BDO Shop More has also many features that most other cards don’t have:

1. BDO charges 3.25 %, lower than the usual 3.5% rate charged by other  Mastercard or Visa providers in the country.
2. The total annual membership fee is P900, which is much lower than the P1,600 charged by others of the same card class. What is even nicer is that BDO doesn’t charge you the whole P900 in advance. It just adds P75 to your due every month. The others bill you P1,600 at the beginning of your annual period, with you paying interest for it from month to month if you don’t pay it in full at once.
3. BDO also has products that help you avoid the very expensive Cash Advance during emergencies. These are EasyPAY Cash, which requires you to present official receipts of cash purchases and EasyPAY Cash Tuition Assist, which requires school receipts. In terms of cash release, BDO does a bit better than BPI because you can get your cash immediately over the counter after some minutes of paperwork. Interest rates vary from 0.88% to 1.6% monthly, depending on the amount and term.
4. BDO has launched a Charge-on-Demand facility for Meralco bills. This is good for cardholders that don’t like to auto-charge bills. You just phone BDO with your bill on hand. The only hassle with this system is you have to fax the bill to BDO after the phone call.
5. Just like the others, BDO also offers balance transfers, with rates ranging from 0.70% to 1.6%, depending on  the amount and term. Unlike BPI Classic, BDO pays directly to the other card, to prevent you from diverting the money.
6. In terms of where and how to pay dues, BDO gives the least hassle because it keeps longer hours and it seems to have a branch in every corner nowadays, in addition to its SM mall branches and customer service centers which are also open on weekends and holidays.
7. Lastly, the BDO card comes with a free SM Advantage Card, which you can use to collect cash points at SM, Petron, Ace Hardware, Watson and other SM affiliates.

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.