A card that rules all cards

I just signed up for another citi credit card, which will give an IPod Nano after first useage. Hmmm, how many cards do I have? I have an amazon card for amazon purchases, I have a buy.com card for Buy.com. I have several cards issued by the banks I am using. Plus couple airline cards that I will use for my vacations. My wallet is full of cards, sadly, not cash

There was one time, I had American Express Blue Card, which supposely had a smart chip inside. Well, that smart chip is definitely very dumb, I have not found any use of it. But conceptual, I think it is a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, we can have a card with a chip embedded, which could be used as a magnetic stripe reader/writer. Then we could use this card as if it were ANY card. All we need to do is to have a client software to configure the chip.

Oh, the chip could also calculate (like if I know how) the best card to use for any transaction based on the rewards, ie. citi dividend cardfor Safeway purchase. It is tough to figure about the best deal you could make!

Credit card and monthly rent

Hard to believe, we can use credit card for almost anything. Yet, when it comes to apartment, I cannot use my credit card to pay my monthly bill.

Is it because of the credit card overdraft/fraud or the 2% charge to the merchanisers?

Maybe I am stupid and ignorant and live in cave, I do think credit card business is not an "interesting" business anymore. With all the no membership fee cards and all the cards people can choose from, it is DeD (dog eat dog) market.

So, why not provide credit card service to apartment owners without the 2% fee. The big money is at late-fees anyway. And I get to collect my United mileages.