Credit Cards - Intrest, Fees, and Bullshit

[Apoc]

Just signed up for this one: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/venture/">http://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/venture/</a><!-- m -->

We were on a United card for the longest time, but it's been a lot less useful when we moved to a city that didn't have a United. The only hub we have is Alaska Airlines, which I have for a personal card ($99 companion fare yearly) but I didn't want another for our joint card. The most attractive thing about this card to me is basically 2% rewards applicable to pretty much anything and no foreign transaction fee (<-- must have for us).

[HAULN-SS]

I'm using the arrival+ barclay card. 40,000 sign up points, 2 points for everything, and if you redeem on travel related you get 10% of those points back, so basically 2.2% cashback on travel rewards. 89$ fee 2nd year. After the first year I have about $950 worth of travel points saved up. Points are basically half that value if you use them towards straight cash back or merchandise. No foreign transaction fee.

[WRXtranceformed]

Been killing it with the BofA Travel Rewards with the modifiers you get for Platinum Honors level. It works out to about 2.625 points per dollar on all purchases. I just had my yearly call with the old US Air / now American Barclay card because they sneak in that $89 yearly fee in January. We basically just put our cell phone bill on it to keep the account active and ultra pad our debt to limit ratios. The rewards are way worse since the merger though so I just call and threaten to cancel. As soon as you get someone in cancellations who speaks English as their first language, it's pretty straightforward to get that fee dropped. Not sure if you can pull this off with AMEX or any of the other fee based cards but it's worth a try. I personally think it's silly to pay a company to use their credit card, there are plenty of really good free ones out there.

[Mike]

i rock an alaska card nowadays. $100 yearly fee, but gives you a companion fare for the cost of taxes plus free checked bags. i travel enough that i earn the baggage part already, but we can do a trip to hawaii each year for pretty cheap thanks to the ticket.

my main card is still my amazon. i have something like $2.5k saved in points. actually started spending some now and then. "free" stuff is good.

[Ken]

i rock an alaska card nowadays. $100 yearly fee, but gives you a companion fare for the cost of taxes plus free checked bags. i travel enough that i earn the baggage part already, but we can do a trip to hawaii each year for pretty cheap thanks to the ticket.

my main card is still my amazon. i have something like $2.5k saved in points. actually started spending some now and then. "free" stuff is good.

Just signed up for the Amazon card and i think it's going to be my "go-to" for everyday purchases. Had it just over two months and barely used it and already have like $50 in points.

[HAULN-SS]

So to update on the barclay card - i think I am going to shop around. I put every bill I have on a card to maximize points. I think the rewards in 2 years totaled something like $16-1800, but in april they are changing the rewards on travel to only refund 5% of the points you spend instead of 10..so there's no real point in keeping the card anymore, because with the fee, the net return ends up being about average. I do like that you can use the points incrementally on this card though. I just used some points to pay for the upgrade difference between economy and economy+ on Lufthansa

[Apoc]

i rock an alaska card nowadays. $100 yearly fee, but gives you a companion fare for the cost of taxes plus free checked bags. i travel enough that i earn the baggage part already, but we can do a trip to hawaii each year for pretty cheap thanks to the ticket.

Just booked a week vacation in Hawaii with the $99 companion fare.

I am in the process of switching our main credit card from United Mileage Plus to the Capital One Venture Card. United was great when we lived 20 min from a United hub; now it sucks. I just gotta find some way to spend the 200k miles I have before killing the card.

[Mike]

thanks for the reminder that i need to dump my united. only use it for business and i'm not paying bags anyway.

[WRXtranceformed]

Double check the fine print Chris, you might be able to keep the miles you accrued through your credit card. My Barclaycard basically just dumps all of the accrued points into my frequent flier account every month. You may not lose out on anything if you cancel the card, just double check for sure

[Apoc]

Miles expire 18 months after last usage. I have no idea when we'll actually use them, given United doesn't really fly out of Seattle, and I've been lazy about changing all our bills to the Venture Card. Right now I use the Venture as my business travel card, so I've started.... I just need to pull the trigger in the next few months.

[WRXtranceformed]

Miles expire 18 months after last usage. I have no idea when we'll actually use them, given United doesn't really fly out of Seattle, and I've been lazy about changing all our bills to the Venture Card. Right now I use the Venture as my business travel card, so I've started.... I just need to pull the trigger in the next few months.

They don't give you corporate AMEXs at ballertown Amazon? Please don't tell me they make you fill out personal expense reports for your business travel.

[Apoc]

Amazon ain't ballertown by any stretch. EVERYONE flies economy, no matter their title, unless they pay out of pocket for an upgrade.

We can get a travel card, but I declined because I'd rather spend 20 minutes of scanning my credit card bill to than someone else getting my miles. :-)

[WRXtranceformed]

Amazon ain't ballertown by any stretch. EVERYONE flies economy, no matter their title, unless they pay out of pocket for an upgrade.

We can get a travel card, but I declined because I'd rather spend 20 minutes of scanning my credit card bill to than someone else getting my miles. :-)

Yeah we fly economy too unless status drops free upgrades on us. They do give us company paid AMEXes tied into to Concur which is pretty awesome. The only receipt I ever have to occasionally scan is a hotel bill if the hotel chain doesn't have an integration with Concur. Or if I buy a meal at some place that doesn't take AMEX and I have to put it on my personal credit card.

We can subscribe to AMEX rewards if we pay the yearly fee (we get to keep / use the points), but I got a lot more benefit out of that when I used to expense +/- $100k / year in travel, entertainment etc. I still travel a lot in my current role but I don't need to do the client entertainment piece as much. I did the math and it wasn't even really worth it for me to pay the fee to stay enrolled, the yearly rewards were not much more than the fee.

[WRXtranceformed]

My "new" role at a company owned by my former company does not provide company cards until you get to the executive level (Director ain't enough clout I suppose :/) so I had to turn in my old one and schlepp a lot of expensive travel on my personal card / wait for reimbursement checks. It's a blessing and a curse, they issue the checks pretty quickly but I don't like ever seeing balances that high on my card even though I'm getting reimbursed and it's paid in full every month. The blessing is that I stack up points like crazy at the tier we are on with BoA. As such I have been regularly requesting credit limit increases to keep my revolving debt / limit ratio as high as possible. The most recent was nearly double my current limit to a laughably high sum that I would never reach, but they approved it. That has brought my credit score up 36 points since April, even with me carrying two mortgages for a period of time until our old house sold.

So yeah, regularly ask for credit limit increases, especially if you aren't going to use it

[Apoc]

Your post reminded me that both my credit cards were in serious need of replacing. While requesting new cards, I also requested a limit increase on both. Should we dick swing our limits? :lol:

[Sully]

I have an Amazon Visa. Mostly because when you signed up you got like $50 off your current Amazon purchase. It's 3% back on Amazon purchases too so I pretty much use it for all Amazon purchases which is a bit and pay it off completely every month. I also put several large payments of the fiance's ring on it and paid those off within the same month too(not sure if that's bad for building credit). I should probably get another one but I really don't like using credit cards. I know I should but it's just another bill to pay which I don't like

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[WRXtranceformed]

Your post reminded me that both my credit cards were in serious need of replacing. While requesting new cards, I also requested a limit increase on both. Should we dick swing our limits? :lol:

Smart man

I doubt I would be winning any contests ha. With both of my major cards together I don't think the combined limit quite breaks $100k. I have really only been asking for significant increases over the last year or two though when I realized I could do it as much as I wanted. For our lifestyle, that's still an absurd about of available credit. I have never once even hit a five figure balance in a single month (on my personal cards) and we don't ever carry a balance.

[WRXtranceformed]

I have an Amazon Visa. Mostly because when you signed up you got like $50 off your current Amazon purchase. It's 3% back on Amazon purchases too so I pretty much use it for all Amazon purchases which is a bit and pay it off completely every month. I also put several large payments of the fiance's ring on it and paid those off within the same month too(not sure if that's bad for building credit). I should probably get another one but I really don't like using credit cards. I know I should but it's just another bill to pay which I don't like

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It definitely doesn't hurt to have another card, in fact it usually helps your credit if you keep one and put a small purchase or two on it a month and pay it off like you do your other card. It drastically improves your ratios

[Apoc]

We don't ever carry a balance either, but I'm not anywhere close to six figure total limit. My cards are floating in the $30k range each because I've never bothered to ask for an increase.

We had our first ever five digit balance last month, not including my grad school tuition (that AOL reimbursed me 100% for). Kids, especially new ones, are spendy.

[Senor_Taylor]

Yeah? Well I have one card and it has a limit of $1000! EAT THAT!