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Juice Box Hero posted:1) Can I use my Barclaycard's travel rewards for upgrades on flights and hotels booked with my citi travel card? Juice Box Hero posted:2) Can airline miles be exchanged for points on a rewards credit card or vice versa?
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Oct 15, 2013 07:24
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Small White Dragon posted:Answers Thank you!
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Oct 15, 2013 11:54
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Residency Evil posted:My current regular credit card is the Fidelity Visa. I also have a very old student Amex account that I never use as well, a college credit union card I never use (my oldest), as well as an Amazon Visa I only use for amazon purchases. I'm single, usually spend around 1k on my credit card, and only travel 4-5x/year. Should I: Any thoughts?
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Oct 15, 2013 12:43
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Residency Evil posted:Any thoughts? What are looking to do? Miles, free hotel goodies, cash back? If your current cards work for you, the only reasons to add more would be to snag sign up bonuses and/or increase total CL for utilization purposes. Those can be very good reasons in the right circumstances but I feel like we need to know more about your situation.
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Oct 15, 2013 13:31
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I kinda hosed myself up a couple of years ago when I opened a Sears Mastercard account. The card came with a $3000 limit, which, at first, seemed like a lot and I was able to manage it. The minimum monthly payment was $25. Being new to the credit card game, I started out with the plan of spending a little, and then paying it off in full. Well, that only lasted a short time and then I began to lean on the card a lot more heavily than I would've liked. I still made multiple payments on my balance. And then the introductory period ended. Now I'm sitting here with a balance of $2,850 on a $3,000 card that I haven't used all year. I've made multiple payments on it every month, but I can't make a dent in it because I'm getting worked over by the 25.95% APR plus the $28 account fee. These fees have hosed me out of probably $1000 since I've had the card. I somehow still have a good (not great) credit score of 713 because of my near perfect payment history on this, and a student loan I have. US Bank is trying to push me to add a Platinum card to my checking/savings account, and I'm seriously thinking about doing this. I can transfer my balance over to that card and pay it off at a cheaper rate. However, US Bank wants to charge up to 3% on every transfer which comes out to about $89 for me. My question: Do I eat the 3% transfer fee and go with US Bank? Next time I'm in, I'll talk to them about it. I don't know what kind of limit I'm going to get from them. or Do I look into other options? I don't know what other great options there are for me since I have an alright credit score, plus a good history. fake edit: I really want to ditch the Sears card. It's been nothing but bad news.
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Oct 16, 2013 00:08
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DEAR RICHARD posted:I kinda hosed myself up a couple of years ago when I opened a Sears Mastercard account. The card came with a $3000 limit, which, at first, seemed like a lot and I was able to manage it. The minimum monthly payment was $25. Being new to the credit card game, I started out with the plan of spending a little, and then paying it off in full. Well, that only lasted a short time and then I began to lean on the card a lot more heavily than I would've liked. I still made multiple payments on my balance. And then the introductory period ended. https://creditcards.chase.com/slate-credit-card/ Chase Slate card allows you to transfer with 0%. I used it to pay off the last of my balance on another card I had. Now I'm completely debt free.
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Oct 16, 2013 00:53
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Eat the transfer fee and get that balance off the 25% rate. Potentially look for cards that are good for balance transfers. Chase Slate doesn't charge a fee and 15 months no interest. Citi has multiple cards that do 0% for 15-18 months. Barclaycard Ring has an 8% rate, no fee, and if you find the right referral link you can get 1% back on your transfer as a statement credit. Your relationship with US Bank will likely be your best bet at approval. If that sears card has an annual fee then cancel it and whatever card you end up with for a balance transfer needs to be in a block of ice in your freezer.
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Oct 16, 2013 00:57
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Shadowhand00 posted:https://creditcards.chase.com/slate-credit-card/ I used a chase slate to dig myself out of a similar situation a while back. It was a good decision.
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Oct 16, 2013 01:29
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Juice Box Hero posted:I just got into the credit rewards market and was approved for an AmEx BCP and a Barclaycard Arrival MasterCard. 1) Sort of - my understanding of the program is that it works similar to CapitalOne in that the "miles" you earn are fixed-value points, each one worth 1 cent. So if you have 100,000 points, you have $1,000 worth of credit you can apply to travel purchases made in the last 90 days. So, you could use your Barclay Arrival card to "buy" an upgrade (United sells them separately for each leg of the trip, for example), and then redeem your points to get a credit for the amount you spent. So for example, if you bought a $300 flight upgrade, you'd need to redeem 30,000 miles to get a $300 credit. (they give you back 10% of your points if you use it for travel, so you'd also get 3,000 points back). If you bought a $500 upgrade, you'd need to redeem 50,000 points, and etc. So this can wind up being a better, or worse, deal for "upgrades" depending on the amount of money they cost. Typically upgrades internationally are very expensive to buy ($1k+), but only 40,000 extra airline miles if you are redeeming miles. 2) No, points and miles are not interchangeable WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS: A handful of hotel programs, like Starwood and Wyndham Rewards, let you exchange hotel points for airline miles. Starwood actually has a decent transfer rate, Wyndham less so. There are also two major credit card point currencies that can be exchanged for points in other programs: American Express Membership Rewards points, and Chase Ultimate Rewards points. You can transfer out of, but not into, these programs. In general however, you can't shift miles around between airlines, or between people, or between programs. You cannot transfer out of, or into, your Barclay card. When you book your travel for work on your work card, how do you book it? Through a work travel agency, or yourself through the airline? There may be a way to earn some points or cashback there.
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Oct 16, 2013 16:21
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kaishek posted:When you book your travel for work on your work card, how do you book it? Through a work travel agency, or yourself through the airline? There may be a way to earn some points or cashback there. Thanks for the detailed explanation. We book flights and car rentals through a designated travel agency but we are free to book hotels ourselves, though all reimbursable expenses have to be charged to the company card. So far it looks like my humble aspirations to acquire occasional discounted tickets for personal travel and some mini-bar indiscretion are realistic with just my novice understanding of the system. I welcome any further thoughts you have, though, and thanks again for taking the time to explain.
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Oct 17, 2013 00:32
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kaishek posted:Starwood actually has a decent transfer rate, Wyndham less so. However, Starwood has a $69 annual fee, and a Wyndham card can be had without the annual fee. (Not that I'm saying Wyndham is amazing or anything, but not everyone wants to or should have an annual fee card.)
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Oct 17, 2013 08:04
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Though that $65 (I'm pretty sure it's $65) is actually one of the lower hotel or airline credit card fees. Also it's waived the first year. What a lot of people do is sign up for the card, use it for 11 months, cancel so they don't have to pay the fee, then reapply for the card again a year later to get the bonus again. You need drat good credit to get that card though, so cancelling and expecting to be able to get it again a year later is playing with fire if you don't already have a high credit score.
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Oct 19, 2013 22:41
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Brian Fellows posted:Though that $65 (I'm pretty sure it's $65) is actually one of the lower hotel or airline credit card fees. Also it's waived the first year. What a lot of people do is sign up for the card, use it for 11 months, cancel so they don't have to pay the fee, then reapply for the card again a year later to get the bonus again. I just product changed my SPG to Blue Cash Everyday. We'll see what happens in a year when I try to get back in.
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Oct 20, 2013 01:28
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Dantu posted:I just product changed my SPG to Blue Cash Everyday. We'll see what happens in a year when I try to get back in. Do they just move your credit line over? Our household currently has one too many SPG Amex cards, and I would like to avoid paying the annual fee on mine, since we aren't using it, but it has a sweet pre-financial crisis credit line. smackfu fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 15:15
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smackfu posted:Do they just move your credit line over? Our household currently has one too many SPG Amex cards, and I would like to avoid paying the annual fee on mine, since we aren't using it, but it has a sweet pre-financial crisis credit line. Yes, APR and credit limit all stayed the same. They even expedited it without me asking for it. Totally painless process.
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Oct 21, 2013 16:44
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I'm in a situation where I have am able to spend much more than I regularly do, and I'd like some advice about which cards I could sign up for to get the best bonuses. Right now I have the AMEX Blue Cash Everyday and a generic 1% cashback Visa. My credit is good enough to qualify for pretty much any card, and my fiancee who never had credit cards is looking for something better than her basic credit union Visa. We are about to move into a new house, and need to buy a fridge as well as moving expenses and other new-house supplies. I'd like to get myself or her on a Blue Cash Preferred (6% grocery), but also want to get the initial spend bonus on it ($150). Our spending will be higher than normal for a few months after moving, and we could probably hit the initial spend goals on 2 cards by switching to them entirely. We want airline miles or cashback, which cards should we be looking at? Edit: Holy poo poo the SPG Amex looks incredible. That might be our winner, hotel rewards are fine too. My fiancee's not on the mortgage, so credit inquiries before closing would go on her credit. I wasn't going to do anything to mine after. Is there some magic number I should have each credit card balance at, or should I go ahead and pay every card down to $0 before closing and just pay cash for everything? Normally I pay each bill in full, but I know that when the loan came out of underwriting they looked and said "Oh you have $1000 in credit card debt?" when it was just that month's bill, paid off in full as always. VVVVVV Twerk from Home fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 17:19
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Opening a new credit card right before you get financing on a house is a pretty bad idea. I'd look into that first.
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Oct 22, 2013 17:23
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AMEX SPG and the Chase Sapphire Prefered have some excellent bonuses right now. Chase Ultimate Reward points are very flexible and are highly talked about. I don't have any points based cards though as I don't travel or stay in hotels. I focus on the cash back cards. As for tweaking your score, your credit report gets updated when your statement cuts, so make your payment before your statement is processed so your utilization shows lower. Remember your FICO is just a snapshot of your credit. Ideally you want under 10% of revolving type credit being used when that snapshot is taken. Unless I'm applying for something I don't really care about the balances being reported. I usually run about 2K through one of my cards a month, and having that 2K balance post to my credit report can drop my score 10 points or so according to Credit Karma/Credit Sesame. I really don't care as I don't pay interest as long as I pay the last statement balance on time and I'm not chasing new credit. Don't forget about the perks of buying things like appliances on your credit card, many of them offer free extended warranties.
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Oct 22, 2013 18:21
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I got my first credit card (DiscoverIt for students) a few months ago as part of a five-year plan towards buying a house. My priorities are to 1) build credit as fast as possible within the next five years (TransUnion score currently 719), and 2) save through cashback offers. The discover card has a rolling rewards system - right now it's 5% on online purchases. I'm thinking about opening a second card that offers 1-2% cashback on groceries and/or gas year-round for when the discover card isn't covering that. I would utilize both at ~15% per month and would pay it off completely every month. My question is this: would it be a bad idea to open the second card so quickly after my first? Or does it not matter if my primary concern is my credit score 5 years from now?
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Oct 22, 2013 19:25
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If your concern is what your credit score will be in 5 years another hard inquiry and new trade line will not hurt you at all. In fact, it will help your AAoA by then. Hard inquiries fall off after 2 years, and lose impact on your score well before that in most cases.
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Oct 22, 2013 19:55
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Dantu posted:If your concern is what your credit score will be in 5 years another hard inquiry and new trade line will not hurt you at all. In fact, it will help your AAoA by then. Hard inquiries fall off after 2 years, and lose impact on your score well before that in most cases. Great, thanks! I still feel like I'm missing something, though. Theoretically, what would be the problem with just opening ~20 new cards right away then (other than the hassle of paying them all off each month)? My AAoA would mature by five years, and the additional lines of credit would add another minute bump to the score. It just seems crazy to me that the system should reward low utilization across a stupidly high quantity of cards. What am I not understanding?
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Oct 22, 2013 20:02
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Forever_Peace posted:Great, thanks! Similar accounts are weighted less and less the more of a similar type you have. There is no problem doing this, it just won't effect you as much as say also getting an installment loan. However this type of Min/Maxing of scores is retarded. Conventional mortgage rates are not risk weighted by score...it's more of a pass/fail threshold.
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Oct 22, 2013 20:52
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Also you're going to see a few points decrease every time you have an inquiry, so if you open up 20 cards that might take a significant (though temporary) chunk out of your credit score. Also, you're going to struggle to do that because there are only so many credit card companies. Citi, Amex, Chase etc will start denying you because you've opened up too much credit with them in such a short time period. You can sometimes get them to budge on that by calling them up etc., but at the end of the day if they just won't let you open up another card then you've got that inquiry hit on your credit and nothing to show for it.
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Oct 24, 2013 02:55
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What card is currently offering the best bonus miles for signing up? My wife and I would prefer traveling out of the US, like the Caribbean, or possibly Europe. We share an account with an American Express Blue Cash Everyday. We also share an account with a Priceline rewards Visa. We don't and have never had any debt. Always pay bills in full, never missed a mortgage payment. Approval probably shouldn't be an issue. Annual fee is fine, especially if it's a card that helps you continue to earn more miles even after the first year rewards. Right now I'm seeing some promising offers, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage. I feel like there are so many cards out there I am probably missing what I'm really looking for. And is there any way to figure out what 40,000 bonus points actually equates to in terms of how much of a plane ticket that actually is? And is there any way of finding out if it's US only travel or if they can be used to buy tickets for flight outside of the US? Thanks for the help!
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Oct 26, 2013 00:30
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yamdankee posted:What card is currently offering the best bonus miles for signing up? My wife and I would prefer traveling out of the US, like the Caribbean, or possibly Europe. 40k points is four hundred bucks. A point is one cent, but some programs make your points worth more if you spend them on certain things like a night at a specific brand of hotel. Here's a roundup of cards with sign up bonuses. http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/top-credit-cards/best-credit-card-offers/ Let us know if/what you choose. Seems like the Starwood Preferred Guest AmEx is popular but I don't think that necessarily has the best sign up bonus. I wasn't going to mention it because I just got one and was talking about it earlier in the thread, but it's not on the list in that link so also look at the Barclaycard Arrival MasterCard. It's got a 40k point bonus if you spend $1k in three months and the reward rate is 2.2% if you spend all your points on travel. theres a will theres moe fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 00:48
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Thanks! It seems like the Chase Sapphire Preferred has the best sign up deal and seems like it's worth the annual fee down the road. I'm going to go with that. Another question I've had in the back of my mind. My first credit card (Capital One Visa, lol) that I opened like 7 years ago and stopped using maybe about 4 years ago has just been sitting there uncanceled. I haven't logged into the account in years. I shredded the card when I stopped using it. I was told it's not good to cancel cards and to just stop using them. Should I keep doing this, or should I cancel it? If I should cancel it, should I wait to cancel it until after applying for the Chase Sapphire Preferred?
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Oct 26, 2013 01:14
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Unless it is costing you something, just leave the account open forever.
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Oct 26, 2013 01:33
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Cool, accepted immediately. Kind of surprised at the $11,200 limit! So I think I have the ideal setup here: Use the AMex Blue Everyday to get the most rewards that seem to be out there for gas and groceries, and use the Chase Sapphire Preferred for travel and dining. My dad has a lot of points on a Discover card (I think), but he is not going to use them. Is it possible to move those points to my account? (He's offered several times to give me the points) Or when they say "1:1 point transfer", do they not mean transfer between different cards?
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Oct 26, 2013 01:57
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yamdankee posted:Cool, accepted immediately. Kind of surprised at the $11,200 limit! 1:1 transfer means points between programs, for example 1 Chase UR point for 1 United Mileage Plus Mile. You can't transfer points between different credit card programs, like Amex MR to Chase UR. Some programs allow transfers between family members within a program, but you typically have to have the same mailing address. Basically, there are two major kinds of points; bank points and travel points. Examples of bank points are Chase UR, Amex MR, Citi ThankYou Points, etc. Travel points are like traditional frequent flyer miles and specific hotel reward programs. There are advantages to each. Some people don't like put all their points in one basket, so the flexibility of bank points is a huge plus. These are the points you hear 1:1 transfer about. Other people are really loyal to particular hotels and airlines, and cobranded cards they offer typically come with extra perks and freebies.
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Oct 26, 2013 02:28
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yamdankee posted:What card is currently offering the best bonus miles for signing up? My wife and I would prefer traveling out of the US, like the Caribbean, or possibly Europe. Check out flyertalk.com. They have all this info. My general understanding, (I haven't looked into this that much) is that when flying international you want to use your miles on upgrading to first class since they go a lot farther for you for whatever reason. Like let's say a ticket is $500 coach and $1500 first class. Supposedly, you can use like $400 worth of miles to get that upgrade for free.
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Oct 26, 2013 16:50
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Harry posted:Check out flyertalk.com. They have all this info. My general understanding, (I haven't looked into this that much) is that when flying international you want to use your miles on upgrading to first class since they go a lot farther for you for whatever reason. Like let's say a ticket is $500 coach and $1500 first class. Supposedly, you can use like $400 worth of miles to get that upgrade for free. More accurately you can just redeem for a first or business class ticket. Example, ticket to China costs about $1200 in coach or $15,000 in first. You can redeem ~50,000 miles for the coach ticket or ~110,000 for the business class ticket. Sort of a no brainer.
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Oct 26, 2013 18:03
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kansas posted:More accurately you can just redeem for a first or business class ticket. Example, ticket to China costs about $1200 in coach or $15,000 in first. You can redeem ~50,000 miles for the coach ticket or ~110,000 for the business class ticket. Sort of a no brainer. I think this has been discussed in this thread before, and maybe I'm reading more into what you wrote than you meant, but I don't think this is nearly as simple as made out to be. The basic flaw in the argument is that the first class ticket is actually worth $15,000 to you and thus the points change from 2.4 cents per point to 13.64 cents per point when you upgrade, but for the vast majority of people the change from coach to first class isn't worth close to that amount. Instead find the value are you giving up for that upgrade and decide if it's worth it. In this simplistic example the coach ticket is worth $1200 and then an upgrade would effectively cost you $1440 more. Admittedly there are other factors as well, like if you have another method to use the points, etc.
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Oct 26, 2013 18:31
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Yeah it comes down to what you really want to do. Personally unless I'm flying on an airline with well known amazing first class, it's worth it to me to pocket some more miles and just fly coach. Of course I won't always be in my 20s, so that might change, but for now it's a no-brainer for me. You can go to airlines' specific sites and see their award charts. It's generally regional, IE anywhere in Europe is xx,xxx miles for coach, yy,yyy miles for business, zz,zzz miles for first if you're flying from the US. Since you got the Chase card, United.com is where you want to look. Especially for you, you'll want to use 1 cent/point as your floor, since Chase cards can very literally be cashed out at 1 cent per point. So if you're doing better than that (like, getting a 60,000 mile round trip price to Paris next fall when the cash price appears to be $1,359 for the same flight (2.3 cents per mile)) you should be happy. General rule of thumb: Airlines usually have a Saver Award, and a Standard Award for each level (economy, business, first) of award flight. You will always want to find a saver award. I used United's naming convention since that's the type of miles you'd have with Chase. United, American and US Airways tend to have friendly amounts of saver awards available. Delta are dicks and can rot in hell.
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Oct 26, 2013 20:58
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Yeah, along the same lines, SPG points may be valued the same for a $100 hotel and a $400 hotel, but I wouldn't normally ever stay in a $400 hotel so 4 nights at the $100 one are worth a lot more to me.
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Oct 26, 2013 23:27
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For domestic flights I can't imagine it mattering, but for a 17 hour international flight I'd imagine first class would seem more worth it.
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Oct 26, 2013 23:28
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So I was looking at getting the Amazon Store Card since they have a 0% financing on $600 plus purchases. However the reviews online and in teh Amazon forum for the store card seem to indicate that this company (GE Capital) is the worst of the worst and will straight up act like they have not received cleared payments and charge back interest, late fees, etc. Apparently the auto bill pay just straight up doesn't work. Does anyone here have any experience with this? I plan on putting $1000-$1500 (or whatever, depending on what I get approved for) and paying it off over 6 months.
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Oct 27, 2013 00:37
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BiohazrD posted:So I was looking at getting the Amazon Store Card since they have a 0% financing on $600 plus purchases. However the reviews online and in teh Amazon forum for the store card seem to indicate that this company (GE Capital) is the worst of the worst and will straight up act like they have not received cleared payments and charge back interest, late fees, etc. Apparently the auto bill pay just straight up doesn't work. I used the Amazon Store Card briefly for a few months, but I paid it off immediately. Once I discovered the rewards systems of Chase and Amex, I ended up closing the account. I never had an issue with the card in that time.
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Oct 27, 2013 04:35
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BiohazrD posted:So I was looking at getting the Amazon Store Card since they have a 0% financing on $600 plus purchases. However the reviews online and in teh Amazon forum for the store card seem to indicate that this company (GE Capital) is the worst of the worst and will straight up act like they have not received cleared payments and charge back interest, late fees, etc. Apparently the auto bill pay just straight up doesn't work. I spend some time on the myfico forums and don't recall a ton of bitching about GE cards. Some people like them because I believe they do CLIs by soft pull.
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Oct 27, 2013 13:10
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gently caress it, since it's a soft pull I went ahead and just did it. Got $1300 instantly. Should be enough to pick up a couple of things that I want since I'll get 0% for a few months on it. Edit: Checked my credit report after, and it's actually a hard inquiry after all. Oh well. 30 TO 50 FERAL HOG fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 07:48
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I got an offer for an Amex Green last week. Looking into it, apparently it's a charge card, not credit. Is it worth taking it just to get a history with Amex (I've heard they will consider your entire account history for things like credit increases, not just the card in question, for example) or should I go out/wait for a Blue?
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Oct 28, 2013 16:01
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