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The Citi Rewards Plus card offers one of the more-unique cardholder benefits: A minimum of 10 bonus points for every purchase. But is a gimmick a reason to get a credit card? Or is gimmick truly valuable?

Easy to integrate. Scalable. User-friendly, robust and feature-rich. These are the words every business owner wants to hear when evaluating digital security solutions. Unfortunately, most providers offer products and services that fail to live up to that description.
Not so RSA. A Dell Technologies company, RSA offers business-driven security solutions that are exactly that. The company’s suite of services helps organizations grow and thrive despite ever-increasing and evolving digital risk. RewardExpert sat down with Peter Beardmore, director of digital risk solutions and RSA spokesperson, to learn more.

So, Apple is getting into the credit card business with what it calls a truly game-changing take on the credit card. But is Apple’s claim that the card has no hidden fees accurate?

Well, no!

In fact, Apple might well have announced the most-expensive hidden fee in the history of credit cards!

In today’s fast-paced digital business environment, data breaches happen daily and can be devastating to an organization’s reputation and revenues. Some of the biggest in recent years include a data breach at Marriott International (which impacted 500 million customers), Equifax (which exposed the personal information of nearly 148 million customers), and Uber (which left 57 million customers and 600,000 Uber drivers vulnerable to identity theft).
RewardExpert recently spoke with Donald Hasson, BeyondTrust’s senior director of product management, about how the company’s privileged access management (PAM) portfolio can help other businesses reduce their risks of a data breach with simple to integrate solutions that enhance user productivity and maximize IT security.

Whatever your business, the experience you provide consumers is central to your success. Companies that find ways to improve that experience often outshine the rest. RewardExpert recently spoke with Entrust Datacard CMO Karen Kaukol about the organization’s solutions and how businesses around the world are using them to improve service, create trust and increase revenue.  

If you’re reading this, chances are you have too much debt on one or more high-interest-rate credit cards and you’re looking to consolidate all or some of that debt onto a credit card with no balance transfer fee from American Express or another credit card with no balance transfer fee.
Here’s what you need to know about an American Express balance transfer.

With interest rates on new vehicles the highest the market has seen in a decade according to Edmunds, a leading online resource for automotive information, getting the best price on your next car –whether new or used– is more important than ever. RewardExpert recently sat down with Eugene Park, Edmunds’ chief product officer, to learn more about the resources the company offers to guide car shoppers from research through purchase as well as tips for maximizing your savings.  

Credit card partnerships can be a great way to boost your accumulation of cash back or reward points because they typically increase the amount of cash back or rewards points you earn. Capital One Savor Cash Rewards’ new arrangement with Vivid Seats is, perhaps, the ultimate example of those kind of partnerships because cardholders now have the opportunity to earn a whopping 8 % cash back.

Most consumers don’t think about payment processing. They choose what they want to buy, place it in a physical or virtual cart, pay with a credit or debit card, and go on their way. Unless there is a problem –like a credit card denial at the register or a double charge later discovered on a bill– they’re blissfully unaware of everything that goes on after the merchant collects their payment data.
The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), on the other hand, is very aware of the players involved in taking that data and processing the actual payment. As the leading trade association for the payments industry, looking out for those companies is the ETA’s sole purpose. RewardExpert recently spoke with Interim CEO Amy Zirkle to find out more.

If you’re like me and you have a high FICO score above 800, welcome to the club – the 20% of us, consumers who have excellent credit. Our high credit score means we have access to some of the best credit cards that exist.
I don’t mean “excellent” in the subjective sense. I mean “excellent credit” in terms of the official ranking system the credit industry uses to determine the risk you won’t repay whatever credit you’re extended.

Technology has come a long way in the past few decades. And it has connected people in ways that generations before would have never thought possible. RewardExpert had the opportunity to speak with Director of Financial Services Solutions Marketing, Damien Simonneau, of Vidyo, a company that has revolutionized the world through its real-time video and cloud-based services.

With so much information out there these days, it’s often difficult to pinpoint how to get the best service or the best price. Lots of ratings sites claim to have honest information, but with sponsored ads, it’s hard to tell whether the reviews are really what they should be. Consumers’ Checkbook offers advice to help people save money, time and hassle, all ad-free on a variety of local services. RewardExpert spoke with Executive Editor, Kevin Brasler, about how Consumers’ Checkbook puts consumers first, and provides accurate, fair assessments on lots of industries from personal finance to travel to healthcare and more.

It’s not the data that companies collect, but the data that’s analyzed that can lead to higher revenue, bigger profits and a more successful business. For nearly a decade, a company called Mixpanel has been helping over 26,000 companies analyze user data and detect the newest trends to grow their business. Vice President of Global Sales at Mixpanel, Pierre Berlin, gave RewardExpert the inside story about the growing company.

A new report by credit-scoring service Experian shows that the average American consumer is slightly better off compared to last year, at least in terms of their credit score.
But have you ever wondered what is the average credit score, and where you fall within the mix, particularly for your age group?

E-commerce is a competitive business, and any edge companies can gain could be the difference between success and failure. The Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE) @ RetailX has been helping businesses gain that edge and grow their profits since 2005. Doug Hope, RetailX Show Director and Senior Vice President, Emerald Expositions, spoke to RewardExpert about this year’s exhibition. “IRCE brings together all facets of e-commerce – including platforms, marketing, social media, SEM, fulfillment and merchandising – to give attendees a 360-degree view of what it takes to win hearts, minds, and dollars online right now,” he said. This year’s event occurs June 25-28, 2019 at McCormick Place South in Chicago.

By some estimates, gift giving drives between 20 to 25 percent of today’s retail sales. That means that one out of every four retail purchases a consumer makes is likely to fall under the gift category. With U.S. gift card sales reaching $160 billion last year, smart retailers are establishing engaging and efficient gift card programs to capitalize on this lucrative market.
CashStar, a leading provider of merchant solutions and services for gift card commerce, is at the forefront of the industry. RewardExpert spoke with Alex Barseghian, Group Vice President for North American Retail at Blackhawk Network, CashStar’s parent company, to learn more.

Air Canada has finalized its purchase of the Aeroplan program as part of a larger plan to roll out a new frequent-flyer program in 2020.
For Aeroplan members with Aeroplan miles in their account, the obvious question is: What changes to Aeroplan and to my Aeroplan rewards can I expect from Canada’s purchase?
Here’s how the deal could likely work out for the Aeroplan program.

In an age when credit cards offer all sorts of benefits – from free cash back to airline miles that can lead to free trips to exotic destinations – accumulating as many miles and points on a credit card has become something for a sport. And the easiest, quickest way to build a big base of miles or points is paying for big-ticket items with your piece of plastic.

If you’ve found yourself increasingly anxious about your financial situation, you’re not alone. A recent study by Northwestern Mutual, an American financial services organization, found that 54 percent of Americans have experienced financial anxiety, 52 percent have dealt with financial insecurity, and 48 percent have felt financial fear. In fact, money was identified as the survey respondents’ dominant source of stress—with finances even more stressful than relationships and work.

Whether you run multiple restaurant or retail locations or have a single bank branch, your customers’ experiences need to be top-notch and consistent. If they aren’t, you risk damage to your brand and –over time– a negative impact on your organization’s bottom line.
Market Force Information (also known simply as Market Force) is a customer experience management company that has been recognized as one of the top 50 market research organizations by the American Marketing Association.