You know what I really hate? I hate things that require me to give a credit card to use something or activate something and that will after a year or so bill you if you do not remember to cancel whatever it was you did / got / signed up for free.

Well there is a simple and easy solution for these kinds of issues. Use a registered AMEX gift card (either those with or w/out your name on them). Why registered? If you want to use them for say Amazon purchases (or Amazon Payments) you need to call the number on the back of the card and give your full name & address then you can use it for online purchases with much greater ease.

So, following my line of thinking here, if you happen to have one with a few bucks left over on it you can save it for occasions just like the one described. Many times they will put a $1 HOLD on the card (yeah I forgot to do the wrong exp. date trick above) when you use it for these kinds of scenarios but that will be released most times in the 30-60 day range. Then, if you happen to forget to cancel whatever it is you got and they try to bill the card it will be declined and you will not have to hassle with the effort of calling to cancel at that point and try to wrestle with getting credit back to your card (just make sure you don’t have any other cards registered with whoever it is that they could try to run instead)! – René
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Editorial Note: This content is not provided by American Express. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express.

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