You need to check your actual credit reports and see what they say. Asking for a zero balance may not have been the proper thing to ask for, and they might have G'd you a little bit on that. I think (certainly not a collections expert) you should have asked for a "paid in full" which is essentially what you thought you were getting. But you might have just gotten them to close the collections marking as $0 with a "settled" comment.

Regardless, at least check your EXP through credit sesame and see if it agrees, and probably pull all three reports to see how it's reporting.

Contact Lee on his blog and ask for your next steps:
http://collectionagencydebt.blogspot.com/

If a medical bill goes to collections, are you still able to call and negotiate it with the original provider, or is it now completely out of their hands? If it went on your credit report are you now forced to deal with the collection agency anyway to try to get a pay for delete?

If the account was transferred to an outside 3rd party collection you would have to negotiate with them. The collection company just takes a fee to collect. If you are negotiating a big reduction in the amount it may need to be approved by the original creditor (depending on how old the delinquency is or the agreement the medical provider has with the collection company).

Call them and offer something outrageously low and see what they say (if you're interested in settling the debt).

I own a retail store & buy all my inventory using credit cards to both a) give me 30 days to pay & b) accumulate points. I currently have about 1.1 million points on my Capital One Spark Business card, about 200,000 points (cumulative) one several other Cap 1 cards, about 140,000 points on Chase Saphire, about 85,000 on a Marriott Rewards card.

I am opening a second store in a few months and want to apply for some new credit cards to use exclusively for buying inventory for this store (separate cards makes accounting / bookkeeping easier). Suppliers don't like AMEX, so that's out, needs to be visa or mastercard. I'd prefer to not get another Capital One Venture card only because I have so many points with them already & don't want to have "all my eggs in one basket" in case they should change rules, etc.

I already applied & was approved for a Barclay Arrival Card. I'm based in south Florida, & my credit score is around 720. Any recommendations for cards that are especially good for hotels or airfare to Bangkok or Hong Kong would be appreciated. Especially interested in cards with big sign-up bonuses, I can easily charge $5,000/month on a card.

PoC, you're buying wholesale? If you're not really hitting a category bonus with your spend then yes, the Arrival Card is probably a great one for you.

If you're looking for international travel Avios are great for the Caribbean and South America out of SoFla, and intraeurope as well. And the Chase BA card usually runs between 50k or 100k signup bonuses:

http://saverocity.com/miles4more/awa...florida-avios/

AA Executive, United Club card might be good choices as well. I'd also say SPG to cover hotels and airfare but you said no Amex.

http://travelisfree.com/2014/02/18/b...-to-east-asia/

How much does it effect your score to transfer a balance within the same issuing company? I have a bs capital one platinum that had no cash back, I'm in good standing and they recently sent me an application for quicksilver and the 1.5% cash back at all times.

Shouldn't affect your score to do a balance transfer but a few thoughts:

1) You typically can't transfer a balance from the same company (e.g. Cap1 to Cap1)
2) It costs money to do a transfer, typically 3% of what you transfer
3) Unless your interest rate is very high or you will not be able to pay off your debts quickly, balance transfers are not usually worth it

I'd recommend paying down your debts before getting psyched about 1.5% cashback.

I keep all my cards low, didn't know about the 3% though, that changes things. Thanks

Credit Karma now shows your full credit report for free. This is particularly useful for seeing when inquiries will fall off.

yes, I do all my buying (wholesale) on credit cards, & typically spend $10G to $20G a month (always pay off balance in full each month). Some suppliers do not accept Amex, & others charge a 2% surcharge when you try to pay with Amex (yes, likely in violation of their merchant agreement but whatever).

Don't understand what you mean by "if you're not really hitting a category bonus". Whenever I sign up for a credit card that's offering a bonus if you spend "x" amount in first three months or whatever I have no problem reaching that amount.

Am realizing that mileage rewards, sign up bonuses, churning, manufactured spending, etc., can be a very lengthy & complicated matter. Don't have the time or interest to become a "pro" at this, must want to maximize my rewards as best & easily as I can.

A category bonus is like 5% gas, 3% super markets etc. Since you're buying wholesale you won't be spending in a specific category that has bonus earning associated with it, so you want the best non-category multiplier.

Barclay arrival is good for this, as is the Fidelity Visa. If you want miles or points the BA card is a great option due to your location as well as the 1.25 mile/$ earn (+ bonus at 30k spending), but may not be that great for getting to or staying in Asia.

United Club card is an option, and I think the Club Carlson card is an interesting choice as Radisson Blus abroad are actually really nice.


If I were spending $100k+/year and I wanted an easy strategy it'd probably the Southwest card for the first $60k spend = companion pass, followed by the Arrival card. But this mostly focuses on Domestic travel.

If I wanted to focus more on international travel I guess I'd just get the United Club card and earn 1.5x/$ and get free lounge access. United miles are decent here because Asia routes are dominated by Star Alliance anyway (link)

Got offered a gold amalgamated bank of Chicago MasterCard, anybody with experience with this card? Couldn't find much from Google, the apr is 9.25%.

Cool to see this thread pop up, quick question -- I have a card/account that's about to close due to inactivity, should I care? Basically it was a student card for when I was in college, once I got a job/income I got a different card and never used the old one so it's had 0 balance and 0 activity for about 5 years. Is this gonna hurt me in any way?

Keeping your average age of accounts up is good. Assuming there's no annual fee on that card, go buy a pack of gum and pay it off just to keep it open. If there's a fee, I'd just let it close.

Wont that also help his utilization? Is there really any downside to keeping an open account(even if its a net positive is there anything that actual "hurts" your score?)

Hey jl what card has the best rewards for travel internationally?

Will probably be spending 10k within the next couple months. Also what is the best card not just for international travel?

Shouldn't have much of an impact unless the CL was very high which I imagine it wasn't. The positive history will report for at least the next 10 years as gtpitch notes early in this thread.

If you'd like to keep it open you could buy a pack of gum as suggested but personally this type of account would be more of a nuisance to me and I'd just let it close. Up to you.

Depends on what carrier (if you have a preference) and what class of cabin.

This was recently posted on onlinetravelreview:

http://www.onlinetravelreview.com/wp...redit-Card.png

Although I don't 100% agree with it. His recommendations will steer you toward a travel points (arrival card) or a cashback card (fidelity amex) and has you buying your own travel and reimbursing yourself for it with cash or statement credits. If you expect to fly economy on relatively average fares this isn't a bad option.

But I like having miles and using them to get sweet redemptions. But its hard to score a perfect redemption so if you want something simple that answers both of your questions, the arrival card is pretty damn good.

break it up into 4-5 cards that give great signup bonuses
if you want to travel a lot get 5 airline cards, most give 50k points or so for 2k spent in 3 mos

I know a lot of people itt like bonuses. Amex debit card Serve has a $50 bonus for 2 direct deposits of $250. I just setup a $250 direct deposit and then transferred it back to my checking. Immediately after 2nd direct deposit, there was a $50 bonus

General tips for converting amex points to first class domestic air travel?

Credit Question

I currently have an extremely high utilization rate on my lone credit card (Chase Amazon.com VISA, ~$700 credit line).

Upon reading the other benefits and offers from other cards posted in this thread, I'm realizing my card pretty much sucks (benefits are largely related to Amazon.com only).

Is it in my best interest to go ahead and reduce payments as close to $0 as possible yet keep the account open?

Or would I be better off finding a pure cash rewards card and rolling the balance remaining over to that account and continue payments as normal while also accruing points via standard bill payments (TV, water, electricity, etc.)?

I just looked at the website and see nothing about bonuses...

Are you asking whether or not you should carry a balance on the card? If so, the answer is universally no.

Yeah not sure I understood the question fully. If you are carrying a balance - don't do that, pay the card off ASAP before you get concerned with opening a different card. Otherwise, if you are using a large amount of your credit line each week, I would recommend paying off a majority of the card a couple of days BEFORE your bill posts each statement, or even a couple of times during the billing period. The goal being that when your statement posts, your utilization of the card is low.