BPI Classic and BDO Shop More Are the Best Credit Cards for Employees. (Part 1)

August 15, 2008 · Filed Under BPI, Credit cards 

WARNING for employees! Apply for a credit card only if you haven’t changed your old but nice Nokia phone, if you’ve only a few pairs of good shoes and just enough good clothes, and if your usual routine is home-to-work-then-back-to-home. These mean you have complete control of your spending.

In terms of number of credit cards used, I’m not a good role model because I’ve too many. I’ve six active credit cards:

1. BPI Classic                     4. HSBC Red Mastercard

2. BDO Shop More                  5. AIG Visa

3. Metrobank Femme Visa        6.Standard Chartered Visa

Previously, I had nine. I also had:

7. Citibank Mastercard

8. Standard Chartered Mastercard

9. AIG Dolce Vita Mastercard

But I’m own my way to only three. And the three that I’d keep would be BPI, BDO and Metrobank. All Pinoy cards. Isn’t it nice that the locals beat the foreigners in terms of features?

First, let’s enumerate what BPI Classic offers that most other cards don’t:

1. BPI charges only 2.75 % a month on the balance while most other cards charge 3.5 %. Paying earlier than the due date has also an effect with BPI because it considers the Average Daily Balance when it computes your finance charge.

2. For emergencies, you don’t need to use the very expensive Cash Advance remedy, which charges you about P600 (for most cards) for using the ATM and which immediately activates the interest rate clock. BPI has Credit-To-Cash, Balance Transfer and Special Installment Plan ( SIP) in Schools. If you have a BPI or BPI Family account, you can get the cash the next day. For Credit-To-Cash, you just present your card. For the SIP in Schools, you present your child or kin’s school receipt or account statement. For Balance Transfer, you just present your other card’s latest bill. With BPI, balance transfer proceeds are given directly to you and not paid to the other card’s bank. In effect, you can divert the money. But be careful with this. You can end up getting buried in more debts. But if you’re wise, this is a good feature because you can have your cash for only 0.70% monthly on the Special Installment Plan (SIP).

3. BPI offers every card holder a free Ayala Life Insurance coverage. The insurance amount is 12 times the average monthly purchases and SIP payments for the previous three months.

4. Annual fee is still P1,250. Most others charge 1,600 for the same card class.

5. BPI also has auto-deposit ATMs. You put your peso bills into the ATM any time any day (no more envelopes, no more writing) and then pay your BPI card bill through your BPI ATM Check-Free feature.

6. Your first supplementary card holder is not charged with an annual fee during the entire life of your card.

7. BPI doesn’t impose its late-payment penalty fee rule as long as you pay before the next statement date. However, I don’t know if BPI has qualifications for this consideration. Most of the time, I do all remedies to pay my bills before their due dates. And for the several times that I failed, BPI has been kind, did not call me at work to shame me and stress me and didn’t charge me penalties. This is a big big difference with other cards. This other card charged me P600 for the one time that I was late for only a little over nine hours, meaning I paid my due the first banking minutes the next day after due date. And how much was the due? Only P200! I called the card, but the card said it was policy.

8. Then of course, BPI offers what most other cards offer, such as:

  • 0 % appliance and other big-item installment purchases
  • online and phone payments and checking of accounts
  • promos from time to time, such as freebies for referrals/purchases
  • frequent-user rewards.



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Comments

2 Responses to “BPI Classic and BDO Shop More Are the Best Credit Cards for Employees. (Part 1)”

  1. Deli on October 14th, 2009 1:42 pm

    Hi! I just wanted to ask if how does an SIP work. I have a BPI credit card blue which allows me a credit limit of 15,000 php and an SIP of 5,000. I wanted to purchase a camera which has a price of 33,600 php payable in 12 months zero interest at 2,800 per month. Can I use my credit card’s SIP to purchase the product?

    Thanks,
    Deli

  2. Nora on October 15th, 2009 8:10 pm

    Hello, Deli. Sad to say, you can’t use your SIP because your SIP is only 5,000. What BPI does is to charge the full cost of the camera (33,600), and not the monthly payment of 2,800, against your available SIP balance. If you manage your card well, BPI will increase your SIP limit every year.

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