are you in NC? Did they open a branch at State? Im taking a class as a PBS student and when I went a few weeks ago to get my card I saw where you can use your ID card as a US Bank debit mastercard.

1/19/2013 5:56:11 PM

I have another card with them although the website specifically says to apply in branch.
It looks like a decent card, but if you churn I feel sure you can do better.
5% cash back is the minimum I'd accept when you can easily get other rewards >= 10%

1/19/2013 7:01:45 PM

Got my AA Admirals Club passes in the mail today

1/20/2013 11:53:52 PM

My score has stayed in the 700's all I pay is student loans and a car loan. I have a friend who is at 612. He pulled his report also. All he has is his car loan and it says 7 poositive 2 negative. Should he get a co signed cc or what kinda card to get his to my score

1/21/2013 2:54:46 AM

He can try getting rid of those 2 negative things if possible. I'd probably get a secured CC as well although it will just take some time for the score to start going back up.

1/21/2013 9:58:08 AM

So those secured CC. How much can they really bring up a CC score in a years time?

1/21/2013 9:10:30 PM

There are far too many variables to tell you that. Your friend just needs to realiz they fucked up and it will be a slow process to rebuild good credit.

1/21/2013 9:24:57 PM

re: US Bank Cash+ card, I applied online and got approved. No need to call or visit a branch. This was probably about 6 months ago, though, so YMMV.
It's a great card though, effectively gives 6.25% on rotating (and useful) categories with NO LIMITS (big difference b/w this and something like Discover or Chase Freedom). I usually use mine for Bill Pay and Home Improvement stores. Oh, 2% at grocery stores too.

Quote :

"5% cash back is the minimum I'd accept when you can easily get other rewards >= 10%"

Where are you easily getting rewards >= 10%? I want in.

[Edited on January 23, 2013 at 11:28 AM. Reason : d]

1/23/2013 11:25:52 AM

I'm just making my way through Chase at the moment.

CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED CREDIT CARD Spend $3000 to get $400
CHASE INK PLUS (BUSINESS) – Spend $5000 to get $500
CHASE INK BOLD - Spend $5000 to get $500

1/23/2013 11:37:02 AM

Also you save 20% if you redeem through one of the Chase ultimate rewards partners if I'm not mistaken. So those 50k points would cover you for up to $625 in travel expenses. Applied for the Chase Ink Plus this morning and got the "requires further review message". Called the business recon number and got it approved in about 10min.

1/23/2013 1:00:12 PM

You are correct.
Sweet, which card?

1/23/2013 1:02:22 PM

Just the Ink Plus for now. Was thinking about doing the sapphire preferred too but just the $5k in 3 months will probably be pushing it.

1/23/2013 1:09:00 PM

Quote :

"I'm just making my way through Chase at the moment. CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED CREDIT CARD Spend $3000 to get $400 CHASE INK PLUS (BUSINESS) – Spend $5000 to get $500 CHASE INK BOLD - Spend $5000 to get $500"

Oh, I thought we were talking about rewards (rather than sign-up incentives).
5% is about as good as it gets, rewards-wise. Not everyone is in a position to constantly churn cards like you're doing.

What I need right now is an amazing airline sign-up bonus. I need enough miles to get to Japan this year, and don't want to have to jump through a million hoops to do it.

[Edited on January 23, 2013 at 1:31 PM. Reason : d]

1/23/2013 1:28:48 PM

Nah. Still 4K away from completing the Chase Bonus. Here's what I'm eyeing for midyear

Chase Ink Bold Business
CITI® HILTON HHONORS ™ RESERVE CARD – 2 FREE WEEKEND NIGHTS +FREE HILTON GOLD STATUS
GOLD DELTA SKYMILES® BUSINESS CREDIT CARD FROM AMERICAN EXPRESS OPEN
The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN

CITI AA for Japan?

[Edited on January 23, 2013 at 1:33 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2013 1:33:17 PM

^ good time to apply for the Amex Gold: 75K points for $10K spend in 4 months

https://www262.americanexpress.com/business-card-application/business-gold-charge-card/apply/45152-286-0

1/23/2013 7:23:41 PM

$10K spend is steeeeeeeep

1/24/2013 9:22:11 AM

Yeah, I saw that, but too difficult to do with my Chase churn.
I'll eventually be getting 100K pts for putting $10K on those two chase ink cards.
At the time the Amex bonus I was eyeing was 50K pts for spending $5K in 3 months.

1/24/2013 10:26:25 AM

To the guy asking about a secured CC: I'm one of the geniuses that didn't get a CC till age 27. I got a secured card through Wells Fargo with a $1500 limit. I think I had some various things on my report (nothing negative, just no real history) and was at around 630 when I first got it. I also got a WF "Jewelry" card ($8500 limit, just to keep my fiancee from seeing the charge initially) in the first year of having it. I paid that off entirely a week later.
I got it unsecured a couple of months ago and am around 740 now (creditkarma). I'd usually only get up to around $100 before paying it off completely each month. I think the most balance I ever carried was $40. What I thought was a bit bullshit is that when it switches over, it closes the secure card and opens a new one, so I lost the year on my credit history length.

Now I just need to look for the best rewards card I can get approved for.

1/24/2013 10:35:13 AM

with a score of 740, the world is pretty much your Oyster.

Congrats on fixing up your credit.

1/24/2013 10:40:27 AM

^^These are some good links to begin. Always verify the offers still seem valid through other sources prior to submitting an application though. In my opinion, it's best to have a goal in mind when applying for a credit card sign up bonus(es), e.g. miles and hotel points for a trip to Hawaii.

http://millionmilesecrets.com/hot-deals/

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/frequentmiler/best-credit-card-sign-up-offers/

1/24/2013 7:23:54 PM

J Laird, please message me. I would like to chat more about getting mine and my buddies credit score to your level!

1/24/2013 8:01:11 PM

It really just takes time and commitment to keep paying off all of your bills when they are due.

1/24/2013 8:52:26 PM

Never let any balance get over 1/3 of available credit.

1/24/2013 9:37:44 PM

Ya I'm definitely looking for airline/hotel reward cards. My fiancee has a card that she's getting cashback on groceries and whatnot, so I want to start accumulating miles. I've got a 2 year window right now for no major credit purchases (car and house), so I don't mind a few minor hits to my credit applying for cards.

skaterjaws I'd basically just echo what everyone else is saying. The two things I made sure to do was to pay everything off every month ON TIME and keeping my utilization under 20% (mine has been under 5% as of late, which actually hurts my score). Like I said, there may have been 1 or 2 months where I carried a balance <$40, but I had made payments.

If you're going to do a secured card, do at least a $1000 limit. I basically used my card for gas and lunch, and the occasional impulse buy, but I think the most I ever had on the card was $400 which I paid off the next day. I treated it like a debit card that I had to go in and manually pay after using it.

I think a huge help was the card I got while at diamonds direct, since that pretty much assured I could keep my utilization low. And as I said, I paid that off a week after I took the hit.

[Edited on January 25, 2013 at 11:06 AM. Reason : .]

1/25/2013 11:06:11 AM

So, it's been a month since I got the Chase Freedom. My credit score is in the low to mid 700s. Is it too soon to apply for the Sapphire Preferred?

I like the strategy of racking up 5% reward points with the Freedom and using the Sapphire Preferred to transfer them to their partners at a 1:1 ratio.

1/25/2013 12:25:50 PM

What's the benefit of that, 25% more for travel?
I'd go ahead and do it, my score is around that range and I just got approved for my 20th card.

Anyone familiar with https://flipmymiles.com/faq/ ?

[Edited on January 25, 2013 at 2:43 PM. Reason : link]

1/25/2013 2:36:10 PM

Quote :

"good time to apply for the Amex Gold: 75K points for $10K spend in 4 months"

Interesting analysis of the card.

http://millionmilesecrets.com/2013/01/26/why-the-75000-point-american-express-business-gold-card-may-not-be-worth-it/#comments

1/27/2013 11:23:20 PM

Can't remember if this was mentioned earlier but for those of you interested in raising your FICO score easily a legal way there's an option with most if not all the AMEX cards; this wouldn't really apply to churn-&-burners. After 60 days of ownership you can request up to 3X whatever credit limit you were originally approved for. So say I was approved for $6500 initially, after 60 days I can just online and request a max of 3X that limit, which in my case was $19500. Anything over that and it said they will do a hard pull on your credit to see if they would meet your request, anything less than 3X and it's a soft pull. Not a bad way to boost your debt/limit ratio so long as your credit hasn't tanked or you hit the max credit application limits for the year within those 60 days.

1/27/2013 11:43:24 PM

RE the flip my miles question:

I sent the link to my buddy who plays all these credit card games and he talked to them to see what the deal is. Basically, they buy your miles for something like 1.3 cents per mile then turns around and sells them to travel agencies for maybe 1.5 cents per mile. Travel agencies sell them to customers who need them for upgrades or whatever, but sell them less than the airlines do, which is like 2.7 cent per mile.

The catch here is that if you book travel with your miles you can do better than what this company is offering. However, if you have miles that are going to expire or want cash instead of travel, it's a pretty good deal. My friend said he may sell some of his miles...if he does I'll report back whether he got paid all fair and square.

Oh, and also it only works for actual miles that can be used on travel or points that can be converted to miles. So something like Citi Thankyou Reward Points they won't buy because those can't be converted to miles, hence there's no way to get more than 1 cent per mile out of them

[Edited on January 28, 2013 at 2:02 PM. Reason : more]

1/28/2013 2:01:05 PM

Although miles can be easily worth more than 1.3 cents, this is usually for international travel and/or first class. When flying coach and domestic, which is what I tend to do, it seems the miles for every carrier aside from maybe Southwest are worth around 1 cent or even less. Let me know when you hear back from your friend. Thanks!

1/28/2013 2:35:32 PM

http://lifehacker.com/5979533/get-cash-back-or-rewards-for-free-by-buying-cash-with-a-simple-loophole

Guess I better go ahead and stock up on those VR's while I can.

1/28/2013 2:54:08 PM

Weren't people doing that with gold coins or something? You buy a whole bunch online and then just go deposit them in the bank, then recycle?

1/28/2013 4:54:22 PM

Well you won't get charged that new surcharge if you use an Amex or Discover credit card.

1/28/2013 9:10:56 PM

ok back to credit info in general. Like I said with my score I got a Used car in 2011. I want to trade it in the exact month in 2013. That will be 2 years of all payments on time..think number one I can get a better interest rate or is this going to be a waste of my time? and 2 if I still owe 15K on the car will it be dumb to do this? I just want to keep a long line of payment history as I have seen it increase about 20 points a year. also instead of paying monthly I started paying bi weekly starting next month. ANyone else do this? They say it helps with interest and thats about it?

1/28/2013 11:21:56 PM

We could be more helpful if your posts didn't resemble discoherent ramblings.

You don't tell use your current car loan rate or the value of the car so I can't really give you any input there. If you pay bi weekly (assuming you're paying half of the monthly cost, every other week) you'll have 13 total payments in a year instead of 12, so you'll pay off your loan sooner thereby costing you less interest.

1/29/2013 11:11:59 AM

Quote :

"an't remember if this was mentioned earlier but for those of you interested in raising your FICO score easily a legal way there's an option with most if not all the AMEX cards; this wouldn't really apply to churn-&-burners. After 60 days of ownership you can request up to 3X whatever credit limit you were originally approved for."

is this for their charge cards, or credit cards too? I'm thinking of rolling a balance to pay it off faster, but I can't pay it off in the first month. I like the idea of requesting 3x credit line after 60 days

1/29/2013 6:10:35 PM

Not sure about the charge cards but know it's definitely for the AMEX credit cards, below is a very recent thread all about it that goes into a lot of the details but there are plenty of other threads talking about it. Most of it is people being impatient and being afraid of jumping the gun before 60 days are up but some other parts of it have good things to know about it. The good thing about it is if you have online access to your account which just about everyone these days does then you can do it yourself and check instantly. From what i gather, so long as your credit didn't tank or max your applications for the year and you waited the appropriate amount of time it seems everyone on there gets it. Follow the above and you should get either an immediate approval screen, an offer for a partial credit limit increase, or a notice that you'll have to fill out some online forms to allow them to do a hard pull against your credit report. If that last one comes up then cancel the request.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/The-Definitive-Amex-3X-CLI-Guide-Discussion-Thread/td-p/1808981

1/29/2013 6:58:42 PM

I have a car. Interest rate of 11.02 percent. Ruined my credit in 2000. Somewhere in the 600's. Can't refinance bc BBT says no. My car's value is 19,000 and I owe 17,500. access the damage my WW peoples.

1/29/2013 10:52:11 PM

I would do some DIY credit repair, and get you a couple of cards that the balances are less than 1/3. Should not be too hard to get your credit back over 600, all the negative info should have fallen off after 7 years so unless something else went wrong, you may actually have a lack of credit, not really anything bad reporting.

1/30/2013 8:53:40 AM

Yeah, get a copy of your credit report. Something else in the last seven years is bringing you down.

1/30/2013 10:06:55 AM

Well apparently the previous approval for the Ink Plus didn't go all the way through when I called in before. Was checking the automated app status and said it was still under review so I called the business recon line again. Rep asked some identity verification questions from my credit report and pushed the application through and is expediting the card so should have it in 2 days. 800-453-9719 is the business recon line if anyone else is thinking of applying.

1/30/2013 1:13:34 PM

The new possible fees for VISA cards are making me reconsider my Chase Freedom card. I use my card for all purchases in order to take advantage of the 1 and sometimes 5% cashback (don't really care about miles). I never carry a balance, don't travel that much, and I don't want to pay an annual fee, also I would like for the card to work pretty much everywhere, but that's not a dealbreaker. What do the credit card wizards here recommend, discover or amex?

1/30/2013 2:26:51 PM

What fees for VISA cards?

1/30/2013 4:49:17 PM

Probably talking about them doing away with the ban on merchants charging more for using a credit card. Believe amex and discover have agreements with their merchants where they can't charge those who pay with a card more than someone using cash. Doubt most will add a surcharge out of fear of losing business though.

1/30/2013 5:00:29 PM

Yeah, hasn't California been doing this for years since technically you could give a discount for paying with cash?

1/30/2013 5:01:34 PM

There was a thing on the news recently where merchants can now charge up to 4% processing charges (on top) for credit card payments. They think most large companies will not do it though.

1/30/2013 5:28:04 PM

yeah, there are still a handful of states with laws prohibiting credit card surcharges though but nothing preventing the "cash discounts" as stated above so amex and discover aren't 100% safe. Also interesting that VISA and Mastercard have clauses where merchants must handle the payments the same way independent of state.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100416464

Quote :

"The surcharge is supposed to equal the actual cost of processing the credit-card transaction, which is typically 1.5 to 3 percent. Under the agreement, the fee is capped at 4 percent. The surcharge can vary based on the type of card. For example, it could be higher for a rewards card or premier card. Credit-card surcharges are banned by law in 10 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas. Visa and MasterCard have rules that require retailers to handle credit cards the same way in all of their stores across the country. That means a chain with stores in any of the 10 states where a surcharge is banned would not be able to have a surcharge at any of its stores."

1/30/2013 6:01:30 PM

hmm....apparently amex and discover may not be safe anyway. They don't prohibit merchants from adding a surcharge but that any other cards they accept must also be subject to the surcharge. Depends how they consider debit transactions I guess

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/business/smallbusiness/visa-and-mastercard-settle-lawsuit-but-merchants-arent-happy.html

Quote :

"That freedom, however, is limited. Under the agreement, a merchant that added a surcharge to Visa or MasterCard transactions would also be required to add the surcharge to American Express transactions, if the merchant took American Express. (Half of those who accept Visa and MasterCard also take American Express, said David Darst, an analyst who covers the industry for Guggenheim Securities.) But American Express has its own rule that says merchants must treat every form of electronic payment equally — and that means that to add the surcharge to American Express transactions, the merchant would have to add it to every other card it accepted, including debit cards. But both Visa and MasterCard prohibit surcharges on debit cards — Catch-22! — which effectively means merchants cannot add a surcharge to any transaction. "

1/30/2013 6:52:12 PM

when you guys say this "Str8BacardiL
All American
35149 Posts
user info
edit post I would do some DIY credit repair, and get you a couple of cards that the balances are less than 1/3. Should not be too hard to get your credit back over 600, all the negative info should have fallen off after 7 years so unless something else went wrong, you may actually have a lack of credit, not really anything bad reporting."


how exactly could someone get cards if they never get offers and when they used to they got denied? I am in the same boat as some people on here. I want to get a 1000 secured credit card, but are you telling me everytime the balance reaches 333 pay in full? I have always heard just charge everything to your card and then pay in full each month for no interest and great ratings? Is this not correct?

1/30/2013 8:55:15 PM

Correct, but he's saying if you have to carry a balance from one month to the next then never let your balance be over 1/3 of your credit limit, which in your example is $333 of the $1000 credit limit. Ideally carry no balance and pay in full but if you have to then keep it as low as possible.

[Edited on January 30, 2013 at 9:51 PM. Reason : That applies to all cards no matter what, the less balance you have the better.]

1/30/2013 9:50:02 PM