U.S. consumers will charge about $3.5 billion per day during the 27 Christmas shopping days between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Day this year. According to the December issue of CardTrak, to be released this morning, consumers will rack up $95.3 billion of charges on general purpose bank credit cards/charge cards and private label store cards. CardTrak predicts consumers will charge $71.1 billion on VISA, MasterCard, and Discover credit cards and all American Express cards. About $8.0 billion will be transacted on 'VISA Check Cards' and 'MasterMoney' cards. Store card volume should be $16.2 billion for the 1997 Christmas shopping season. Card volume among retail merchants will make of $78.7 billion of the total volume. A number of recent polls suggests overall consumer spending will rise between 3% and 5% this year.