No problem. There's quite a lot of fico knowledge to be gleaned from the creditboards forums, quirky though they are. I did a ton of reading there when I started rebuilding my credit.

Been lurking this thread for awhile and had a question about the CSP. I have a wedding coming up so my plan is to put $4k in expenses on a CSP to get the 40k bonus points, then add my wife as an authorized user for another 5k in points. Has anyone had any success getting the AF waived after the first 12 months? If not, wouldn't it hurt my credit score to close this card after only 12 months? I just don't see us getting any value out of this card past the 45k bonus points with an AF that large.

It won't hurt it, except for the reduction of overall credit possibly increasing your utilization. It's not something that's advisable to be in the habit of, because an underwriter might identify you as a bonus churner with a slew of cards closed at 1 year. But I'm probably about to the same thing, not too concerned to have one here or there. Doesn't look like they're big on retention offers.

why not have her get her own card and each get 45k points? fyi you can add your dog or any name you can come up with as an authorized user if you want.

At first I wasn't sure how much we would get dinged on our credit score for cancelling in a year, but that's a good point. I'll probably apply for another card at the time of cancelling the CSP so our utilization is unchanged. Thanks for the advice.

I have not heard of anyone getting the annual fee waived on the CSP. Close it after a year but make sure you transfer the points out somewhere.

I already have Chase Freedom so transferring points shouldn't be a problem.

The point of the CSP is to transfer points to partners like United. You can't do that with the Freedom. With Freedom the points are worth a penny each.

with csp you can downgrade to the free card instead of cancling

Got it, that makes sense now. I was simply looking at the promo as free money since I will be putting $4k+ on my cc in the next few months.

it is free money
if you know you're spending a lot of money soon get you and your wife as many cards as possible w good signup bonuses and just put the amount you need to spend to get the bonus on each card

Yup, but I didn't realize the potential to get up to 1.7c/pt with CSP. And my Chase Freedom points count towards partner transfers as long as the CSP is open.

you said you're spending 40k and you have 2 people who can get credit cards right? i wouldnt even be looking at the csp yet. there are TONS of cards out there that only need 2k spend in 3 months to get 50k airline miles.united american, 2 different southwest cards! offers change all the time but there have also been cards that give 100-200 dollars for 500 spend in 3 months.then there are awesome hotel cards like the marriot card and ihg card.

basically if you're gonna pay off the entire balance there is no excuse for not getting as many of these great signup bonuses as possible by putting the exact minumum requiremnt on each card for the free ****.

you should easily get 15-20k worth of free money gift cards and flights out of this 40k if you put in a little bit of work.

sorry misread the 40k points as you spending 40k- but either way if you're dumping a lot of money on a wedding by whoring lots of signup bonuses you should be able to recoup a lot of that money back from these offers.

I had a CSP and tried to call in few times to get the fee waived or some other retention bonus. I had zero luck. I ended up downgrading to a Sapphire and then product changing to a 2nd Freedom card (didn't ask at the time if I could just PC to a Freedom from CSP, but I don't see why not).

why not just product change to regular chase sapphire? why did u go CSP then CS then Freedom?

because having multiple freedoms helps for the particularly lucrative 5x quarters

I'm about to pull the trigger on the CSP, anybody wanna PM me a referral?

Pm me your email and I'll send you one. It's 4k spend in 3 mo for 40k

Done

Approved for the CSP, 5k. Haven't decided whether to attempt to call in for a recon on the starting limit, it's a little below my average. Kind of tired of being on the phone at the moment though.

Approved for the Sallie Mae. Initially got the "under review" message. Gave it a couple of hours, then called the backdoor number for Barclays Underwriting. Guy asked some questions, had me explain my short credit history, then, approved for $2,500. I tried to move some from my 5k Barclays Rewards to it, this guy wasn't keen on it. I plan to call again tomorrow and see if I can find someone else to do it as apparently most of them will without so much as a soft pull.

I was going to go ahead and get the BOA 3, 2, 1 offering, mainly for the easy bonus but also because I have a BOA account and thus would get a redemption bonus. 3% on gas when other options are capped out or unavailable could be useful. But my checking apparently was recently closed for inactivity without so much as an email, which kind of soured me on the idea. So instead I decided to get what is essentially a copycat offering from the local CU I bank with, VyStar, and try to get a LOC with the same pull as well as inquiring about auto rates with my credit profile. I got a 5k approval for the CC but denied LOC after waiting on hold forever, said they wanted to see how I managed the CC first. The rep also told me my rate would probably be 5.2% or some such on an auto loan for a 5 year old vehicle. So I have some homework to do there, I'm thinking I can get better. Perhaps I'll try DCU, they have great rates. The silver lining is the CC APR is around 10%, not that it should matter if I manage my money/life properly.

Chase is very willing to move credit from one card to another so if you have a higher limit on a chase card you'd like to move you can just send a secure message asking for say $5k from card ending in XXXX to the CSP ending in XXXX.

This.

A regular sapphire has nothing that I don't have on other cards. CSP had a large signup bonus and transfer capabilities of UR to Southwest, which is important to me. I currently have an Ink Classic which can transfer. Can't wait until this December when I can get the bonus on the CSP again!

It's sad, after saying that I realize that I applied for a handful of new cards recently and I probably need to chill because I want to get 2 Southwest cards this fall (2 years since I last received the bonus), CSP in December, and Citi AA around then (18 months).

Guess it's just small profit MS and Staples rebates until then.

How long after closing CSP do you have to wait to get a new one?

2 years