But good news!

As part of their unveiling of the new Fidelity Retirement Rewards credit card, Fidelity has announced that rewards for the popular 529 card will be bumped back to 2% early next year:

The Fidelity Retirement Rewards Card joins the award-winning(7) suite of credit cards offered by Fidelity that help investors save for key investment goals such as a new home or a child's college education. With enhancements scheduled for early 2009, the new Fidelity(R) Investment Rewards(R) American Express(R) Card and the Fidelity Investments 529 College Rewards(R) American Express(R) Card will be offering a new 2 percent earn rate on retail purchases.

The Fidelity Investment Rewards Card and the 529 College Rewards Card, introduced in August 2005 and January 2003 respectively, offer Cardmembers the ability to redeem points for cash back to their eligible Fidelity account or 529 account. To date, investors using these two cards have received a combined total cash reward of more than $175 million(8).

Word is that there are no substantive changes to the credit card terms or benefits planned at this time - just a change in the card issuer. Rebates earned with the Citi version of the Upromise card won't be affected either.

Specifics on the new Bank of America Upromise credit card aren't known at this time. Nor is it known what the card will look like.

This is very bad news for parents trying to accumulate funds for their childrens' college account. For people disciplined enough to pay off their credit card balance each month, the Fidelity 529 card provided a great tool for painlessly setting aside college savings. In the three plus years I've had the card, our family has added more than $4,000 to my daughter's college fund.

Apparently FIA has introduce a new Fidelity/Amex 529 card to replace the MasterCard. The new card pays a still decent 1.5% reward but, sorry, in my opinion, Amex just doesn't cut it when it comes to everday card use for things like groceries, city water bills, and the myriad other items I'm able to buy with the beloved 529 MasterCard.

We'll let you know as we learn more.

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This move fills a void for people whose strategy is to maximize college savings rewards by buying groceries and other daily items with their rewards card - then prompltly paying the bill in full each month. Until now, the choice was to either go elsewhere (and miss out on the consumer benefits offered through Sam's) or lose out on 529 credit card rewards for purchases made at Sam's.

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Babymint is the flagship product of the [tag]Vesdia Corporation[/tag]. The underlying "savings engine" technology of the [tag]Babymint program[/tag] is licensed to other private label names such as The Education Plan and Baby Center.

The major selling points for the [tag]Babymint 529[/tag] [tag]savings club[/tag] are: 1) earned rewards can be directed to almost any [tag]529 plan[/tag] (including ones already set up) and, 2) there is no fee or requirement to have the affiliated Babymint credit card. BabyMint provides good competition for Upromise in the area of on-line shopping rebates with nearly 500 merchants listed. To earn on-line rebates, you must shop through the BabyMint website but any credit card can be used. In the area of in-store shopping, Babymint doesn't stack up as well. The list of in-store merchants is relatively sparse and you can only earn in-store rebates if you use the affiliated [tag]Babymint credit card[/tag].

Summary: Babymint is free and worth joining primarily for on-line shopping purposes. Rebates from on-line retailers are competitive with Upromise rebates from the same retailers so it's a good idea to look both places for the best deal when shopping on-line.