Credit Cards Plus

Some credit cards will offer a sign up bonus for the credit card.  This can be given in cash, but can also be given in low interest periods or through discounts or bonuses.

The reason credit card providers will offer signing up bonuses is that they spend a large amount of money marketing to get new customers.  Giving incentives to people to take out the credit cards has often been found to be cheaper than marketing.  However the way in which the money is given can be done in different ways.

Straight cash signing up bonuses are becoming rarer as credit card companies find them less effective.  The problem was often that a person would take a credit card, get the cash bonus, spend it and go to another credit card.  This was not very cost effective for credit card providers.

Store cards will often still use a variation of this, by providing money on the balance of the card, but this is only able to be spent in that store.  This can either be given as a signing on bonus or every year.  This can sometimes be in the form of vouchers.

Discounts are another common way that store cards use to attract card holders.  This will almost always be as a signing on discount for buying a good or service.  These will often be advised when buying some goods from the store, so that a 15% discount may be offered on goods that would be bought any way.  It is becoming more common that store cards will advertise their discounts on line which means that the discounts can be chosen.
With rewards programs it is becoming more common to offer bonus rewards points just for signing up to the credit card.

The low interest or zero interest balance transfer is a common signing on bonus.  Essentially a card holder transfers the balance of their current credit card on to the new card and they get a period of either very low, or even zero percent, interest on their balance.  This will not apply to spending or cash advances, and after the time has run out the balance will go back to the normal rate.

There are also zero per cent deals for spending built up on a card.  Again these have a limited time period, and will mostly not apply to cash advances and balance transfers.