TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express

Earn Cash Back - 3% for gasoline, 3% for restaurants, 2% for travel, 1% everywhere else, including Costco.1
No Annual Fee with your paid Costco Membership.
The TrueEarnings Card serves as both your American Express Credit Card and your Costco Membership Card.
The flexibility to pay charges over time.
No Limit on the Cash Back earned.

Earn true cash back the simple way

TrueEarnings^® Card from Costco and American Express

• Earn 3% cash back for gasoline.
  
• Earn 3% cash back for restaurants.
  
• Earn 2%cash back for travel.
  
• Earn 1%cash back everywhere else, including Costco.
  
• No minimum on how much you have to spend.
  
• No limit on what you can earn with the TrueEarnings Card.
  
• Cash back earnings accumulates over the course of the year and the total is issued to you in your February billing statement.
  

• Pay over time or pay in full.
  
• Grace Period for purchases is up to 20 days, if the previous balance shown on each billing statement is paid in full by each respective due date.
  
  

• 0.00% Intro APR for 3 months on purchases made with the Card.
  
• For Balance transfers, APR is 1.99% for 6 months when you transfer a balance during the first 30 days of Cardmembership.
  

DID YOU KNOW?

	One of the easiest things you can do to keep more of your own money is to guard it from theft. I'm not talking about fighting off some criminal trying to steal your wallet on the street. No, I’m talking about something more sinister. Theft that occurs without you realizing what’s going happening. Theft that happens partly as a result of your own lack of knowledge. The theft I’m talking about is identity theft. Identity theft is a huge problem and it’s getting bigger every day. According to 2 studies done in July 2003 (Gartner Research and Harris Interactive), approximately 7 million people became victims of identity theft in the prior 12 months. That equals 19,178 per day, 799 per hour, 13.3 per minute. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, a non-profit organization, victims now spend an average of 600 hours recovering from this crime, often over a period of years. Three years ago the average was 175 hours of time, representing an increase of about 2470%. Based on 600 hours times the indicated victim wages, this equals nearly $16,000 in lost potential or realized income. That’s a significant amount of money. Identity theft comes in many forms. Among the most popular are: Dumpster Diving – As the name implies, this involves thieves going through your garbage to find old mail you’ve discarded which may contain personally identifiable information like bank account numbers or credit card information. The bad guys can potentially use this information to gain access to your accounts and steal your money. Finding discarded pre-approved credit card offers in your trash is an easy way for a thief to cash in on your identity. Phishing – This involves the use of email to gain access to your private information. You may receive an email which looks to be from your bank. The email may suggest that one or more of your accounts has been compromised and asks you to verify your account information using a simple form. DON’T DO IT. The email was likely sent by a criminal hoping you’ll fill out the information and hit the “Submit” button. The information doesn’t go to your bank at all but directly to the criminals instead. No financial institution will request your personal account information by email. If you get an email like this, report it to your financial institution immediately. Employee Theft – This involves an employee at a business you patronize selling your private credit card information to a third party. If you give your credit card to an employee at a retail store, the potential exists for that employee to steal your credit card number. What can you do to protect yourself from identity thieves? There are a number of simple steps you can take to protect yourself. Included are: Buy a shredder – This is probably the simplest and cheapest way to protect yourself. Shred all personal information before you throw it in the trash. This includes all bank statements, credit card statements and pre-approved credit card offers. If the crooks can’t read your information, they can’t steal your identity. Use you financial institution’s online banking service – This is an easy way to reduce the amount of paper you receive from your financial institution. Plus, if you check your account online frequently, you’re more likely to notice unusual activity taking place on your account. Use email carefully – Do not respond to unusual emails asking for personal information even if they appear to be from your bank. Chances are, the email is fraudulent. Check your credit report - Everyone can check their credit report for free once each year. I urge you to do this to see if you notice any unusual activity. Are there reports showing you applied for credit cards or loans that you don’t remember? If so, contact the credit bureau immediately to report this activity. Identity theft continues to grow each year. Only by being aware and alert can you stop identity thieves in their tracks. Don’t make yourself an easy target.

You probably know by now that affiliate programs provides one of the most popular ways to make money on the Internet. But making a living online from them is hard enough with different people telling you different things. However, there are some techniques you can follow to increase your chances of success.

The following five ways can multiply your affiliate sales and, more importantly, your name recognition which will mean more affiliate sales to come.

-- Offer a free e-course with affiliate link(s) added throughout.

This will get people to: 1) visit your site if you're leading them to a subscribe form and/or 2) allow you to follow-up with them several times. You'll have a better chance of making the sale and you'll get some traffic.

Don't come up with just anything -- it has to be a quality e-course with valuable information that people can actually use/learn from. Otherwise, your reputation goes downhill and so will your ability to sell anything.

-- Do some offline advertising for free publicity.

You could do press releases, radio or television interviews, classifieds in newspapers or magazines, posting fliers in your local market, etc. Your imagination is your only limit (besides the law, in some cases, so check ;).

Not many people think about going offline when they have an online business, and still less actually do it. You can be different and bring in a fresh audience without them being distracted by other, similar websites.

-- Write your own articles with your affiliate link in resource box.

This is especially worth your while for affiliate programs that give you residual income. It's also a quick way to get started marketing a new product in a completely different niche market than the one you're currently working on. Or if you're like me, it can be an easy way to generate some extra cash without going through the trouble of setting up another website.

-- Be different than the competition by offering something extra if they purchase through your website or link.

The best of the best affiliates think outside the box and offer something different from the average affiliate. That's why they are the best of the best and the average are just average. By giving bonuses (preferably, unique ones) to people who buy through them instead of their competitor, they not only increase their sales but also build up a loyal mailing sublist at the same time.

-- Offer a free report to spread around like wildfire.

And not just any old free report. It actually has to be a good one, preferably one that you created or had created for you. You can put affiliate links in it or just point people back to your website where you have your affiliate products or an offer to subscribe to your publication on display.

Here's an extra idea: offer a report related to your business as a low cost or virtually free lead generator on eBay. Then in the listing, you can lead them to your About Me page where they can request another free report, sign up for your publication, or just visit your website. eBay has the traffic and the customers you're looking for, just put your offer up and let them find it easily.

And there you have it. Five (actually, six) ideas you can use to increase your affiliate sales and commission starting today. Of course you don't have to do all of them, but using any one of them should help to get you out of your affiliate quagmire.