I just found out about that card. So it's really like a 3.75% on top 3 categories/1.25% on everything else card.

I'm going to apply for that and a Chase BP Visa (5% at any BP/Arco gas station, 2% dining & travel)

Right now I use a Citi mtvU student visa card (5% at restaurants (including fast food restaurant), bookstores, record stores, movie theaters, and video rental stores, 1% everywhere else)

So I should be earning 5% on gas, 5% at restaurants/movies, and 3.75% on everything else. Right now, I just carry the mtvU card... but carrying 2 more cards won't fatten the wallet that much


Also... OP you mentioned you are "changing" credit cards. Don't cancel any credit card, just put it in a safe spot. You most likely want to keep the age/limit around to keep your credit score as high as possible.

2% on everything

Sounds too good to be true - what's the catch? Anyone familiar w this?

Why can't you spend 3 minutes reading the link? It's 2% if you redeem your rewards towards a deposit to your Countrywide Bank, FSB Savings, Money Market, or SavingsLink account or a payment towards the balance on an existing Countrywide® mortgage loan.

Secondly, it's 2%. That's not an unheard of reward rate. You can do better... unless you spread your expenses evenly over a dozen categories, have one of those previously mentioned accounts, and don't want to use 2-3 cards.

I read the link there buddy, it just was better than any of my preliminary research had indicated. Didn't mean to imply that you were tryin to pull one over on me, or make you do any work that you didn't want to. But guess I did, sorry.

Credit card companies are pretty good at ensuring everything is spelled out clearly, even if it is in an asterisk. Biggest thing to look for is if the % is only for a promotional period, after spending $X, or only applies to the first $X.

If you ever have a question about a credit card, my advice would be to search fatwallet. Practically every card has been mentioned in a thread that includes all the relevant details. Seems like the only thing Countrywide didn't mention clearly was that there is a 60,000 point limit ($60,000).

What did you mean by "changing" credit cards?

For a college student who spends most of his money on food and entertainment, it's probably not worth it.

But for others, Costco can save you a lot of money on things that you normally wouldn't think to get there - cars, insurance, home improvements, eye glasses, etc. I even purchase identity theft protection service through them (from Identity Guard).

I have an older Costco Amex Platinum card in conjunction with a Costco Executive membership. I get two rebates, one from Amex for all charges to the card (including Costco purchases), and another rebate from Costco for all purchases made at Costco.

It's kind of a no-brainer for me because I'd be a Costco member even without the rebates.

I used to always use a debit card - the reason was that I am so lazy, I don't like to take the time to pay bills, and the idea of another bill every month to a lazy 20 year-old with a lot of other ***** to worry about sounded dumb.

Then, cause I'm horrible with NeTeller/Epassporte etc. money management, I'd always wind up overdrawing my bank account, so I got a credit card w my bank just so any balance could go on there without getting a $25-30 overage charge.

Then I saw CC's weren't so bad and actually were nice cause they establish/build credit. So I changed from my bank's Debit card to bank's Credit card.

Then recently, I learned some CC's are better than others for different people, and that my bank's one pretty much blows for me and after spending prob 50k on there in the past year, I'd earned enough points for some sunglasses and a slap on the back.

So now I'm doing research, but again incredibly lazy, so I can get some better EV out of the credit cards. I went ahead and did AmEx Blue but thanks for the advice on the Countrywide and I'll be looking into it and others on fatwallet.

Just making sure you aren't canceling your old card.

Weellll shoot, coulda just asked me.

This MUST be new.

It just said that in the fatwallet wiki, so I'm unsure of its validity.