Pay at least the minimum due on time for six months and Discover will return your last interest payment.

Once you accumulate $20, you can receive a gift card to use at one of Discover’s 100 brand-name retail partners, or you can donate it to charity.

When you reach $50, you can also have the bonus credited to your credit card account or electronically deposited in a checking or savings account.

There are no limits on how much you can earn, so you can collect a bonus every six months until you get that balance paid off.

That bonus is on top of the 1% cash rebate you earn on most purchases — which will be worth a lot more once you’re out of debt and the rebate is not being gobbled up by interest charges.

There’s no annual fee and the introductory rate on purchases is 3.99% APR until May 2010. After that a variable rate from 11.99% APR to 18.99% APR kicks in, based on your credit history.

Motiva probably makes the most sense if you have a balance to transfer from another card.

The transfer fee is 3% of the balance — as good as you’ll find right now.

The introductory 3.99% interest rate is also available on balance transfers for 6 to 12 months depending on your credit.

That’s a little more than the 0% introductory rate some cards are offering on balance transfers. But none of them come with the cash bonus for making your payments.

Click here to compare Discover’s offer with those from the best balance transfer cards in our database.

So let’s see what you think about the new Chase Sapphire credit card. We think it provides an intriguing combination of cash rebates and interest rates.

It charges no annual fee and an annual interest rate of 12.24% on purchases, which is lower than the teaser rate on many other credit cards.

As soon as cardholders make their first purchase they receive enough bonus points for a $100 rebate.

After that they earn points on all purchases, which can be redeemed for a 1% cash rebate. (Chase promotes a higher 2% to 10% rebate on purchases made through its Ultimate Rewards program, but that’s more marketing gimmick than real savings.)

This seems to strike a good balance for consumers who need a low interest rate because they occasionally carry a balance, but want to benefit with a modest cash rebate when they’re all paid up.

Click here to compare rates and rewards from dozens of credit cards in our database.

You get at least 1% cash back on everything you buy.

You get 3% cash back on rotating categories for everyday purchases such as gas, home improvements and department store merchandise.

Then there’s the $50 bonus when you make your first purchase or balance transfer.

There’s no annual fee and no interest on purchases for six to 12 months, depending on your credit history. After that your interest rate will run from 13.24% to 23.24% APR.

Sears has created what it calls the Christmas Club.

Sign up by Oct. 31 at any Sears or Kmart store, or online at sears.com. No money is required to open an account.

Now figure out how much you can smartly spend at Sears or any of its affiliated stores — Kmart, the great indoors and Lands’ End — by the end of the year.

Hit the stores or Web sites and total up everything from holiday gifts to that new refrigerator or HDTV you’ve been planning to buy.

Deposit that amount in your Christmas Club account by Nov. 14 and Sears will add a 3% bonus to your balance by Nov. 25.

Since the store caps the bonus at $100, that means you can earn 3% on deposits of up to $3,333.

We know this is just a clever marketing gimmick from Sears. But let’s face it. You can’t earn 3% a year with most CDs and money market accounts right now.

If you only tie your money up in the Christmas Club account for a month, that works out to a very lucrative annualized return of 36%.

Your balance is put on a gift card that has no fees and never expires, so you can take as long as you like to spend it all. But the longer you take, the lower your return.

That’s why we think you should only deposit as much as you plan to spend before Jan. 1.

They’re not doing this out the goodness of their hearts. They’re trying to stop Congress from cracking down on their abusive practices.

But lawmakers shouldn’t be fooled by the modest voluntarily changes the banks are proposing.

New rules are needed to stop the banks from covering the losses on their reckless lending by collecting $39 billion a year in overdraft fees from surprised and unsuspecting checking account customers.

When debit cards were first introduced banks wouldn’t let customers spend more than they had in your checking account.

While having a debit card declined might be a little embarrassing, it didn’t cause any financial harm (and probably got customers to look at their account balance, pronto).

Then banks realized they could make serious bank by enrolling everyone in “overdraft protection” plans and allowing those transactions to go through — for a price.

The average overdraft fee is now $26, with many banks charging as much as $39.

Customers are never warned that their account is overdrawn and the fee is imposed on every transaction that can’t be covered.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re buying a mink coat or a $4 latte at Starbucks. And to help them charge as many overdraft fees as possible, the banks deduct the largest purchases on any given day first to drain accounts as quickly as possible.

No wonder the same lawmakers who pushed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act through Washington earlier this year want to do something about overdraft fees.

When those discussions heated up this fall, Bank of America, JP Morgan, BB&T and Wells Fargo suddenly decided customers would be allowed to opt out of overdraft protection and have their card declined.

JP Morgan Chase said it would start posting purchases in chronological order.

Bank of America said it wouldn’t impose fees on accounts that are overdrawn by less than $10; J.P. Morgan Chase, BB&T and Wells Fargo will do the same if the amount is less than $5.

They’ll still impose multiple charges, but Bank of America, BB&T and Wells Fargo will limit itself to four a day and Chase only three a day.

Gee, thanks guys.

We saved your ass with a $700 billion bailout and you returned that favor by whacking us every chance you got — raising the interest rates on credit cards, slashing credit limits on home equity loans, dragging your feet on mortgage refinancings and modifications.

Fees like this now account for 25% of big bank revenue, according to the FDIC.

Why should we trust you to do the right thing?

Congress should enact sensible rules that require customers to opt in (not allow them to opt out) of overdraft protection, force banks to post charges in chronological order, and limit the number of overdraft fees they can charge.

If we’ve learned one thing from the financial crisis it’s not to count on big banks to show good judgment.

But we may be getting our first glimpse of what life under the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act might really be like — and it’s kind of promising.

Bank of America is introducing a new “Basic Visa” card this fall that features what it calls “simplified rates and terms” and embodies many of the changes Congress — not to mention its customers — seem to want.

The new card will come with a single page, easy-to-read agreement, not the impossible-to-read booklet-sized contract common today.

Lawyers wrote those huge contracts so that customers would have a hard time spotting and understanding many of the abusive practices that will be banned by the new law such as double-cycle billing and universal default.

The new card will also have a single interest rate for all transactions, not different rates for purchases, balance transfers and cash advances.

That rate — prime plus 14.0%, or 17.25% right now — will be a little higher than most cards have charged for purchases, but lower than they’ve charged for cash advances.

The new law forbids credit cards from applying payments only to that portion of a person’s balance that’s charging the lowest rate.

In fact, it requires payments in excess of the minimum to be applied to the credit card balance with the highest interest rate, taking away a major reason for having tiered rates.

Nor will Basic Visa impose a penalty on users who exceed their credit limit.

Under the old way of doing business, credit cards routinely allow customers to go over their credit limit without warning them, and then slap a fee on them.

Under the new law, cards are banned from charging over-the-limit fees unless a cardholder specifically asks the issuer to complete over-limit transactions.

The new card Bank of America card will be available in October.

The Capital One Platinum Prestige credit card offers 0% financing on balance transfers and purchases through September 2010.

That’s twice as long as the six months offered by the best deals from other credit cards, such as the Discover More card.

When the introductory rate is up, you’ll be charged 8.65% plus the prime rate — or 11.90% right now, with the prime at 3.25%.

That’s a good interest rate for almost any credit card right now. And it’s guaranteed.

You might get a variable rate as low as 8.75% plus prime if you take advantage of Discover More’s balance transfer offer. But that’s contingent on a review of your credit at the time the introductory rate expires. Your rate could be as high as 15.74% plus prime.

There’s also no annual fee, transfers can be processed in as little as 48 hours, and the balance transfer fee remains 3% of the debt — not the 5% many other credit cards are now charging.

The catch, as we said, is that you must have excellent credit to qualify.
Capital One defines someone with excellent credit as one who has:

• Had a loan or credit card for at least five years.
• A credit card with a credit limit of greater than $10,000.
• Never been more than 60 days late with a payment on a credit card, medical bill or loan.
• Never declared bankruptcy.

Click here to see how the terms offered by Capital One compare with the best balance transfer offers from other credit cards in our database.

It will charge no interest on balance transfers for six months and on purchases made until the last day of the billing period ending in March 2010.

(Yeah, we know some cards used to offer 0% for 12 months, but those deals are long gone.)

There’s also no annual fee and the balance transfer fee remains 3% of the debt — not the 5% many other cards are now charging.

When the introductory period is up, your rate for purchases and whatever remains of your balance transferred is determined by a review of your application and credit history.

It could be as low as prime plus 8.74% or as high as prime plus 15.74%. That works out to 11.99% to 18.99% based on today’s prime rate of 3.25%.

But note that Discover is still using the interest rate for purchases for balance transfers, not the higher rate charged for cash advances as some banks are doing.

This offer is limited to new card members, you’ll need good credit to qualify and to received the 0% APR for six months you must request the balance transfer when you apply for the card.

Click here to see how the terms offered by Discover More compare with the best balance transfer offers from other credit cards in our database.

The banks threatened to go on a rate-raising, fee-hiking, rule-writing rampage if Congress approved the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility Act of 2009.

It did, and the result has been an unending stream of letters from my credit cards making good on that threat.

But I still find it ironic that the most recent arrived the day after the first few provisions of the law intended to protect me from the credit card industry’s worst abuses took effect on Aug. 20.

It was a typically muddled, if not deceptive, letter that indicated it wasn’t through kicking us credit card holders around.

It began innocently enough:

Customer privacy and security have never been more important. We want you to know that we’re doing more to protect your privacy and make your account secure.

Gee, thanks.

But buried in the mumbo jumbo about privacy changes I soon discovered:

Account policies are once again changing.

That’s never good.

Enclosed with the lovey-dovey intro letter about protecting my privacy was a fine-print pamphlet outlining new rates and new rules, all to my detriment.

For example:

• The Overdraft Advance APR changes to Prime Rate plus 21.99%, and that’s applied to current and future balances. In July, that percentage would be 25.24%.
• Balance transfers and will carry a fee of 5% of whatever you’re transferring or advancing (up from 3%.)
• The bank has the right to deny any balance transfers or cash advances even if I have more than enough available credit for the transaction.
• In fact, the bank is suspending balance transfers unless it expressly allows me to make one.
• If it chooses to do so, that balance transfer will be treated like a cash advance. It will accruing interest charges immediately and at the higher interest rate imposed on cash advances (as opposed to purchases).
• And finally, the astronomical default rate will be imposed on my credit card balance if I make a late payment “on other accounts or loans with us or one of our related companies.”

Ok. Enough already. I get it.

You’re a bad ass and the government’s piddling effort to protect me from our abusive relationship has only turned you into a bigger bad ass.

You’re going to impose every draconian fee and rule your army of lawyers can think of before most of the new restrictions take effect in February, and there’s nothing I or any of those pitiful consumer-huggers in Washington can do about it.

With lots of expenses and not much income, you want to spend as little as possible to get the credit you need.

In a perfect world you’d pay off your balance every month and the interest rate wouldn’t matter all that much.

But a whopping 82% of college students don’t do that, according to a study by Sallie Mae, the big student loan company.

By graduation, college students carry an average balance of $4,100 on their credit cards, up from $2,900 in 2004.

Even with a relatively low 14.99% rate that costs a little more than $50 a month in interest. Boost that to 19.99% and you’ll be paying a little less than $70 a month.

So the interest rate matters. A lot.

You can also save big bucks by looking for a card that charges no monthly or annual fee.

With that in mind, here are our three favorite credit cards for college students:

The State Farm Student Visa Card. There’s no annual fee and a very low 11.99% APR interest rate.

The Discover Student Card. No annual fee, a 0% introductory rate for the first six months and a reasonable 14.99% interest rate after that.

The Citi Forward Visa Card. No annual fee, a 0% introductory rate for the first six months and 16.24% after that. But, each time you stay under your credit line and pay on time three months in a row, the rate is cut by 0.25% up to a total reduction of 2%.

Take a few minutes to compare those deals with all of the student credit cards in our database of credit card deals and find the one that’s right for you.