AMEX

[moneymaker]

Ditto I got back $294. Stepped into Albertsons the other day and while I was there checked a few prices of stuff I normally buy at Costco, salad, milk, coffee creamer, even without the rebate I probably save enough on those 3 things to cover my membership fee.

[svelte]

I use this and put everything on it.

Gets me a good chunk of change at the end of each month…

https://www.chase.com/credit-cards/amazon/amazon-home

[plm]

For me, I’ll always carry an Amex because of one feature I haven’t seen on other cards which saved our Europe trip from being a complete disaster when my wife’s purse got stolen in London. When I went to cancel all the credit cards, the Amex rep explained they use different numbers for joint cards so I only needed to cancel my wife’s card. So we had one credit card left to finish the trip on.

[gzz]

I have never cared what CC interest rates are since I don’t carry balances.

The best way to use CC is to get 2 or 3 new ones a year for the sign-up bonuses worth about $500-800 each.

The second best way is to get the rewards. These days the best rewards are #1 Fidelity which is a flat 2% cash back on everything, and #2 is Chase Freedom/Sapphire, which is more complicated but is worth at minimum 1% in cash back and at max 2-3% for travel rewards.

Chase can be converted to Southwest points worth about 2.1 cents, and together with the signup bonuses I have used about $2000 in free southwest flights over the years.

Unless you fly Delta a lot, Amex has been lagging Chase and Citi on rewards the past few years.

[gzz]

You’re doing it wrong if you use joint cards.

Married people should get separate cards to double their sign up bonuses.

[plm]

When we got married, wife didn’t have any credit so I just added her to my accounts but now she can get separate cards. The only bonus I ever got was a beach towel for my first credit card while I was in college.

[CA renter]

[quote=gzz]I have never cared what CC interest rates are since I don’t carry balances.

The best way to use CC is to get 2 or 3 new ones a year for the sign-up bonuses worth about $500-800 each.

The second best way is to get the rewards. These days the best rewards are #1 Fidelity which is a flat 2% cash back on everything, and #2 is Chase Freedom/Sapphire, which is more complicated but is worth at minimum 1% in cash back and at max 2-3% for travel rewards.

Chase can be converted to Southwest points worth about 2.1 cents, and together with the signup bonuses I have used about $2000 in free southwest flights over the years.

Unless you fly Delta a lot, Amex has been lagging Chase and Citi on rewards the past few years.[/quote]

We have that Fidelity AMEX with the 2% cash back on everything, no limits. Love it! We charge absolutely everything on it, as long as they take AMEX.

Funny, but I didn’t know that AMEX allowed people to carry balances, either.

[an]

[quote=gzz]I have never cared what CC interest rates are since I don’t carry balances.

The best way to use CC is to get 2 or 3 new ones a year for the sign-up bonuses worth about $500-800 each.

The second best way is to get the rewards. These days the best rewards are #1 Fidelity which is a flat 2% cash back on everything, and #2 is Chase Freedom/Sapphire, which is more complicated but is worth at minimum 1% in cash back and at max 2-3% for travel rewards.

Chase can be converted to Southwest points worth about 2.1 cents, and together with the signup bonuses I have used about $2000 in free southwest flights over the years.

Unless you fly Delta a lot, Amex has been lagging Chase and Citi on rewards the past few years.[/quote]I would disagree. I think AMEX has the best rewards card for me. I love Starwood hotel chain and love their cash and points program. The best “cash back” (i.e. how much $ I save from the points I earned) I got was ~12%. No other cash back program can get even come close to that. I can easily get 3-5% cash back all day long with their average hotel deals. So, I use my AMEX Starwood card exclusively.

[gzz]

[quote=plm]When we got married, wife didn’t have any credit so I just added her to my accounts but now she can get separate cards. The only bonus I ever got was a beach towel for my first credit card while I was in college.[/quote]

You did the right thing by adding wife at first to build her credit. If you are not a travel type, you can still get yourself $1000 in cold cash by signing up for one chase card each each year.

I also, like a sucker, signed up for CCs in college at the picnic tables to get t-shirts and other stupid crap. For this reason, my credit report show like 40 accounts opened in the late 90’s with no activity on them ever. I did not cause any negative impact, but it looked silly.

[gzz]

[quote=AN]I would disagree. I think AMEX has the best rewards card for me. I love Starwood hotel chain and love their cash and points program. The best “cash back” (i.e. how much $ I save from the points I earned) I got was ~12%. No other cash back program can get even come close to that. I can easily get 3-5% cash back all day long with their average hotel deals. So, I use my AMEX Starwood card exclusively.[/quote]

That’s a good point if you are picky about your hotel when you travel. I usually use priceline and save 30-50% off the lowest published price for a 4 or 3.5 star hotel in the area. I only end up having to pay listed rates about 10% of the time when priceline fails me. Thus for me a free night in a downtown LA hotel like the giant Westin or the Marriott is only worth the $135 I pay on priceline, not the normal $250-300.

There is no comparable way to save on airfare. Priceline and hotwire will save you, at best 8% over lowest published, and so rarely that I usually don’t even check.

Also, the big bucks are in the sign-up bonuses. My CC spend is about 30K a year between biz and personal, so even with a 2% reward that is only $600. But with sign-up bonuses, I actually get more like $1500 the last couple years, and $2200 back when it was really rich 2008-2012.

[an]

[quote=gzz]That’s a good point if you are picky about your hotel when you travel. I usually use priceline and save 30-50% off the lowest published price for a 4 or 3.5 star hotel in the area. I only end up having to pay listed rates about 10% of the time when priceline fails me. Thus for me a free night in a downtown LA hotel like the giant Westin or the Marriott is only worth the $135 I pay on priceline, not the normal $250-300.

There is no comparable way to save on airfare. Priceline and hotwire will save you, at best 8% over lowest published, and so rarely that I usually don’t even check.

Also, the big bucks are in the sign-up bonuses. My CC spend is about 30K a year between biz and personal, so even with a 2% reward that is only $600. But with sign-up bonuses, I actually get more like $1500 the last couple years, and $2200 back when it was really rich 2008-2012.[/quote]I actually don’t use points for cheap areas like downtown LA where there there are an abundant of cheap hotels. I’m saving those points for places like Fiji, Bora Bora, Tahiti, etc. where there aren’t any cheap hotel around or when I want to do a splurge vacation and be able to stay at a 5 star hotel for a 3 star price. BTW, I don’t dispute signed up gets you a lot of sign on bonus. But signing up for a lot of credit card every year could affect you if you want to refi your house. I don’t know how lenders would look at your if you have open that many cards.

[gzz]

It was not an issue for me the two times I applied for a mortgage, to buy then to refi. But I did cut it very close the second time. For the refi I used Box, at the time the lowest rate in the entire USA, and they don’t care where your credit is at as long as it is 760+.

I am at 30 years/3.375 with no MI, so I don’t expect to refi my house again. By my calculation, the 30 year treasury would have to drop 0.5 below its all time low, to around 1.75%, before it would make sense for me to refi.

When I start looking for another property I will stop churning cards though.

The safe way to do it is to do all your applications for the year on the same day (called an app o rama), which is reported as a single inquiry. You also have to check online and avoid banks that look at more than one credit agency. I think capital one does this, so applying with them is 3 times worse than chase.

Inquiries from credit card apps drop off after 2 years, and don’t really have too big an impact. But if you’re really worried, you can check your score first and only proceed if you are at 790+, which provides a safe margin. I also have kept one no-fee card open for 8 years, which also helps my score.

[gzz]

Another thing is to be very careful about anything that could cause an inquiry. When I bought my car for cash, they wanted to do a credit check before I drove off with the car in case my personal check bounced. I talked them into taking a printout of a free credit report from annualcreditreport.com, plus a printout of my bank balance, and thereby avoided an inquiry.

I also decided not to sign up for a landline phone, even though I wanted one, because AT&T said they might check my credit.

[an]

gzz, I’m fully aware of app o rama. I did it awhile back for 0% interest when banks were giving out 5-6% 12 months CD. I would get those cards, stick all the $ in the CD and 12 months later pay it back. But I haven’t done an app o rama since CD rates dropped below 4%.

Can you give me some examples of cards that give cash incentives? I’ve seen plenty of 0% interest balance transfer cards and cards that give you bonus points. But I’ve never seen cards that give you several hundred in cash before. Would definitely be a good thing to do today since interest rate is so low instead of doing app o rama to stick it in a CD. Do you have to spend a certain amount to get those cash bonus?

[Coronita]

I don’t know, but I think the concerns about your credit file getting pulled many times are slightly overblown.

I remember in the course of 1.5 years, I did 3 refinances, 1 HELOC, 1 credit card application, and 1 possible new car purchase (that I ended up cancelling and bought a house instead)…The refinance loans had both a credit file pull at the beginning of the loan application and right before close of escrow (twice). One of those refinances also and to be redone because the lender stopped writing loans.. I think my credit went from 820ish to about 790-800ish, and it didn’t make a difference on the loan rate I got.

The annoying part was I had to pay $30 each time I unlocked my credit file.

[Author]

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