Not trying to call you a liar–but you applied for a credit card twice and got denied twice. You have 40 hard credit inquiries. And you claim to have a near-perfect credit score? Anything above 750 is really hard to get. You pretty much have to be actively trying to get a score that high.
I don’t understand. The points are worthless outside of the card program. You can’t compare them to cash.
Credit Card Companies Look at Hard Hits and Average Length of Account. Low hits and high length of account is what they want. So I have a stack of credit cards I acquired in a short amount of time. This puts credit card companies on edge. This is also unsecured debt. I also have a suspician that credit card companies watch for people like me who just exploit and abuse their specials while not falling prey to fees and interest. I’m not a profitable customer in their eyes.
However, like I said, I have never ever ever paid a fee/interest or made a late payment, ever. My loan officer just needed an explaination for the amount of hits. However, a mortgage is backed by a property.
All in all I feel I do ok.
Google PlasticIQ and they have valuations of point programs. You can buy items with hotel points/airline miles in most cases. I know the airline and hotel programs I work with allow you to ‘shop’ in their ‘online store’ with the points. However it is a complete ripoff. Use 150k miles for an iPad. That’s like $1500 in value for a reward flight. Get the flight and buy the iPad on Amazon for $700.
But can you sell the points? If they are not liquid, the valuation is moot. I will check out PlasticIQ.
Sadly, I must use a corporate card when travelling. But, it is nice knowing that I have a card on which I could buy a 5 series (or a new identity) if I needed to.
Edit: nevermind, you’re just saying that flights tend to be a better deal than iPads on points programs. I get it.
^ You can sell the points. But the transaction cost is through the roof. I sold 6000 miles to a friend and it was $90 just in transaction fees. I gave him wholesale price of 1 cent a mile versus buying at 6 cents a mile from the airline.
Not really. My score’s higher than that and don’t to anything to try to manage it.
CFAvsMBA my feeling on what you are doing is if it works for you great.
Here is the way I look at this approach:
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Time. I don’t have time to manage all of these accounts, deal with potential fees, deadlines, etc
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Data. You have really exposed yourself by allowing all of these companies to have access to your credit/financial history. Once you open an account, they can pull your credit report anytime they want. They can also sell your info.
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Risk. The more accounts you have the easier it is for someone to illegally gain access to your accounts, your credit info, etc
Myself I don’t see the value this adds, but if you feel it adds value on the margin great.
^ Agree. Now that I’m hardly traveling, I don’t see the value added all that much as my spending habits are very low. Furthermore, one tends to spend more with a credit card versus cash. I want to try and roll straight cash more often.
If anyone is like me and does NOT want to receive credit card offers in the mail you can opt out.
https://www.optoutprescreen.com
It’s legit, you can research it and it is on the FTC’s website. I opted out maybe 8 years ago and have not received a single mailing since.
^ I’ve received like 7 of those pre approved CC offers for other people to my house in the last couple days alone. If I didn’t get those, I wouldn’t get any mail. I’ve received those 7 addressed to 4 different people; all my address.
My score is higher than 750 and I haven’t done anything special, either. And US Bank is very stingy with its top tier cash back card, so CvM just has to wait for those to inquiries to age. Prbably has nothing to do with his FICO
3 of my credit cards now get about 90% of all my charges:
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Target Redcard - 5% off of ALL purchases at Target
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Costco AMEX - 4% cashback for gas, 5% cashback at Costco (since I have the executive membership)
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Delta Skymiles AMEX - If it’s not purchased at Target or Costco, it’ll go on this card.
I have so many credit cards although i really only use one.
The others are just special credit cards for different stores, they give you discount everytime you go, and if it’s a store you actually shop at frequently (at least a few times a year), then it’s worth it i think.
but carrying those cards around are toublesome…
Cash is worthless outside the economy. You can’t compare that to gold.
Kind of in the idea of this thread, I just got back from lunch at the burger place by my office, they had a sign on the register saying “Credit card fees are eating us alive. We appreciate cash whenever you can.”
I hope paying with mobile phones takes off soon… I used to think it’s something for high school kids to look “cool” paying with their phones but now it can solve the problem of carrying around 5+ different cards.
Yes it’s true, if i can have an app that stores all my credit cards and i can choose with one to pay with, that’ll be perfect!
as for security, we can pay with finger print confirmation, which is easily done now.
something for app developers to think about!
Seriously though, how many cards do people carry? I carry 4 (pretty much only use 3), and I have 6 slots in my wallet. I have another 2-3 credit cards that sit in a drawer at home, along with all but one of my debit cards. Probably 3-4 debit cards that I don’t use on a regular basis (maybe 1 or 2x per yr).
I carry two cards – one business, one personal.