Benefit for some people is knowing it's done. For others it's to get their credit limit back to start spending again.

I'm not sure that paying 5 days in advance makes a difference in your credit score. Maybe he was trying to instill good habits.

I never pay interest, but I buy small purchases on all my CCs every month so they report a balance and payments. Then I use 1 or 2 CCs for rewards and pay down the balance a week before the statements print to get my utilization down to 10%. I pay the statement balance each month and don't get charged interest.

I had some missed student loan payments out of college, so I'm using this strategy to improve my Missed Payment %. But even with a solid payment record this might help keep your credit score more resilient in case you forget about a payment. Missing one payment when you have 10/mo is less painful than when you only have 2/mo.

The strategy seems ok to fix my credit score, but might not be optimal to have CC companies raise my credit limits. I don't see how credit agencies can determine whether you paid interest or not, but CC companies may like you more if they get juice. I'm assuming future lenders (mortgage, car loan) won't look at interest paid to CCs either, but I could be wrong.

I know my last post was long, but I explained the reasoning behind paying the total balance before statement cut therein.

Cliff's Notes: Optimal FICO scores are obtained by having all cards but one report a zero balance. You will be penalized if *all* cards show zero balance, hence the one small balance.

But Mrage, that assumes all utilization is based on your statement balance, which I've found not to be true (sometimes my cards report balances different from statement balances).

This is certainly true, some issuers have a penchant for throwing a wrench in your spokes. Some report end of month instead of end of cycle as well. I try not to use more than half my limit on any card at any given time, just in case. Definitely something to keep an eye out for.

Saw my friend using a Citi Double Cash card today and asked him about it. He confirmed it's basically a 2% cash back for everything with no caps card. Also no annual fee. Seems like a great addition to my collection. Thoughts? Anyone seen any signup bonuses associated with this card?

Probably going to add the Discover It at the same time.

Discover IT is a great card. Look for $150 statement credit as the signup bonus. No annual fee and rotating 5% cats. It's a long-term keeper imo.

The Citi Double Cash has not had a signup bonus to my knowledge. Also has a 3% foreign transaction fee if that matters to you. Being a 2% all the time makes it a solid card to use all the time if you don't want the hassle of having multiple credit cards, otherwise it's so-so. Comparing it to the Barclays Arrival, for example: the arrival has the equivalent to a $440 signup bonus, and 2.22% back on all purchases. No foreign transaction fee. However, you have to use the points towards some kind of travel to make them worth that. Lots of things qualify for travel, but it's not straight cashback. The annual fee is waived for the first year, but then it's $89 after that.

Basically, the no-signup bonus for the double cash card is a deal-breaker for me. Personally, without a signup bonus, I will never consider it as an option.

I assume you have a Chase Freedom already? If not, you should look at getting that as well. Almost identical to the IT card.

d10: How many credit cards do you have in your wallet? How many would you like to carry? To decide whether you want the Citi card, you need to make a personal evaluation of what you want in a credit card/cards.

Bank bonuses are always easy, but they are taxed, whereas credit card bonuses aren't. Also, there's a limited number of bank bonuses and you typically have to keep cash in the account to waive any fees. CC's don't tie up capital.

As someone who works in the bank bonus industry there are some lulzy ones out there.

Like Huntington I think does a 200$ for checking with 10 transactions. Te direct deposit ones can get to a point where they are not worth the effort.

It's a good card for all non category spending. Citi has run a 200 dollar targetted signup bonus with Double Cash before. I have Discover It as slightly better rated than Chase Freedom now because of how screwy Chase is right now, but both are excellent cards.

You can do better than 2% with many categories though, so keep that in mind before jumping on Double Cash. It is a great no hassle card though as it is capless.

So had a pretty frustrating experience today when trying to close my citi AA card (I didn't want to pay the annual fee). They offered to waive the fee if I made 1k in spending over the next three months, which I declined because I don't have a way set up to do MF currently.

Here's the frustrating part: months ago I posted itt about citi upgrading my card to "world elite" for free. This was without my permission, I just got the new card in the mail one day. When I tried to product change to the non annual fee AA card, the CSR was confused because it wouldn't allow me to PC (she said she always does PC and this was news to her.) her supervisor confirmed I couldn't PC because I had the world elite version. Pretty ****ed.

I didn't fight it because I wasn't really in the mood and I didn't really have anything to gain, closing the card won't hurt my credit score as I already have over ten cards and this card was only opened a year.

Just recently cleared the bonus for Chase Ink Business (70k points for 5k spending) and got an app in the mail for the amex business gold. Seemed too good to be true at 75k points for 2k spending but applied and was approved after the phone call. Business listed as poker pro as well so should be easy to get these offers. The INK had a 99$ fee but the amex has no fee the first year, really is the most incredible bonus I have seen so far.

Im curious as to the reason you believe poker pro will get you more offers. I was under the assumption that it would hurt since they want verified steady income. Maybe I am wrong,, I am curious.

josh, you couldn't spend 1k in the next 3 months?

M_T, cool dude. I cleared that bonus last month (INK), its $95 AF. There have been several more incredible bonuses than 75k Citi had 100k AA miles this year that you could get several cards on, and the Amex Plat has targeted offers of 100k-150k Membership Rewards as well. But 75k is great, thats what I got my PRG at too a couple of years ago.

Right now I have the Amex BCP for groceries/gas when I can't get >3% anywhere else, Chase Freedom for gas/restaurants, Chase Amazon for 2% restaurants (got this before I knew there were better options for Amazon spending), and the same CC I've had since I was a kid because there's no fee and occasionally they offer some decent bonus cash back deals. I also have a Chase United but I don't carry it around, I got it a long time ago for the bonus and use it for one online bill each month to keep my United miles current. So nothing really good for noncategory spending. I don't think I travel enough to justify travel rewards, so I'm looking for cash back cards and better percentages for gas, restaurants, and non category spending. I'm hesitant to get high bonus/high fee cards right now because I'm already spending $135/year between the United and BCP.

How much do you spend on groceries? The breakeven point for the BCP vs BCE (no annual fee, 3% on groceries) is $2500. Maybe it would be better for peace of mind to downgrade your BCP to BCE and not be paying that $75/year, even if it means you're a little less optimal.


For gas the PenFed no annual fee card w/ 5% back on gas is best. And I don't think you'd have to pay the acct opening fee since you're in the military.

The Amazon card is fine because you can get quite a few offers that are only available to cardholders during the year.

There are better ways to keep your United miles current than paying the annual fee on the United card. Not to mention, the miles take 18 months to expire, so a charge every month is overkill. You could easily join the United dining program and grab a $5 sandwich every 6 months at a participating place to keep them active. http://mpdining.rewardsnetwork.com/

The Citi 2% is fine. The Fidelity Amex 2% is better for me bc it doesn't take a Citi slot, and because I'd be putting the money in my brokerage account anyway.

For non-category spend, there's always the option of buying a $500 giftcard from a grocery store or drugstore with your 6% cashback, paying a $5 fee for the card, and netting 5% on your non-category spend (albeit requiring a intermediate step and any stigma associated with using a giftcard everywhere).

No, it was just a way to get a business card.

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i could, but i dont travel enough to warrant having the annual fee version of the card. i reasoned it'd be better for me to spend 1000 on a different card for the standard cashback amount.

The PenFed is a notoriously tough card to nab. You can find stories of people with 790 credit scores and up getting denied. If you can get it it's as good as it gets for gas with no caps.

Whattttttttttttttttt? Really? I opened an account, added $5, applied, instantly approved. That was 2.5 years ago and I probably had 10 fresh inquiries.

Had no idea it was a hard card to get.

Supposed to be one of the toughest ones out there. I have an 804 but no military or government family to try for. Maybe it has only tightened up recently or something, but you can find lots of stories of very high scores getting declined. Luckily I don't exceed the 250 a month gas cap from Sallie Mae so I I get 5% year round on gas anyways.

Yeah though, tough one to get.

Probably about $2500 but mostly because I buy wine from the supermarket across the street. If it's going to be close I'll stick with the BCP though. It's not that I mind the $75 annual payment, that's just something I can see getting out of control if I keep applying for more credit cards.

The 2% noncat would be nice for my rent payments, can't really do that with the Visa gift card MS route. What's a Citi slot?

PenFed card is nice, didn't know about that one. I put in an application, we'll see how it turns out. I got the "pending further review" notice. It looks like you need an additional account with them to jump from 3% to 5% cash back though.

There are probably cheaper ways of keeping my United miles current but I like not worrying about it. If it's something I'd need to remember to do once/18 months I'd forget about it. Plus is there any other card to downgrade to? I've had the card for over 10 years so closing it would be a big hit on my credit score, right? Both in terms of average account age and it's like 25% of my available credit.

JL,

I'm guessing that this is covered earlier in this thread, but this chunk was interesting to me because it's not entirely understandable but sounds exciting:

"There have been several more incredible bonuses than 75k Citi had 100k AA miles this year that you could get several cards on, and the Amex Plat has targeted offers of 100k-150k Membership Rewards as well. But 75k is great, thats what I got my PRG at too a couple of years ago."

I'm assuming this has something to do with CC membership churning to get cool bonuses (like infinite frequent flier miles) that is something that I've wanted to learn a bit about, but never invested the time? If so, some assistance / pointing to resource (even if it is "read the first few pages of this thread) would be appreciated. Cleaning up and optimizing CC stuff is on my near-term hit list, since my wife and I put a nontrivial amount through cards and the vast majority of that goes through either my Amex BCP or her Amex Blue (points) card, and that's clearly not optimal. But, I have no gut feel for how not optimal... Like, I don't know if I'm missing out on thousands of dollars of rewards a year if I put a handful of hours into it, or if I'm missing out on tens of dollars a year.

It depends on income, and credit score. From a purely spending point if you are not averaging AT LEAST 2% on all purchases you are doing it wrong. I imagine a lot of gamers get near 5% on average.

Factor in sign up bonus gaming and you are definitely leaving a couple hundred more on the table at a min (this is heavily credit score and spend level dependent).

JL is obviously more knowledgable.

I imagine some people can get around 7% with sign up bonuses over a year, but I'm pulling that number out of my ass.

Scratch that bonuses is probably a thousand or two alone if your credit score is decent. But obviously somewhat diminishing returns over the years.