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Mobius posted:I have an old Capital One No Hassle Rewards (1% cash back) card that I got for an overseas trip a few years ago because I wanted a card with no foreign exchange fees. Now, I only have one automatic monthly bill charging to it, just to keep it active. Today, I got home and discovered a Quicksilver card in my mailbox, which I didn't request. It has the same number as my No Hassle card. I was confused, so I called customer service and apparently I was automatically upgraded. She assured me there were no fees or anything, but I'm basically skeptical of any financial institution just volunteering to give me more money. There may be a change in terms or interest rate, but for the factors that people care about on a rewards card the Quicksilver is better, 1.5% cash back no FtF and no annual fee. It's possible that they just phased out your old card.
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Nov 14, 2014 15:13
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BFC goons tend to hate me for this but I always finance big important things on 0% APR cards and just pay off the balance in the long run before (usually a month or so just to be safe) the introductory rate expires. I've never once paid any interest and my credit score has never been negatively impacted by this. I always could just pay the cards down at any time but I'd rather just invest the money I have now and simply pay the card down every month. Even if the worst was to happen and my wife/I lost our jobs, didn't get unemployment, for some reason couldn't access our savings/investments my lifestyle is so cheap I could pay down the cards with min wage if I had to. So far I've financed my wedding/honeymoon expenses ($11,000) on a 12 month 0% card back in 2011. A couple hospital bills on a 12 month interest free program (in 2011 and 2013) and my home improvement expenses on a 18 month 0% card in 2014. Obviously terrible advice for goons that are paying down debt or have a history of making terrible financial decisions but if you have your poo poo together I don't see the problem. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 19:47
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ETB posted:Interesting post made by the "Finance Buff." If you have $100k in assets and willing to sell your soul to Bank of America and Merill Edge, you get an effective 2.65% on purchases after three months of establishing a checking and brokerage account with them. This includes free trading, no ATM fees, and all the benefits of the BankAmericard Travel Rewards. It seems crazy good, but you have to be loaded to take advantage. God this is so loving tempting, but I'm afraid I might be too lazy to shift around assets and accounts. Fidelity Amex at 2% treats me pretty well, plus Blue Cash Preferred for 6k of groceries and amazon/random gift cards at 6% every year. Baddog fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 21:04
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How do I tell if a straight up cash back vs airline points is the better card for me?
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Nov 14, 2014 21:04
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Massasoit posted:I've had a Discover-It card for a bit over a year now, and it has worked out really well for me. As a student my starting limit was $500 but at the 1 year mark they bumped it up to $1000 automatically (bill paid in full monthly). I also referred someone to discover and got $50 bonus cash-back. With the cashback program I've been able to buy some textbooks directly from Amazon (you can set up the card to pull cashback rewards directly through Amazon). I've been very happy with the card as a first credit card, and getting free money out of the cash-back program for purchases I was going to make anyway is awesome (and I started to build credit, which before having the card I had no credit). Discover is a great card, but don't use the rewards directly for Amazon, since it's a 1:1 credit -- rather, apply the credit to your statement balance and use your card to make your purchases from Amazon, so you get the rewards on that, too!
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Nov 14, 2014 21:25
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Or use the credit to get gift cards. In many cases you can exchange $20 in Discover cash back for a $25 gift card. But I'm guilty of using the credit on Amazon since it's so easy. But this quarter Amazon is one of the 5% bonus categories I think.
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Nov 15, 2014 00:07
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I just opened the Southwest Rapid Rewards card for the 50k bonus. Aside from being a cattle car airline, their frequent flier program is probably the friendliest in the business for the average flier just trying to book a domestic award flight. Based on the routes I fly, it's actually worth a little more than Chase Sapphire Preferred's 40K miles (even with the $99 fee vs waived fee for Sapphire). Southwest also has a 2k spend over 3 months where Sapphire asks for 3k.Boris Galerkin posted:How do I tell if a straight up cash back vs airline points is the better card for me? A cash back card is almost always going to be better unless you're also flying and supplementing your cc spend with flight miles/booking your own flights. Cash is king. The only reason I personally do hotel/flight credit cards is because I open them, spend to the minimum to get the bonus, open another card, and close the cards at the 11 month mark. Some cards have even paid me straight cash to keep the account open when I go to retentions.
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Nov 15, 2014 01:17
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Blinkman987 posted:I just opened the Southwest Rapid Rewards card for the 50k bonus. Aside from being a cattle car airline, their frequent flier program is probably the friendliest in the business for the average flier just trying to book a domestic award flight. I actually love flying Southwest. Big planes, free drinks (plus tons of free drink coupons if you fly a lot), free snacks, free TV, free bags. I took 25 legs this year. Unfortunately I will be switching to United for most of my work flights...boo (southwest stopped direct flights from Denver to Amarillo). Southwest likes to be delayed at times though. Like you said though the rewards miles are top notch. They have sales all the times, you can get round trip flights to real places for under 10K all the time, no one else comes close to this. I am thinking I will open the card next year to get the points and go from there since I have 35K rewards right now and A-list for next year
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Nov 15, 2014 02:46
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How big of a hit is it to my credit score if I cancel a credit card after 1 year? I had the Chase Sapphire Preferred and realized I don't travel as much as I thought I do, and while I did enjoy the big signup bonus I don't want to pay the annual fee next year. It also makes up 50% of my available credit.
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Nov 15, 2014 04:49
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Pron on VHS posted:How big of a hit is it to my credit score if I cancel a credit card after 1 year? I had the Chase Sapphire Preferred and realized I don't travel as much as I thought I do, and while I did enjoy the big signup bonus I don't want to pay the annual fee next year. It also makes up 50% of my available credit. Not much. You shouldn't worry about it unless you're planning to take out a large loan in the near future, and need to game your credit score. If you don't plan on taking out a mortgage, auto loan, or something along those lines soon, then just pay off your balance in full every month, don't go batshit insane opening and closing every credit card offer that comes in your junk mail, and your credit score will take care of itself. If you are concerned, though, you can always call up Chase and let them know that you like the card, but the annual fee is forcing you to cancel. Chances are pretty good that they'll be able to switch you to the non-preferred version, or even waive the annual fee for another year (which means you'll need to do the same dance again in twelve months, but hey, it's a few minutes on the phone and you get better rewards for a whole year).
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Nov 15, 2014 05:16
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Blinkman987 posted:I just opened the Southwest Rapid Rewards card for the 50k bonus. Aside from being a cattle car airline, their frequent flier program is probably the friendliest in the business for the average flier just trying to book a domestic award flight. Based on the routes I fly, it's actually worth a little more than Chase Sapphire Preferred's 40K miles (even with the $99 fee vs waived fee for Sapphire). Southwest also has a 2k spend over 3 months where Sapphire asks for 3k. Is there a good Delta card opening bonus going on right now? Colleague just got a 50k miles 1000$ minimum amex card but I can't find that one anymore. Delta is the major/only airline at the airport here.
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Nov 15, 2014 15:13
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Boris Galerkin posted:Is there a good Delta card opening bonus going on right now? Colleague just got a 50k miles 1000$ minimum amex card but I can't find that one anymore. Delta is the major/only airline at the airport here. I just got one in the mail offering 50k, not sure the terms. I will check when I get home tonight.
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Nov 15, 2014 15:53
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E: double post
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Nov 15, 2014 16:09
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Boris Galerkin posted:Is there a good Delta card opening bonus going on right now? Colleague just got a 50k miles 1000$ minimum amex card but I can't find that one anymore. Delta is the major/only airline at the airport here. Delta/AmEx neutered that card last year by getting rid of the companion ticket, so it probably isn't something you'll want to keep long term unless you fly enough for the free checked bag to matter but not enough to get a free checked bag from having airline status.
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Nov 15, 2014 17:24
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In some cases you want the card closed because you can qualify for new account bonuses if you aren't a current customer and you haven't received the bonus in the last 24 months.
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Nov 15, 2014 23:57
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THF13 posted:
I just got my first credit card from my bank today. I have a 0% APR for 6 months. A friend of mine told me that he built credit by paying 90% of his monthly balance and letting a bit of it carry over, then right before his 0% intro offer expired, he paid the entire thing off. Should I try doing that for 6 months? I have no debt and of course, no credit score at the moment, and I can pay off within my credit limit as well.
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Nov 16, 2014 07:13
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Revitalized posted:I just got my first credit card from my bank today. I have a 0% APR for 6 months. A friend of mine told me that he built credit by paying 90% of his monthly balance and letting a bit of it carry over, then right before his 0% intro offer expired, he paid the entire thing off. No. You're not the exception, because there are no exceptions. Yes, the credit card company would like you to carry a balance, so they can squeeze as much money as possible from you. But, "balance carried" isn't tracked on your credit report, and it's not used to calculate credit scores. All the credit agencies see about your credit card balance is the bottom-line number on the statement. It doesn't matter if you paid the whole thing off thirty seconds after the last statement went out and then racked up that amount in new charges this cycle, or only made the minimum payment last time and carried every cent you could. Never carry a balance, and never take a cash advance. Not even once.
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Nov 16, 2014 12:24
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Yeah they're looking at utilization, not if there's a month to month balance. A ton of people in America don't actually understand how their credit score is calculated. Paying the full statement balance instead of everything you owe is going to leave money on there anyway because purchases this month come due next month. Even that can get you in trouble if you're not careful though. Don't put something on a card unless you already have money waiting to pay for it, and you are confident you can then not touch that money until you send it to the credit card company. Your credit score is not the score in a game, nor does it matter unless you're looking for a loan or another credit card. Just use your credit responsibly and that score will go up by itself and don't worry about it.
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Nov 16, 2014 13:26
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THF13 posted:Would you need to get an Australian credit card or an American one? I'm mostly talking about American ones (when I found I'm basically starting over from scratch in Australia my immediate thought was I should get an Aussie card and start paying for stuff with that to build credit, but OTOH I have a feeling any rewards, etc are likely inferior to what I could be racking up on my American one...). Thanks for the heads-up on Southwest, but it doesn't look like they partner with anyone else, and I have basically no use for a domestic US airline once I move. Will look into the other two though!
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Nov 16, 2014 13:44
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Blinkman987 posted:A cash back card is almost always going to be better unless you're also flying and supplementing your cc spend with flight miles/booking your own flights. Cash is king. The only reason I personally do hotel/flight credit cards is because I open them, spend to the minimum to get the bonus, open another card, and close the cards at the 11 month mark. Some cards have even paid me straight cash to keep the account open when I go to retentions. That's bad general advice. If you're using points and miles you're not usually paying 1 mile: 1 cent rate. Airline mile pricing is based on region to region, hotel points are based on hotel category. A $1500 round trip economy flight to Europe may be had with 60,000 airline miles and minor taxes in cash. So your opportunity cost is $600 in cash back (or I guess $1200 if you've got a .02/dollar spent card, which you should), but you're saving a ton more money than if you just collected cash back. Obviously it doesn't work out like that every time, but every time I've booked flights with miles I've made out better than if I'd collected cash back to pay for it. What I typically do is get all my miles/points balances topped off to the point where I could fly/stay wherever with what I've got, THEN everything is cash back after that point.
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Nov 16, 2014 20:35
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Space Gopher posted:No. You're not the exception, because there are no exceptions. 100 HOGS AGREE posted:Yeah they're looking at utilization, not if there's a month to month balance. A ton of people in America don't actually understand how their credit score is calculated. Paying the full statement balance instead of everything you owe is going to leave money on there anyway because purchases this month come due next month. I see, thanks guys. One more question: does spending 30% or 70% of your credit limit have any difference at all?
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Nov 17, 2014 00:27
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Lower utilization tends to be better for your credit score.
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Nov 17, 2014 00:41
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Brian Fellows posted:That's bad general advice. If you're using points and miles you're not usually paying 1 mile: 1 cent rate. Airline mile pricing is based on region to region, hotel points are based on hotel category. A $1500 round trip economy flight to Europe may be had with 60,000 airline miles and minor taxes in cash. So your opportunity cost is $600 in cash back (or I guess $1200 if you've got a .02/dollar spent card, which you should), but you're saving a ton more money than if you just collected cash back. I agree, that's why I pointed out at the end that I only do hotel and airline cards for the bonus where a person is getting 50K+ miles or equivalent on sign up and min spend. With no bonus, it should be cash back card spend.
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Nov 17, 2014 03:12
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Am I overlooking something, or is this as good as I think it is? Combining the Chase Freedom and Chase Sapphire Preferred bonuses, and then transferring them to the Southwest card (after meeting the spends) results in 100k points, a mere 10k short of a promotion Southwest is running where you get a free companion ticket for every one you purchase. What are the better airlines cards factoring in other cards where you can transfer points?
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Nov 17, 2014 10:10
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It appears that Southwest will let your spend and sign up bonus points apply toward the Companion Pass. If you can get those points early next year, you'll get companion pass for the remainder of 2015 and all of 2016.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:30
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TastyLemonDrops posted:Am I overlooking something, or is this as good as I think it is? Combining the Chase Freedom and Chase Sapphire Preferred bonuses, and then transferring them to the Southwest card (after meeting the spends) results in 100k points, a mere 10k short of a promotion Southwest is running where you get a free companion ticket for every one you purchase. What are the better airlines cards factoring in other cards where you can transfer points? you might want to double check this. A quick look seems to indicate that sign up bonuses from SW cards count, but transfer from Chase Ultimate do not. You can apparently bypass this by transferring to Hyatt first, but it's a 2 - 1 transfer from Hyatt to SW. The easiest way I've heard is to apply for two of the SW cards with 50k offers.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:18
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Just got approved for the BarclayCard Arrival+.  It's my second card ever (I have a Wells Fargo Visa Platinum through banking with them for years). I have the option to pay my rent via card - this is a good way to spend $3000 in 3 months to earn the 40k bonus points, correct? Am I wrong in thinking I can pay my rent with this every month to earn sweet sweet points toward travel? khysanth fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Nov 17, 2014 23:13
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khysanth posted:I have the option to pay my rent via card - this is a good way to spend $3000 in 3 months to earn the 40k bonus points, correct? Am I wrong in thinking I can pay my rent with this every month to earn sweet sweet points toward travel? Make sure your landlord isn't charging you a credit card fee to do so. Fees can be up to 3-5% typically. It's rare for a management company to accept credit cards for no additional charge.
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Nov 17, 2014 23:25
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If you use Paypal to pay for a lot of stuff, you can charge your new card through it. No FTF, either! Just don't send friends/family cash with the card, of course.
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Nov 17, 2014 23:37
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Interesting little possible bug in the shop discover page. Looks like they give 10% cashback of total prior to any coupon codes. They have 10% off of Kohl's orders until mid January right now. I placed an order for some stuff last night that totaled $60. After I added a few codes, it brought my total down to about $36 but Discover credited me $6 cash back. Not sure if that is how it's supposed to work or not. I'm guessing it's a bug.
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Nov 18, 2014 05:56
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Guinness posted:Make sure your landlord isn't charging you a credit card fee to do so. Fees can be up to 3-5% typically. It's rare for a management company to accept credit cards for no additional charge. There is a flat $35 fee for paying with a card, so here are my thoughts: Rent is $1600, and assuming I spend all Arrival+ bonus points on travel, 2.2% of $1600 is ~$35. I think it's worth it to pay rent for the first three months on the card in order to get the 40,000 sign-up point bonus. After that it is mostly a wash, right? The points I get for paying rent are basically exactly canceled out by the $35 fee. Would it still make sense to pay with the card after the sign-up bonus? In a way it's sort of like I'm just putting money aside each month for future travel I think. Let me know what you smarter goons think.
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Nov 19, 2014 18:13
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The ultimate question for you is do you prefer your $35 in points in cash (liquid, growable) or points (rigid). Also, if you have a decent interest-bearing checking/savings account, it technically will outperform credit card rewards. After hitting that sign-up bonus, I would just convert back to ACH or whatever for your rent.
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Nov 19, 2014 18:35
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I got the Barclay Arrival+ card but have to wait a few months for the reward points. A close friend of my wife's just invited us to a wedding in Florida (we live in NY). The wedding is in January so we're looking to open cards that will yield the most flight points immediately, or maybe after a month. I found the US Airways Dividend Premier. That'll yield us about $400 each in points towards tickets if we both open our own accounts, right? Is there any flaw in that plan? We might take another couple with us, so would it be possible to take advantage of the "buddy" ticket ($99 ticket per buddy, up to 2) and use points to pay for the flight, or is it likely they won't let me double dip? Or is there a better card/option all together?
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Nov 19, 2014 18:47
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khysanth posted:There is a flat $35 fee for paying with a card, so here are my thoughts: Between groceries, cell phone, utilities, gas, and odds-and-ends, you can't make the $3,000 spend without rent? If you can avoid those fees, that's $70 in your pocket.
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Nov 19, 2014 19:34
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ETB posted:Also, if you have a decent interest-bearing checking/savings account, it technically will outperform credit card rewards. After hitting that sign-up bonus, I would just convert back to ACH or whatever for your rent.  Even the highest interest-bearing savings account yields are 1% or barely above. The FIA Amex gives you 2% on everything. How do you figure a savings account outperforms rewards?
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Nov 19, 2014 20:55
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Bisty Q. posted:
You're forgetting about the flat fee which negates the rewards...
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Nov 19, 2014 21:30
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Bisty Q. posted:
The points don't generate interest. This isn't relavent if you can convert them to cash, but the person who originally asked is using a card where you get 2.2% when the points are spent on travel so not only are the points limited in use, but they may fit in the account till you have a travel expense.
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Nov 19, 2014 21:41
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ETB posted:You're forgetting about the flat fee which negates the rewards... Yeah, I misread that you were talking about after the signup bonus. It's a no brainer to pay $105 to get $400, which is why I was confused.
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Nov 20, 2014 03:04
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Has anyone had a good experience with the Amazon Rewards Visa? I looked at the Discover It card, but am not sure how often the categories would apply to me - I don't buy gas that often, and plan on regularly picking up housewares, books, etc. from Amazon. Unless we've got a vacation or something lined up, I rarely charge more than a couple hundred a month, and always pay off my balance. The only rewards card I have experience with is the PNC CashBuilder, which just gives a flat 1.25% back, and can only be redeemed at $50 or more. I'm thinking it's time to find something a little more useful.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:21
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morcant posted:Has anyone had a good experience with the Amazon Rewards Visa? I looked at the Discover It card, but am not sure how often the categories would apply to me - I don't buy gas that often, and plan on regularly picking up housewares, books, etc. from Amazon. Unless we've got a vacation or something lined up, I rarely charge more than a couple hundred a month, and always pay off my balance. The only rewards card I have experience with is the PNC CashBuilder, which just gives a flat 1.25% back, and can only be redeemed at $50 or more. I'm thinking it's time to find something a little more useful. I've been enjoying using my Sallie Mae Rewards card for Amazon (5% on gas/groceries/bookstores). It has relatively low monthly caps on the cashback per month ($250 for gas/groceries and $750 for bookstores). Also really easy to redeem rewards ($25 increments).
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Nov 24, 2014 19:47
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