i just signed up for the southwest chase card and am 99% sure the deal i clicked through said "free flight after spending $1000 and no fee the first year"

signed onto the chase website and saw that i had a $99 balance for an annual fee (haven't even gotten my card yet)

i obviously didn't read the fine print, if i call them tomorrow, specifically what should i say to get that **** waived?

"I didn't read the fine print and had no idea there was an annual fee. Please cancel my card immediately."

That works 95+% of the time.

I would login to your chase account and deal with it through secure messaging, so you don't need to waste a phone call. Ask what the terms are, and be very careful with "free flight..." deals, as southwest awards points, not flights. If it said 1 free flight that is likely the 25000 point offer which is not the best offer. If you can do $2000 spending I'd secure message and say you'd like to be matched to this public offer:

https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/southwest/park

which is 50000 points (roughly 2 free RT tickets by their logic) with a lower annual fee.

The Alaska card is 25000 miles on card approval, and the annual fee is not waived. However, BOA is tricky bc sometimes they will not approve you for the highest version of the card and you will get a lower tier card worth less miles. This is based on the credit limit they extend you. You can read the fine print on the offer page here:
https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit...credit-card.go

There are multiple offers for the AAdvantage card from Citi, worth 25k to 50k miles. They all waive the annual fee the first year but have different spending requirements. Depends what you're comfortable with spending.

Cards with $100 bonuses are usually issued once you meet the spending requirement in the allotted time and are typically issued as a statement credit or as cashback rewards points that you have to login and "buy" a statement credit with. Personally, $100 isn't worth it to me because it will cause you to have to wait about 90 days until you can get approved by that issuer again, but if you want to add some of those you can.

So i guess its down to Citi AA and Chase Southwest. Whats your preference? I'll more than likely just go with that one.

Hurry here to sign up for the new Credit Karma Beta (6500 invites of 10k remaining as of this post)

https://beta.creditkarma.com/invite/insight/limited

You can link your credit cards directly to CK (similar to Mint), and compare balances on them w/ balances reported on your credit report.

Another cool thing is that since it connects it has live data. So for instance it shows my AMEX BCP card with a $15,000 limit, whereas my credit report (and the data CK had previously) show it at $5,000 (because I haven't got a new statement since my CLI.

So far it's being pretty buggy for me. I can't get it to link to Citi card, Barclary card, or AES Loans.

imj - my instinct is to not turn over my CC information to creditkarma... especially as providing them my CC data does not seem to do all that much for me...

How might this be different from what current Credit Karma subscribers are provided?

It's basically trying to be a Mint.com alternative except for only accounts that appear on your credit report. Since it just came out today all the benefits aren't clear yet but I signed up anyways just to get one of the beta slots in case it turns out being useful

So I saw some questions regarding credit in regards to mortgages on here. I think this is a pretty good thread so if there are any questions that have to do with ways in which credit will impact getting a home loan I would be happy to answer them as I am in the mortgage industry.

I got some for sure. First thoughts - Main one is how big of a role does credit score have on getting a home loan. When is a score "high enough" to get the best possible rate, typically?

Credit score is a huge factor. It can single handedly be the denying factor. I will say I work for a non-depository mortgage bank. We are not a broker but do sell the majority of our loans to various outside investors. So my answers may different a little from a bank due to the fact our "customer" is more the 640-725 credit score guy with high debt to income ratios and high loan to value (these are the other very important factors in the rate you get). For my company 725 is essentially the same as perfect 820+. So to answer your question if you came to my employer for a mortgage loan you would be getting the same rate with a 725 as an 825 with all else being equal.

I'm looking at another CC because my utilization is a little higher than I'd like it to be (20-30%) and I figure I may as well get decent rewards out of it. Currently I primarily use a Costco Amex.

I was looking at the Citi Forward card because I buy way too much stuff from Amazon and also eat out a lot. However, the only Citi Forward card I see is the "Citi Forward for College Students" and the application requires me to put my current school and class. Am I missing another Forward card that isn't for college students? Or did they just change this? Or do people just put down fake info?

This has been an issue lately for a lot of people. I believe the Citi Forward (regular) card still exists, but you need to call in and apply. Just make sure you are getting the 5points/$1 on the bookstores,movies,dining,etc. Also try to get the same sign-up bonus as the Citi Forward student card over the phone

Okay, cool thanks, will try that.

Yeah I actually just went to apply for the Citi Forward on Tuesday to find it's been pulled except for the college version.

I hadn't heard that you could call in and apply though. Please report back with details

Well I spoke to two different reps (apparently the first number I called was for college students only and they transferred me over to a different dept) and they both said that the Forward card was only for college students. Neither knew if this was a recent change or not.

Didn't feel like escalating to a supervisor.

So, time to go through the thread again. Any easy way to get good rewards on Amazon/eating out/etc? Easy meaning I only want one card and I don't want to have to buy gift cards at the grocery store or something like that.

yeah, the chase amazon visa is 3% at amazon, 2% at restaurants and gas. thats probably the easiest. And points are redeemable directly on amazon for 1pt = 1ct

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cobrandcard/marketing.html

So my 7 US Dept of Education loans all got sold to Great Lakes and as a result the 7 loans are now showing as closed on my credit report per Credit Karma, which has dropped my average age of account down below 2 years (An "F" on my CreditKarma report card - oh noes!!!). Am I right in my understanding that Credit Karma is wrong in calculating this average age - I mean, closed accounts factor into average account age for up to 10 years after closing, correct? Interestingly, it (CK) still factors it in for my total accounts.

Great Lakes is reporting it all as 1 loan now (yet to appear on CR)

Same thing happened to me (but different loan company, EdFinancial or something). I didn't really worry about it, but I have lots of credit history. I wouldn't give it any thought, tbh. There's nothing you can do about it anyway.

I haven't seen this commented on, but had a couple of recent experiences which add a caveat to this trick.

We've been on Amex since '06. Recently, I requested a replacement card on a Delta Amex card. To my surprise, they reported the line, and the charges, as a new line of credit. What's even stranger is that it was reported twice on our joint credit (once as mine, once as my wife's) so in essence we had 2 distinct credit lines (fixed limit) with the same charges, one opened in '06 and one opened in '13.

Sadly, this has happened before (with he non-limit card) and I didn't catch it before it went to the bureaus this time. To determine that you're not getting issued a "new" line, you should do the following: verify that it says "member since [original year of Amex credit, in our case '06]" and verify on the actual mailer the cards are pasted to that the mailer doesn't say "new line" in the printout.

We've sorted it out, I think, for now, but this is an example of why you should be monitoring your credit lines. We use a free service mentioned here, and couldn't be happier.

Finally got around to doing this. They also have a $50 singup bonus which was nice. Only a 2% increase over my current card in terms of Amazon cashback, but hey free money. Plus hopefully this will improve my credit score a little bit (though it's already pretty good).

Thanks, JL.

What do with think about the Amex star woods preferred guest card or the visa Marriott rewards credit card (I don't think I would get approved for the premier)

How long after making a bunch of inquiries should you wait before trying again? I want to get some real cards before closing my Cap1 secured card (my oldest card) so I can get my deposit back. thanks

what?

Inquiries stay on for 2 years although I've heard they're most 'damaging' in the first 6 months when they're freshest. Check your score w/ CK or CS, if you're over 600 or 650 you should be able to get a basic CC, maybe a store type charge card so you can ditch the secured card.