Low Interest Credit Cards

Cardholders love their cash! Results from Cardtrak.com’s recent consumer poll fielding your most favored type credit card reward program are in. As you may expect, credit cardholders love their cash back, the most favored kind of reward program with a wide margin. These include such cards as the Capital One “No Hassle Cash” Rewards or the U.S. Bank “Cash Rewards Platinum” Visa. Favored by 63.3% of cardholders polled, cash back programs were followed by airline miles with 21.1% of the vote. Top airline miles card include the “Miles” by Discover Card and the Chase “Freedom” Mastercard. A distant third and fourth were card points (10.1%) and rebates/discounts (5.5%).

Click here for our list of all cash rewards credit cards.

Faisal Shahzad’s alleged terrorist plot — which involved detonating a homemade bomb in New York City and then fleeing to Dubai — was apparently paid for in cash.

Based on news reports, Shahzad used hard currency to both buy a truck (which would eventually house the bomb) and pay for his Dubai-bound flight out of the country. Cash might seem an odd payment choice, considering the popularity of debit and credit cards: The most recent Federal Reserve data shows that noncash payments (including debit and credit cards) in the United States totaled $75.8 trillion in 2006, increasing at a rate of 3.9 percent per year since 2003.

However, experts say some terrorists have good reasons to prefer cash to payment cards. “I’m not surprised to the extent he chose to use cash, as that is the most anonymous and ubiquitous payment method out there,” payments expert Judith Rinearson, a partner with the international law firm of Bryan Cave, tells me. Read more…