opening checking accounts can result in a credit pull. not sure about discover, you could just call and ask and they will tell you.

Is there still an easy way to load a Bluebird account to pay for places that don't take credit cards (Rent, utility bills)?

i'm 22 with no credit history, any recommendations on what card to start with in my spot? just want it for the purpose of building my credit buying groceries/gas/etc.

also both my parents have 800+ ratings, am i understanding correctly that if they put my name on their cards as an authorized user it will help build my credit faster? is there added benefit if i add my name to both of their cards instead of just one of them?

thanks in advance for any help

For my senior year of college my grandmother out me on her discover and have me a small budget, I checked my credit report some time after that and never saw it listed on there. It may still help your credit score though I don't know.

Recently offered a very exclusive cc with a hidden credit line. Trying to figure out if I utilized this card how it would benefit or hurt my score. Any experience?

I recall seeing a thread on creditboards.com listing which creditors will report for authorized users.

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Mostly the ones that request the SSN of the authorized user. If they don't request the AU SSN they won't be able to report.

JL?

Yes, they will. Depends on the issuing bank. Some say right in the approval materials. What's written isn't always what's practiced.

Barclays materials say you need to have activity every 6 months. I have not had a Barclays card closed on me due to inactivity. I have had a BOA card closed due to inactivity, but I think it was 3+ years. I don't remember if they informed me that they were closing it - I think they did.

They have to report if the account is open regardless of use. Cards that I don't use regularly, or at all, show balance $0 and paid as agreed for months and years.

Remember that even if a positive account is closed it will still show on your credit report for 10 years.

Much appreciated, JL.

I had a Barclays card cancelled on me after 3 yrs without a transaction - they sent me a letter but I was moving :-/

Wife had a card closed on her (I think ATT Universal) that she got 12 years ago and never uses. She doesn't have many credit cards but her credit is good.

Should she reopen this one or just let it stay closed? I would think it would hurt her "age of accounts" portion of credit rating, but the credit line is pretty small.

Does reopening a closed account hurt credit score and does it matter if the company closed it opposed to the customer closing?

great thread JL, because of this thread I just got the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. I've been traveling like crazy playing poker and it seemed to just make sense.

I don't have a lot of experience reopening closed accounts. In this case I would only do it if it was the same account number and kept the 12+yr history, which I am not sure is even possible. Otherwise I'd not worry about it, get a annual fee free card to use every now and then and never close it.

Thanks for the feedback! Make sure you use those points appropriately (Hint: United, Southwest, Hyatt, NOT:1cpp).

Fun fact: all the CCs I have are blacklight responsive in some way

bump for this put together by drew at travelisfree. Great info regarding credit scores needed for rewards cards:

http://travelisfree.com/2014/09/03/w...-drive-answer/

Whoops. I paid off a debt online, but there was nothing about pay for delete or anything like that. In your opinion are they going to delete it anyways, or does that rarely happen without an explicit request?

If it isn't deleted, what's my next step?

Citi has a new 2% cashback card

IMO, This is a must-get for people without that many credit cards, or who don't want to keep track of all the rotating categories of the 5% cards (Freedom, Discover More, Citi Dividend). In fact, if you have the Dividend from Citi you can do a PC (product change) and swap to the DoubleCash. I plan on taking this route.

There is a targeted bonus $200 cashback offer floating around (after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days). Refer to this website to read about how people have had some success getting this offer after opening the card via secure message . Note that this would apply to new cardholders only, not those who are doing a PC.

JL, any recommendation on what to do with extra AA miles? I have 23k on one and wife has 11k on another. Redemption price for a typical mile-saver flight is like 12,500 I think. Should we try to downgrade the card somehow (could we keep the miles?) Or is there another alternative? Annual fee will hit in about 4 months... but even if they did extend us for another year, i can't see us spending much on these cards to rack up more miles.

edit: reading about the chase hyatt card u mentioned earlier as it would probably be a good thing to combine with the miles i have left if i decide to book a flight somehow. Got approved for the $50 statement credit offer + 2 free nights for a credit limit that is now my 2nd highest, woohoo! Now gotta get the wife to apply.

So I was planning on buying a new car next July but I'm at the point where I'm pretty comfortable not sinking any more money into the car I have now and ready to pull the trigger if it comes to it. I have decent credit and I have a bank of America card with a tiny limit that I've never had increased, should I try to increase it as much as possible or will that be a bad look credit wise if I have to make this car purchase in the next 3-4 months?

It rarely happens, and they will probably mark it as paid, zero balance. Not much you can do after you've paid it.

If you downgrade the card you keep the miles. There is a bronze version of the card that is fee free. 12.5k is the requirement for a saver level economy one way in the US. They have waived the annual fee on mine two years in a row.

I don't see how the Hyatt card fits into the strategy regarding AA. I would only get the Hyatt cards for both of you if you have an idea of where you will redeem the free nights within the next year.

Whats your credit score? What's your total available credit? If that's your only card and your only credit limit then you might need more available credit. If you have decent credit and that card doesn't mean much to you, you're probably better off getting a new card with a bigger limit than increasing the limit you have. You can ask BOA for a CLI, but only if there is not a hard pull associated (this is the best case option).

I'm a little under 700 and have 3 other cards, all of which have limits 4-5x the one on the boa one. I'd like to lower the utilization by increasing the limit, just don't want a move like this to bite me in the ass if I had to make this big purchase. Thanks JL

I've gotten two voicemails from some collections agency asking for someone I've never heard of. What's the right strategy? Just call them and tell them so?

If you have other cards with higher limits don't worry about it. I don't know why/how you'd be changing your utilization if you don't use the BOA card. 0/500 is the same % as 0/5000.

Well you can ignore them for starters. If you want to have fun with it you can tell them you are not so and so, nor are you their immediate family or employer, and it's illegal for them to contact you and disclose that they are trying to collect a debt from that person (they are only allowed to ask for information to help locate the person).

http://collectionagencydebt.blogspot...ur-family.html

http://nedap.org/hotline/fdcpa-recognizing.html

I thought it was better, generally speaking, to have more credit available and there was a score that measured your overall use compared to what you have available.

So let's say I have 4 cards at 5k each, carrying a debt of 500 on each card and I'm using 2000/20000 available. Wouldn't bumping a hypothetical 5th card that is a $500 limit card to $5000 be beneficial to this measure? That would put us at 8% utilization vs 10%. Forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong, I always thought this was a big part of the credit score. I just didn't know if asking for a credit limit increase right before a five figure purchase would put up a red flag.