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dexter6 posted:This may be common knowledge, but thought I'd put it in this thread just for other peoples information Did you call the reconsideration number to see if you could move some credit around?
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Jan 22, 2015 23:29
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That is a new thing. I can't remember exactly what they did or when (it was within the last year or two though), but they made it HARDER to get multiple credit cards for the same airline and I believe that's their catch all reason. In the past people would open up a few of those at one time and shamelessly get the bonus. Since there's absolutely no way that's good for business, Barclays made it tougher. I had always heard that Barclays is a company that'll shut you down if you don't use their cards regularly too. Just close your account with no warning. I've actually found the opposite true - I've got two cards with them, and I NEVER use the US Airways card. When I called to cancel this year to avoid the fee, they waived the fee and still gave me the yearly miles bonus for keeping the card open. I do use the poo poo out of the other Barclays card, so that might be part of the reasoning (it's the discontinued Priceline 2 cents per dollar spent cart, and it rules).
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Jan 22, 2015 23:52
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dexter6 posted:Barclays will not allow you to have > airline branded card open at once. I attempted to open a second US Airways card for the additional 50k miles, but they declined the app because I already "had sufficient credit" with them. They are definitely very conservative in their approvals, though.
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Jan 22, 2015 23:52
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Brian Fellows posted:I had always heard that Barclays is a company that'll shut you down if you don't use their cards regularly too. Actually, just yesterday I got an email from them saying they were going to shut down an old card (about 2.5 years since I've used it for anything) if I didn't contact them or use it within the next 30. Not that I blame them, I just used it to buy a new Mac at 0% right before I moved/was starting a new job and money was a little tight.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:19
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My two year anniversary with the US card was coming up in February, but used the card very little. I did, however, get them to successfully waive the first and second annual fees, so I got that going for me, which is nice. I was talking to their reconsideration line and he flat out told me that barclays would be happy to possibly issue me more credit OR move credit around, but that it would have to be for any other non-US Air card. He mentioned a couple others, but I wasn't interested in those. He said several times that Barclays would not issue me two of the same card, regardless of credit line. Oh well, I guess my plan of getting the US Air card, American and American business for a total of 150k miles (after Q2 merger) has changed. 100k miles on American will work nicely though, considering I fly about 65k a year. Small White Dragon posted:This is not true. I just got recently got a second one.
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Jan 23, 2015 00:37
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dexter6 posted:Shrug - I dunno. Maybe you got lucky? Or me, unlucky? (I've had other applications rejected in the past.) Small White Dragon fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 00:43
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Bisty Q. posted:Amex is unique among issuers in that every account is (or can be if it isn't by default for some reason) backdated to the date of your first relationship with Amex. You have 2 accounts, each with an age of 8 years. If you close one, you will have one account with an age of 8 years. Opening up additional Amex cards is a great way to game the average age of account calculation if you were smart enough to open one early in your credit life, which it sounds like you were. nickutz posted:You should have two accounts with the age of 8 years. Check your member since date on both cards, they should both have 07. If not just call them up and they can adjust your MSD, and the account age will update on your credit report too. Huh, well that's nice. Thanks guys.
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Jan 23, 2015 02:59
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Barclays is tough? I just clicked on the apply button and filled out my info and instant approval? Any tips on how to maximize the points from the Arrival+ in terms of travel redemption? Also having the fee waived for one year is pretty nice and the free 40k points
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Jan 24, 2015 20:01
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What's the best way to get the most american airlines miles as possible via a card?
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Jan 24, 2015 20:09
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semicolonsrock posted:What's the best way to get the most american airlines miles as possible via a card? AAdvantage (Citi) card + US Airways card (Barclay's) and wait for them to merge systems in Q2 (at the moment you can't combine them for a booking). The AAdvantage one has a $95 fee that's waived the first year, US Airways one is about the same buy you do have to pay it the first year (but there's no minimum spend, just "first purchase"), for a total of 100k miles. There is also a higher fee AA one ($450, not waived) if you really want another 50k, although the perks aren't really gonna be worth it unless you're a frequent traveler. From what I've been hearing, the days of taking out multiple versions of the same AA card at once to stack sign up bonuses are kinda over. Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 20:30
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Pompous Rhombus posted:AAdvantage (Citi) card + US Airways card (Barclay's) and wait for them to merge systems in Q2 (at the moment you can't combine them for a booking). The AAdvantage one has a $95 fee that's waived the first year, US Airways one is about the same buy you do have to pay it the first year (but there's no minimum spend, just "first purchase"), for a total of 100k miles. There is also a higher fee AA one ($450, not waived) if you really want another 50k, although the perks aren't really gonna be worth it unless you're a frequent traveler. From what I've been hearing, the days of taking out multiple versions of the same AA card at once to stack sign up bonuses are kinda over. AA has two cards. Standard and Business. Per this, looks like you can get each. Both have the annual fee waived up front, require you to spend $3k in your first 3 months to get the bonus. The Barclays USAir card current offer is for 50k miles once you pay the $95 annual fee and make one purchase, per this. So, if you got all three cards today (and I'd recommend at least getting the US Air card before it disappears), you could get 150k American miles in Q2.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:26
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dexter6 posted:That's close, but... Oops, forgot about the business card! It seemed like a bit of a grey area when I was looking into it myself (no business) so decided to leave it alone. That'd definitely be the smart option. I just got the US Air card and it was pretty fast. Also just cancelled my AA card a month or two before the first annual fee hit; pretty easy to do via an automated phone system.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:35
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Oops, forgot about the business card! It seemed like a bit of a grey area when I was looking into it myself (no business) so decided to leave it alone. The only reason I haven't tried yet is because I just hit my $3k minimum on my standard AA card and want to take a break before running up a 2nd card.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:37
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So I'm valuing UR points about 1.75 cents each right now. If I do that, it makes more sense to me to use my BOA card (2.625% on everything - it's the 1.5% travel rewards card and I'm in their highest "preferred rewards" tier) than it does to acquire UR, based on my spend. Can anybody convince me that valuation is wrong? I don't spend on hotels, it's all on flight, and I feel like it's more valuable to just keep churning for flights and to throw all the spend into cashback since I can get such a high rate.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:53
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It's going to be highly dependent on the flights you take. My personal experience was 60k points for a $1500 flight which is 2.5 cents a point. If you fly business instead you'd probably be up to 4 cents or so.
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Jan 25, 2015 10:49
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dexter6 posted:That's close, but... Thanks for the tips, I got approved for the USAir card and I'll do the AA citi card in about a month or so. I had been wanting to do the USAir card for a while, so this tipped the scales. When the companies merge in Q2 will the miles combine 1:1? What are the average mileage costs for a domestic flight? USAir says about 40000 for a round trip, does this sound about right?
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Jan 25, 2015 17:08
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Yes, the miles will combine 1:1. AA domestic roundtrips are 25K miles for 'saver' awards, which are the only ones you'd want to take. If you spent 40K AA miles on a domestic RT, people would cry.
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Jan 25, 2015 20:15
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Bisty Q. posted:Yes, the miles will combine 1:1. Yeah, seriously. I'm flying (one way, granted) from Florida to Tasmania and that's only 37.5k.
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Jan 25, 2015 21:27
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Just signed up for Chase Freedom and Capital Quicksilver cards, both of which have a $100 cash bonus after you spend $500 the first 3 months. I've never used credit cards for day to day expenses or monthly bills, but this thread has inspired me to start milking some rewards out of them. I figure the Quicksilver can be my main card and I can take advantage of the 5% categories on the Freedom where I can. Being pretty dumb on the finer points of credit scores, I was kind of surprised to get rejected by the Double Cash card. Obviously the 2% would be nice to have over the 1.5% on the Quicksilver. I checked my info via CreditKarma and saw I'm in the "good" range and just below the average credit score normally accepted by the card. One thing I noticed is they show an open collections entry for some medical bill I thought I had paid months and months ago. I'm guessing this would cause a pretty good ding in my score?
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Jan 26, 2015 04:11
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Cousin Balki posted:Being pretty dumb on the finer points of credit scores, I was kind of surprised to get rejected by the Double Cash card. Obviously the 2% would be nice to have over the 1.5% on the Quicksilver. I checked my info via CreditKarma and saw I'm in the "good" range and just below the average credit score normally accepted by the card. One thing I noticed is they show an open collections entry for some medical bill I thought I had paid months and months ago. I'm guessing this would cause a pretty good ding in my score? Yes, but your 'seeking' credit by making multiple apps so quickly together is also not helping.
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Jan 26, 2015 04:23
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Last year I averaged 2.12% cash back over a card from each Chase Freedom, Amazon, and Amex Blue. But now I want a travel card (in large part for sign up points), and it's looking like the best deal is a Barclaycard Arrival Plus at 2.2% redemption value for statement credits against travel. I do not travel much at all, but it would be nice to maximize points, and I have some tickets to buy this and next year to go visit family members graduating from college. If I get the BAP and buy my tickets as soon as I receive it, and then spend for other stuff to hit the $3k in 3mo for the 40k points (no issue there), can I redeem the 40k points against the prior ticket purchase? I am guessing yes, but I've never dealt with a non-cashback card. Also, I do not have an airline preference and I live in the PNW and fly to SoCal and New England areas. This is why I was leaning towards the BAP vs an airline card. Am I making the right decision? Thanks!
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Jan 30, 2015 04:00
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SiGmA_X posted:Last year I averaged 2.12% cash back over a card from each Chase Freedom, Amazon, and Amex Blue. But now I want a travel card (in large part for sign up points), and it's looking like the best deal is a Barclaycard Arrival Plus at 2.2% redemption value for statement credits against travel. I do not travel much at all, but it would be nice to maximize points, and I have some tickets to buy this and next year to go visit family members graduating from college. If I get the BAP and buy my tickets as soon as I receive it, and then spend for other stuff to hit the $3k in 3mo for the 40k points (no issue there), can I redeem the 40k points against the prior ticket purchase? I am guessing yes, but I've never dealt with a non-cashback card. You have 180 days after the travel purchase to redeem against it, but you can only redeem against each purchase one time. You also can't spend your 10% back immediately; you have to redeem it on a subsequent redemption. PNW to SoCal might be worth using Avios, depending on where specifically for each of those.
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Jan 30, 2015 04:39
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Finally got static from Chase after about 16 months of churning cards. I got the Southwest card in December and plowed through that, but they gave me a considerable credit line on it, and my new REI card has no stated limit. So, when I went to open the Sapphire card at the bank while doing some other things, the banker had to call and they gave me a pretty low limit for a mid-premium card. I closed my United card too so I could open it again later this year when they do another 50k bonus, and I'm hoping that 3-4 good months of just chipping away at this Sapphire card will give some breathing room. June/July should be SPG 30k sign-up bonus time too, so gotta get ready for that. It's a shame that Amex doesn't allow re-registering for bonuses after a certain period of time.
Blinkman987 fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 05:30
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Don't outright cancel cards. Cancel the card and ask them to move the credit to another existing credit card. These are the steps you should follow: 1. Have two Chase credit cards, $5K limit each. 2. Call to close one of the cards, ask them to move the credit to the other card. You now have one card with a $10K limit. 3. Keep opening and closing cards to your heart's content with the above strategy. 4. When Chase gets bitchy about auto-approving you next time and they try to tell you you can't have the new card, ask them if they can transfer some credit from one of your other cards to a new account in order to let you open the new one. Boom. Usually when credit card companies don't approve you in your type of situation (and your credit is otherwise good) it's because they feel you've got too much credit with them, NOT necessarily that you've been abusing their sign up bonuses or have too many CARDS with them. What I do is always have a Sapphire card (so yeah, I pay that fee every year), and typically when the yearly fee on another card comes up (United this last year), I call to cancel that one but move the credit over to the Sapphire. Then next month I opened a British Airways card. In this case they just let me open a new card, but before I've had to play the old "well, I've got $23,000 on my Sapphire card, could I just move $10,000 to this new account?" card. You still get the signup bonus, and Chase doesn't extend any additional credit to you. Win/win. Weirdly Chase is the only company that's never made me any kind of offer to keep a card open. They always close it out with no questions. Amex is 50/50, and Citi I have never closed a card because they always offer me hilarious bonuses when I try (and I have more than enough miles/points on Citi related cards so I don't feel the need to chase signup bonuses anytime soon).
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Jan 30, 2015 06:07
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Brian Fellows posted:Don't outright cancel cards. Cancel the card and ask them to move the credit to another existing credit card. These are the steps you should follow: Thanks. I'll do that next time. Should I call sometime to ask to reduce my Southwest card to 10K in preparation for this? Chase is the only company that's offered to pay me to keep one open. $200 credit to cover the yearly fee on the United, netting EDIT: +$105 Blinkman987 fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 06:33
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Bisty Q. posted:You have 180 days after the travel purchase to redeem against it, but you can only redeem against each purchase one time. You also can't spend your 10% back immediately; you have to redeem it on a subsequent redemption.
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Jan 30, 2015 08:22
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SiGmA_X posted:Last year I averaged 2.12% cash back over a card from each Chase Freedom, Amazon, and Amex Blue. But now I want a travel card (in large part for sign up points), and it's looking like the best deal is a Barclaycard Arrival Plus at 2.2% redemption value for statement credits against travel. I do not travel much at all, but it would be nice to maximize points, and I have some tickets to buy this and next year to go visit family members graduating from college. If I get the BAP and buy my tickets as soon as I receive it, and then spend for other stuff to hit the $3k in 3mo for the 40k points (no issue there), can I redeem the 40k points against the prior ticket purchase? I am guessing yes, but I've never dealt with a non-cashback card. I may have misunderstood the way the Barclay Arrival Plus points works, but it seemed like kind of a lovely deal compared to getting straight miles. True, it gives you the most freedom in booking, but 40,000 points is $400 in statement credit. For 37.5k miles on American, I'm flying (one way, granted) from Florida to... Australia. The equivalent cash tickets I was looking at were all around $1k+. Speaking of Avios, went to sign up for that Economist deal I mentioned yesterday and it had dropped to the standard 4,000 Avios on the Economist site (Iberian was still claiming the original 12,000). I called up the Economist's customer support and they said I'd have to take it up with Iberian. Almost did, but as I was Googling around looking for the original link I found another sign-up link that put me through to the Economist website and said it was good for 12k, so did that. Offer ends tomorrow, so get on it if you're interested.
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Jan 30, 2015 14:07
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I may have misunderstood the way the Barclay Arrival Plus points works, but it seemed like kind of a lovely deal compared to getting straight miles. True, it gives you the most freedom in booking, but 40,000 points is $400 in statement credit. For 37.5k miles on American, I'm flying (one way, granted) from Florida to... Australia. The equivalent cash tickets I was looking at were all around $1k+. And I surely could be wrong, and am more than happy to be corrected. $500 in points via A+ is $25k in spending which will buy me a domestic round trip, looks like the CitiAA card would take 37.5k in spending buy would result in round trip domestically or internationally. The most expensive coach round trip domestic tickets that I've seen for cross country are around 500, +/-. I'm looking at spending $430-450 for my trip this summer, so Barclay will be paying for one of our tickets as we will run about 7k through the card in the next 90 days. That was my goal really. And then it would cover 2-3 PDX-SoCal flights based on our avg spending in the future. My gf's family lives down there and she goes every 3-6mo at least. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 15:35
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Blinkman987 posted:Thanks. I'll do that next time. Should I call sometime to ask to reduce my Southwest card to 10K in preparation for this? Nah, there's no reason to do shift things around if you don't have to. General rule of thumb is don't give up credit (aka outright close cards or lower limits), just move it around to new cards when you have to. Otherwise just try to open cards and use the flexibility to move credit if they otherwise want to reject you.
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Jan 30, 2015 23:13
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SiGmA_X posted:PDX but it looks like BA doesn't do PDX. Too bad. I was approved for an Arrival+, I will utilize that. Perhaps get one in my gf's name also, we could buy both of our tickets for this summer for free... Thanks for prior and current input, thread! PDX-SNA is a nonstop on AA. You should be able to use BA Avios to go on that route, but the calculators are all refusing to route it, which is weird. It's 860 miles, which means it SHOULD be 15k Avios roundtrip + token fees. You can get 40K avios by signing up with a Chase Sapphire Preferred and making the minimum buy, which would you get 2 round trips. However, I'd avoid doing this until someone can figure out why no PDX-SNA flights will price on the Avios checker. I'm seeing availability on Kayak, but it might just be that I was checking too soon and availability is constrained. The main takeaway here is really "why not both"? Use the Arrival for stuff where you can't get a better deal by using an airline program.
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Jan 31, 2015 00:01
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I'm thinking about applying for an AmEx Blue Cash Preferred card to use exclusively for groceries (6% cash back with a $6000 cap, which is about what we spend annually on groceries). A couple of concerns: - I recently had a US Bank Mastercard be not renewed because I hadn't used it in 18 months. Credit limit was ~$12k. - I recently changed jobs so my AmEx corporate card was automatically cancelled. - I recently opened a new card with Citi (credit limit of about $10k). - I already have a basic AmEx Blue card (credit limit $19,300). Aside from the cards mentioned above the wife and I have a few other [non-AmEx] cards each with limits in the low 5 figures. One of them has about $1500 on it, the others are at zero. I can't remember our credit scores from the last time I looked but I think we're both in the low 800s. Should I not apply because of all that recent activity? Should I not apply because I've already got a Blue card with a relatively high credit line? Or should I apply, and if not automatically approved, ask that my existing card have credit moved to a new card? For what it's worth we're not planning on applying for any significant credit (mortgage or car loans) in the near future.
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Jan 31, 2015 00:38
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Bisty Q. posted:PDX-SNA is a nonstop on AA. Edit 2: Here's a guide. Small White Dragon fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 03:20
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Bisty Q. posted:PDX-SNA is a nonstop on AA. You should be able to use BA Avios to go on that route, but the calculators are all refusing to route it, which is weird. It's 860 miles, which means it SHOULD be 15k Avios roundtrip + token fees. You can get 40K avios by signing up with a Chase Sapphire Preferred and making the minimum buy, which would you get 2 round trips. The Avios calculators are notoriously poo poo, typically you want to call for booking those awards.
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Jan 31, 2015 05:20
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Fantastic! Thanks for the info guys and/or gals! Hopefully I have good enough credit to get another card so soon, we'll find out tomorrow! I'm not going to be getting a mortgage anytime soon so idgaf about another hard pull. Which is the best card to get for an Avios signup? I think Credit Karma said Chase Sapphire had a 50k signup bonus now. Their site won't work on my phone and I'm not home so I can't verify that now though. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 07:14
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I see differing suggestions between closing cards to avoid fees and transferring balances between cards by the same bank (ie Chase). Wouldn't you have to cancel cards to take advantage of the bonuses offered after the 18mo or 2yr waiting period that cards seem to have?
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Jan 31, 2015 17:14
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I'm looking for a second visa/MC to use for when I'm either having issues with my freedom card (I've had the card info skimmed 2 times in the 3 years since moving to Boston) and a place doesn't take discover or when overseas. I would prefer a card with no foreign transaction fees for when I go to Italy in May (tickets paid for already), and so I've only been looking at chip cards, but there is always the issue about no pin. I don't anticipate spending anywhere near $3000 in the next few months to try and get a nice signup bonus. So, should I just go for a Capital One VentureOne card with a 20K miles for 1K spend? I can throw enough bills on the card to do that spend. My credit score is excellent so I would be able to be approved for just the 2X points version; I just don't see myself getting the bonus... Is there an optimal situation I'm missing here?
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Jan 31, 2015 17:16
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I've got a quick question about secured credit cards. Right now, I've got no credit history. I'm a student with no debts and low monthly income, so from what I understand, I'm basically a ghost and there's no chance in hell that I'll get approved for a decent credit card (no annual fee, 0% APR early on, rewards). I want to start building my credit, but I'm not sure if secured credit is the way to go. Here is what makes me hesitate: Annual fees, even if they are low. Most I looked at were in the $30-40 range. A lot of secured cards don't seem to report to the big 3 bureaus, or at least they don't indicate whether they do or not. It also sounds like you'll never get the initial deposit back unless you close the account, which then wipes out that line of credit history, correct? I mean it's not like having $200 permanently tied up is the end of the world, but if there are better alternatives, I'd rather look at them. So are there better ways to start establishing credit so that I can actually get approved for a decent card? I don't want to shoot out a bunch of applications that are going to ding my credit score with hard inquiries if there's zero chance of approval.
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Jan 31, 2015 18:29
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Go talk to your bank/Credit union
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Jan 31, 2015 18:54
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Cacafuego posted:I see differing suggestions between closing cards to avoid fees and transferring balances between cards by the same bank (ie Chase). Wouldn't you have to cancel cards to take advantage of the bonuses offered after the 18mo or 2yr waiting period that cards seem to have? Open a fee-free card with the company that doesn't have a signup bonus that you plan on churning (Chase Freedom, whatever Citi Hilton fee free card I have, etc), and use that as your card to throw credit at. Open a United Chase card, close it a year later, put the credit on the Freedom, open a new United Chase card in 18 months. I used the Chase Sapphire Preferred in my example above because that's a card I happily pay the fee on every year, but you can do the exact same thing with a Freedom card that's not costing you $95 a year to keep open.
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Jan 31, 2015 20:10
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SiGmA_X posted:Fantastic! Thanks for the info guys and/or gals! Hopefully I have good enough credit to get another card so soon, we'll find out tomorrow! I'm not going to be getting a mortgage anytime soon so idgaf about another hard pull. Sign up for the British Airways card. Id save Chase Sapphire for later as Ultimate Rewards points canbe transferred to a lot of places.
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Jan 31, 2015 20:53
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