - Top MoneySavingExpert.com Chat tip

After the huge success of the free money from a loophole in a betting site's conditions (over 5000 people got roughly £20 each) a change of pace. My favourite tip at the moment is more of a tipple. It's about choosing the right MoneySaving wine in restaurants – click here to read it. Also the Diary of a Money Saving Extremist is getting more and more bizarre, well worth a look, click here for that.

Martin's Money Poser Competition

A different type of Money Poser this time. While MoneySaving isn't primarily about stocks and shares I thought it's useful to have a look. So here's the test. At what level will the FTSE-100 index end this year? Please write your guess (and if possible give your reasons) by clicking here. The nearest at the end of the year wins a bottle of champagne.

Quick warning about utility bills

If you're looking to change, hold off for a week, I've come up with a new way to save more money. Details coming soon.

Telephone Tariffs

Well I did so much work on it, I feel a need to make sure you all read it. It was hell, but will save you a fortune. For a full comparison of over 100 UK home phone providers to find the cheapest, click here.

PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS

The site continues to grow. It's great, however more people means more Money Saving power. This site is now scaring providers – could anything be better! So go on, e-mail or tell your friends and get them to come to the site and sign up for the tips. Just think of the size of the drink they'll owe you for saving them so much cash!

If you want to ask a question

If you've any questions please post them in the relevant section of Chat (click here). Apologies I can't directly respond to e-mails, my RSI is making life very difficult.

That's it from me, thank you all for your continued support. It's amazing.

Martin

Keep www.moneysavingexpert.com completely independent, ad free, sponsorship free and free to use. READ HERE

The site was founded and funded directly by Martin, as it's grown so much two revenue raising abilities have been added. If you want to read about them and support the site click here. To go direction click either Money Directory or Best Buys (just the top financial section it's all explained there)

(QUICK FACT: If everyone who receives this email went and looked at one product provider's site via the money directory and one via affiliated Best Buys (without buying anything!), it'd finance the site for a year!! As for what two or three or four clicks each would do….)

The following is the text of an extra tip sent out on 23rd July 2003

Having just sent a load of credit card tips, there I was about to pop off on holiday when I spotted this. Thought I would send it you as an extra before I good.

Free £50 cash
Sign up for a Halifax Platinum card through Moneysupermarket and you'll get £50 cashback. To qualify for the cash you simply need to use the card three times in the first month. There is no min. spend, so just three £1 transactions in a petrol station would do it. (If you're worried about the impact on your credit score of signing up for a large number of cards there's an explanation of the impact in the Regular Q&A section of the site)

However as it is also a 0% card for 9 months for both on spending and balance transfers so you could decide to get the £50 and then use it for 9 months at no charge. Nine months makes it the second longest interest free intro deal on the market. It's a bit of a no brainer really.

To have a look at the card click here* and then look down the page for "Halifax Platinum".

(*Note: This link is affiliated, meaning a contribution is made to MoneySavingExpert.com is you look at the card. Using it helps keep MoneySavingExpert.com ad free, sponsorship free and free to use. This in no way impacts the products or costs of products available - for more information click here. For the sake of transparency, recommendations are made purely journalistically and never due to making money for the site, if you want an identical link where no contribution is made just click www.moneysupermarket.com)