By Justin McHenry

Capital One today unveiled a new Web site called Card Lab that gives consumers the opportunity to “build their own” credit card by choosing among various options for introductory and ongoing interest rates, rewards, annual fee (or none), and card design. The choices are then packaged together to create a card customized to each cardholder’s personal preferences.

Of course, choosing a card’s features means making tradeoffs. Every time you make one choice, a certain number of other choices are closed off to you. So, if you want no-frills, no rewards, you can get a lower interest rate. Want points or air miles? The interest rate goes up. Want a 0% interest rate for a year? Expect a higher ongoing rate. Want two points per dollar charged instead of one? Prepare to pay an annual fee.

While a “build your own” credit card concept has been done in the UK, we believe this is the first time it’s been seen in the United States.

The Capital One Card Lab can be found at http://www.capitalonecardlab.com.

By Liz Morris

My WishList, the popular holiday shopping deals program for American Express cardholders, begins tomorrow, November 27, and runs through December 13th. My WishList offers deep, deep discounts on big-ticket items for the lucky few that manage to get there first—from 25% to 80% off of most items, to 100% off for those who manage to win one of the Virtual Wish Giveaway sweepstakes items. The catch? All items are in limited quantities, and it’s first-come, first-served.

For 2007 American Express has expanded the program to offer buying and saving opportunities in four categories:

• “Hot Products” are the big ones, the extremely-limited quantity items such as motorcycles at 80% off
• “Featured Products” have higher quantities so they’re easier to get, but the savings aren’t as big
• “Wish Certificates” are just flat-out free coupons for up to 25% off when you make purchases at partner retailers
• “Ultimate Wish Giveaway” is a sweepstakes for American Express cardholders, with four items up for grabs, including three 2008 Volvo automobiles and one JetBlue Airways Private Flight of up to 150 people

Among the products American Express has announced that will be available are a Panasonic 42-inch plasma TV for $700 (normally $1999), a six-stop around the world travel package worth almost $18,000 for $3,000, a chance to meet Oprah Winfrey at the premiere of the movie The Great Debaters, and more.

Complete information on My Wishlist is available at http://www.amexnetwork.com/mywishlist.

By Justin McHenry

Chase Card Services announced today it will end its practice of potentially raising credit card interest rates based on financial data not connected to the cards themselves. Up until now, Chase (like many credit card companies) has given itself the option to raise a customer’s credit card rates based on downward changes to the customer’s credit score—even if the change in credit score was not directly related to the Chase account. In other words, non-payment or late payment of unrelated bills could trigger an interest rate hike on the Chase credit card; starting in March of 2008 this will no longer be the case.

The change is part of Chase’s “Clear & Simple” campaign to make its rates and fees more transparent to consumers. As part of Clear & Simple, Chase had already introduced personalized alerts to help customers remember when card payments are due, as well as giving customers the option to choose their credit card’s due date, and other features. Chase also dropped a practice called two-cycle billing, which had previously caused interest to be calculated based on the average credit card balance spread over two monthly billing cycles instead of one.

By Seth Harbison

U.S. Figure Skating has teamed up with U.S. Bank on four new credit cards that give back to U.S. Figure Skating with each card purchase.

Cardholders wishing to support the official governing body for figure skating in the United States can choose from the U.S Figure Skating Visa Platinum Card, Visa Signature Card, Select Rewards Visa Platinum, or Cash Rewards Visa Platinum.

Cardholders can choose from four card designs depicting the U.S. Figure Skating logo, figure skates or the U.S. Figure Skating mascot, Snowplow Sam.

By Justin McHenry

Discover Card is offering one of the most compelling promotions we’ve seen recently, offering a $20 Discover gift card whenever you use your Discover Card to make $200 in purchases at participating malls.

The promotion runs from November 1 through December 31. The offer is compelling not only for the reward itself—an up-to-10% bonus based on your purchases—but also for the fact that you can do it up to 5 times ($1000 in spending equals $100 in gift cards), and the redemption is easy. You just take your receipts to the mall’s customer service kiosk (or Discover kiosk in some malls), and they hand you the gift card.

The promotion is also fairly wide-ranging, with over 160 malls participating, although some states have many more options than others, and 11 states have none at all.