MM: How many credit cards do you have? What's ideal for you?

bmo88 · October 2015

Just curious. How many cards do you have? Which ones? What's your ideal? What's your credit card approach/strategy?

Personally, I have 4 credit cards now:

Chase Freedom--1-5% cash back
Wells Fargo--1% cash back (rarely use now)
Capital One Venture One Card--1.25 miles per dollar spent (I have two of the same card, long story--company accidentally processed application twice)

I am actually going to open up a Capital One Quicksilver card in January to put my grad school tuition on because it's 15 months 0% interest, 2% cash back and has a $100 sign up bonus. It's cheaper and easier than taking out loans because I can pay the money back before interest kicks in later.

My approach is that I charge 95% of expenses on my credit cards and then I pay all of them off every month. I am pretty diligent about never paying interest (haven't paid it in 7 years) and it's the easiest way for me to track where I spend my money. I never keep more than $20 in cash on me (fear of losing it) and I am really responsible with my credit, so I never buy what I cannot afford to pay off immediately.

So, I will end up with 5 credit cards. Once grad school is over, I will likely close that card down and maybe one other. I think 2-3 cards is ideal for me. I have other sources of credit (mortgage, HELOC, paid off student loans, car loan) and my credit score is above 760, so I don't think I will seek more credit options in the future.

How about you?

BlueBirdMB · October 2015

I have a card for my business. It's a terrible card- Bank of America. It does nothing much and I keep meaning to change it, but I haven't.

Personally we have two joint cards.

United- for miles

Hilton Rewards- for hotels

We put everything that we possibly can on the cards (although I keep to cash for small spending money so I can track it easier and not overspend). We always pay off the balance each month, but it's how we can afford to travel regularly. My husband also travels for work, so he gets more points for traveling on United or staying in a Hilton. He has a few other frequent traveler programs as well (we're going to New Orleans on his Jet Blue points for example).

als1982 · October 2015

Right now we have three:

Barclay Arrival Plus, which earns 2.1% cash back. We use this as our primary card and LOVE it. It came with a $400 sign up bonus. Including that, we'll likely make more than $2,000 from this card this year, which we've only had since April. It's been kind of rediculous actually.

Southwest Chase, which I use as my work card. I typically charge at least $1,000 a month in reimbursable expenses per month, which I like to keep separate from our personal expenses. We get a few points from this, but most of our Southwest miles come from H's business travel.

Capital One Venture, which is my longevity card. With its low earn rate, I only keep this for the benefit of my credit score. I try to put a tank of gas on it once every month or so. We did put my car on this four years ago plus all our wedding expenses in 2013, so it has netted us a few hundred over the years.

I did also have a United card, but cancelled that about six months ago. Before our next big international trip we may reapply for this again to get another sign up bonus. But in the meantime I didn't want to pay the annual fee. I do still accrue United miles through their Mileage Plus X app and by using portals, which keeps my balance growing.

We put absolutely everything we can on credit and pay off our balance weekly. My credit score is right at 805.

abrewer5 · October 2015

I have a few:

Kohls - for the discounts, paid in full every time I use it.

Discover- 5% cashback on some purchases, I'm getting away from using this card because I find I spend more than I should when I use it. I usually use it for house purchases or online purchases.

Capital One Quicksilver- Just switched to quicksilver, so I get cashback on it but I haven't used the card in years

A small visa from my local credit union- $300 limit with points, it was my first card and I got it to build credit. Now I don't want to close it because it's the longest standing item on my credit report

Victoria's Secret- Never pay interest, only used for the member rewards, but I haven't used it in years

Home Depot- Only used for the 0% interest offer when we bought new appliances for our house. We haven't used it since.

Mustard76 · October 2015

Joint Chase Freedom that we use for everything we can.

We each have individual Chase Freedom cards and U.S. Bank Cash+ cards that we use to spend our allowance.

We also have Best Buy and Lowe's cards to leverage 0% offers when we need house things. We've financed almost all of our appliances with those special offers. They both have on-going promotions, so we keep them active.

simplyelise · October 2015

I only have one, my regional bank credit card. I got it in 2008 when I was 18 and I've never paid interest on it. They've automatically raised my credit limit a bunch of times, so it's up to 15k now. All I use it for is gas for my car and the balance is paid as soon as it's posted.

We did use a Barclaycard Arrival Plus card during the 10 months of our engagement and honeymoon. It was 0% interest and by paying for the honeymoon stuff in advance, we were able to pay for a trip to Atlanta to visit DH's brother's family for free that summer. But we paid it off as soon as we got back from the honeymoon and then closed it.

DH is an authorized user on my card, but he does not have any cards of his own. My CC is the only form of credit I've had, so I'm going to keep with this strategy until we buy a house in a couple years. I'm high 7s, low 8s on my score, so even this limited credit is working for my scores. DH has all the student loans, so he gets the benefits from those payments. We might have to look into opening something up for him when we're debt free so his score doesn't drop once the loans are gone.

simplyelise · October 2015

Also, on the subject of Dave Ramsey...

We are following the DR plan right now for paying off our student loans. But I don't think it's wise to bank on manual underwriting of a mortgage as an effective home-buying strategy in the future. You never know how financial regs are going to change, and the research I've done on manual underwriting shows that it takes a lot longer for preapproval and the purchase process. And your rates are typically slightly higher. All that is according to Churchill's website.

I totally get that Dave has to have a hard line and not allow for exceptions, or else his whole brand falls apart. But every time he says that people paid thousands in interest to earn their precious FICO score, I just cringe. I've never paid a single dime in interest to anyone ever (not including DH's SLs which aren't technically connected to me in any way), but I have a great credit score.

If CC debt was something either DH or I had a history with, we might jump on board with that part of DR's plan. But since neither of us has carried a balance and we want to get the best mortgage terms possible, we're going to stick with our limited CC usage.

hoffse · October 2015

Ha we have a bunch. As I mentioned in the previous thread, we have been using travel CC's for their sign up bonuses in paying my tuition for my LLM. I've paid 3 installments so far and have opened up 2 or 3 cards in each round. Most we don't use after the sign-up bonus. After I open the next round I'm going to go through a round of closing.

Long-term cards

Amazon card (3% back at Amazon.com)

Fidelity AmEx - if I could only keep one card it would be this one (2% back everywhere, deposited automatically as cash into my brokerage account)

Capitol One Mastercard - H's longest card, which is otherwise worthless. I hate it.

Store cards for coupons/deals

Macy's (probably will close this one soon)

Pottery Barn (10% back)

Kohl's (whoop 30% off coupons)

Target (5% off at the cash register)

Travel cards

Chase Sapphire (primary)

Chase Ink Bold - H (5x point at office supply stores and cell phone/internet - H will close before the end of the year)

Chase Ink Cash - H - free version of the above.

Chase Freedom (5x rotating categories. Linked to the Sapphire card so I can redeem for travel)

IHG for me (free anniversary night including at the intercontinental chain + crazy sign up bonus when we did it. IHG also owns Holiday Inn so they are everywhere)

IHG for H (same - opened at the same time as mine so we can do annual 2-night anniversary stays)

Southwest card (for a few obligatory domestic flights we have next year - will close in the spring)

I also opened a Discover card in the last round I did. They were running a promo for new cardholders where they double all your points at the end of the first year. So their 5% back categories are effectively 10% back. It's a great deal, and we already know we will have at least several hundred bucks at the end of the first year with it. We are tentatively planning to TTC at the end of 2016, so I am going starting to hoard cash/points on my cash back cards as a way to defray the costs of gear.

It's hard to calculate how much value I have gotten since I started doing the sign-up bonus thing because prices for flights and hotel rooms change. However, I know I have earned more than $1,000 on my various cash back cards since January, and H and I have also gotten 2 flights to Europe for free, 4 domestic flights for free, and we have redeemed 3 hotel room nights so far. Altogether I value the travel bit somewhere around $4,000.

It seems like a lot to keep up with, but it's really not. We have 3 or 4 cards that we use all the time and the rest are pretty much just used to pay my LLM tuition and then we stick them in a drawer in the office until it's time to close them. I keep a spreadsheet to make sure we don't lose track of it, and both of our credit scores have remained over 800 while doing this.

jessica490 · October 2015

We have:

Kohls

Home Depot

Lowes

Ann Taylor

Discover

Chase (2)

Bank of America

Credit Union one

Toyota credit card

I think that's it. I don't even know what all the terms are on each but it doesn't really matter to me because we pay them in full whenever we use them. We get points on a few of them to do whatever with so I do pay attention to that.

formerlyGDaisy09 · October 2015

We have a bunch:

Regularly worked for points:

LLBean (Barclays) (we live in the northern part of the country, one of us is always in need of some kind of winter gear, plus their wrinkle free khakis and dress shirts fit H really well) 1% cash back; 5% on LLBean. This is our card with the highest limit, we use it for pretty much everything. we probably earn $400-500 in rewards on this each year

Amazon (chase) 1% on everything, 2% on gas and restaurants, 3% on amazon (we use this card for gas and restaurants and amazon purchases) Probably earn about $200 on this card every year.

Store Cards (I'm selective about what stores I have cards to; Gap/BR are the only place I've found pants that fit me decently, we live in a bit of a shopping desert, my only options for clothes/home goods within an hour drive of my house are TJMaxx, Kohl's and Walmart):

Banana Republic 1% back on everything, 5% at GAP brand stores; occasionally this card gets worked for points because they'll do a month of triple points every now and then (which means it earns more than the LLBean card for every day stuff).

TJMaxx 1% on everything, 5% at TJMaxx/Marshalls/Home Goods; only used in those stores

Khol's; because it simply doesn't make sense to shop at Kohl's without their card. I do a few sprees at kohl's every year; generally when I get a 30% off coupon and they're doing Kohl's Cash.

csuave · October 2015

@bmo88 I thought Quicksilver was 1.5% cash back not 2%?

Joint use cards:
Chase Freedom that we use for all of our purchases. It is 1% and 5% rotating categories.
Target store card. We love the 5% off and free shipping. This is the only store card we have and go figure, it is the only chip and pin card. Why aren't the others chip and pin?!

My personal cards:
Discover It 1% and 5% categories. PSA to anyone on an old Discover card, call and ask to move to It. It has better benefits but they won't move you to it unless you ask. I've had this card forever but recently changed to only using it for 5% categories and online shopping bonuses. I like to use the cashback to get discounted gift cards. For example, Cheryl's cookies gift cards are $30 for only $20 cash back.

Capital One Quicksilver 1.5% and no foex fees. I used to have regular capital one but cancelled that and moved to this one when it came out with 1.5%. I now use it for my phone and everyday fun money purchases. H and I use this card with traveling internationally.

Now I see some 2% cards available and I am thinking about changing the bulk of our purchases to one of those but still using the Chase for 5%. I like that we will earn more but I'm not sure I want to deal with the hassle of using 2 cards and trying to remember when to use each one.

Sisugal · October 2015

4 cards
1 joint card that we put everything on
1 personal card in my name only
2 store cards for the extra discounts/benefits

All cards are paid in full monthly

hoffse · October 2015

+1 to @SimplyElise's analysis of how underwriting works. FICO scores are important if you want somebody to extend you a loan. They are extremely good predictors of risk, and it lays out a credit history for a lender to examine. Think about it. If somebody came up to you and wanted to borrow $100K+, wouldn't you want some relatively objective benchmark to determine if that person was a good credit risk or not?

And yeah, H and I have never paid a penny in interest either to maintain a great credit score. In fact, the CC companies pay us to the tune of thousands of dollars per year.

I'll also add that I think it's a huge mistake to travel - especially out of the country - without a high-interest credit card for emergencies. Debit cards tend to get locked down overseas much more frequently than CC's do, especially if your debit card is through a small bank. My Wells Fargo debit card has actually gotten locked down more than once, and yes we do alert them every time we travel. I always have back-ups so it's not a big deal when it happens, but it could turn into a HUGE deal if we didn't have back-up cards with us. I can't imagine having a locked debit card, no credit card, and then being in a situation where we need to buy a walk-up plane ticket or we require medical treatment in a foreign country.

cbee817 · October 2015

Probably too many but they're all paid in full each month.

Me: 2 citicards, 1 amex card (has our sewer repair bill on it- 0% until March 2016), 1 cap one card, BR luxe card, Target card, JCrew card

DH: 2 citicards, 1 amex card, 1 cap one card, joint on the BR luxe card and Target card so that he could have a spare card in his wallet.

The cap one cards are for foreign travel- we're about 25 minutes from the Canadian border so we go there a lot- no exchange fee on our cap one cards.

The 4 citicards are the oldest and probably the worst as far as points go. The one nice thing is that they always have Home Depot gift cards and the points can be applied to purchases on Amazon.

Amex card - Once the sewer bill is paid off (only 2 more payments!), I'll be using that as the main grocery/gas card since it gets the most points for groceries and gas.

BR luxe- we get free shipping always on Gap, ON, BR, reward $, and free alterations. The bulk of the girls' clothes come from ON, DH gets all of his pants from BR. I shop at all 3 for myself.

Target- 5% cash back on purchases.. kind of had to with all of the baby things we needed over the years. Now it's mostly for toiletries, some house stuff, etc.

JCrew- we don't shop there as much as we used to but they haven't canceled it so I'll just keep it for now.

brij2006 · October 2015

ZERO, None, Zip, Zilch.

We used to be credit card hoarders. Never carried a balance on any of them, but would work them for points or store discounts and 0% interest promos. Then we realized we were buying crap we didn't need because we could get X amount of cash back on that purchase. Or buying things from somewhere that was more expensive because there were some kickback perks. Or buying things we didn't need/couldn't afford because we could afford the 0% payment and have it paid off before the offer period ended, and we WANTED it now.

We're 100% cash/ debit card payers now. There will never be a credit card in our house again.

As for the no FICO score thing. If we ever need to take out a mortgage, we will be putting well over 50% down on the next house (our plan is to pay cash though). We talked to our lender about it, and they said your FICO score doesn't really matter if you're putting over 30% down. They would rather see someone with a 0 credit score buying a home than a 400, because then it means they have no debt at all and they're a better candidate to actually make their mortgage payment because they have no other debt. Now, they did tell us that someone with a 700+ credit score is just as good of a candidate as well. So we were advised to either keep some lines of credit open and use them occasionally to maintain our 800 credit scores, or close everything out to get our score to 0. It is now 0 for both of us, and we closed all of the remaining ones out and finished paying every single thing off in July.

As for traveling. We use our debit cards for everything and run them as credit (not using pin #). This gives you the same backing through Visa/MC/Discover as you would have using a credit card. I have rented a car, a hotel room, booked a $6k vacation, been in and out of airports, traveled internationally for 6 weeks out of a backpack, all with my debit card and cash. Now, I do carry more cash on me than the norm, for just in case. Even when we went to Nashville last month, we had $500 in "emergency" cash, on top of our spending cash we brought. It gets put in separate places just in case we need it when we're broken down along side the road or something. But really, are all places in small town TN going to take a credit card along side the road when you're stranded? Cash is king in emergency situations.

hoffse · October 2015

@Brij I'm glad your debit card hasn't gotten locked down out of the country. After the second time WF locked my debit card (and there were travel alerts both times), I knew I would never travel abroad with just a debit card and cash. Between debit and credit cards, we usually bring at least 4 with us for back-up in case of lock down or theft (yay European pickpockets).

I don't think it's as big a deal to travel in the US with just a debit card. I just wouldn't do it out of the country.

smetter04 · October 2015

I have a Capital One (to travel abroad w/o fees and for the points, which is my primary card now), a US Bank card (not using anymore because of no rewards), and a Target debit card for the 5% off (we purchase all toiletries/cleaning supplies at Target).

H just has a bank card, but he doesn't use it much. He uses his debit card more often. If we had any more cards, I'm not sure I could keep track of it all. This feels like enough for us.

Xstatic3333 · October 2015

We have a Capital One VentureOne as our primary card. I love the ease and flexibility of the points. In retrospect, I should have gone for the Venture, which has a higher bang-per-buck but an annual fee. I just didn't like the idea of an annual fee. We use it for a lot of family obligation travel like @hoffse mentioned, and it's great for those purposes.

I opened the JetBlue Amex for the signup bonus earlier this year, and am undecided as to whether to keep it. The one perk is that we fly JetBlue to FL a fair bit, and H's mom also has him book her trips to FL since she's afraid of computers. Booking just a few trips gets one of us a free trip-but, there is an annual fee.

Other than that, we all have a few old cards that we never use but are still open. We both have Sears cards, I have super ancient Victoria's Secret and Gap cards, and H has a horrible student Capital One. I wouldn't care if they got closed, but they haven't at this point.

At some point we'll probably open a Home Depot card to finance something, but we haven't had to yet. We're saving it for when we really need it. Maybe if we ever get around to our kitchen...

dragonstarjk · October 2015

Before I answer this, I just have to give a resounding echo to what @hoffse is saying about carrying a credit card overseas. I, too, am glad that @brij's debit card has never been locked down internationally, but I can promise you that is the exception, not the norm.

Many, many banks (check with yours if traveling) have restrictions on certain countries. Some restrict you to just pin-based transactions and some will completely block your debit card for being used in those countries.

My #1 piece of advice to my bank customers--always, always, always carry a second form of payment while traveling! I can't tell you how many customers I have had call us, raging mad or sad or stressed, because they are stuck somewhere traveling with no form of working payment and there is nothing we can do to help them.

blondie42107 · October 2015

hoffse said:
Ha we have a bunch. As I mentioned in the previous thread, we have been using travel CC's for their sign up bonuses in paying my tuition for my LLM. I've paid 3 installments so far and have opened up 2 or 3 cards in each round. Most we don't use after the sign-up bonus. After I open the next round I'm going to go through a round of closing.

Long-term cards
Amazon card (3% back at Amazon.com)
Fidelity AmEx - if I could only keep one card it would be this one (2% back everywhere, deposited automatically as cash into my brokerage account)
Capitol One Mastercard - H's longest card, which is otherwise worthless. I hate it.

Store cards for coupons/deals
Macy's (probably will close this one soon)
Pottery Barn (10% back)
Kohl's (whoop 30% off coupons)
Target (5% off at the cash register)

Travel cards
Chase Sapphire (primary)
Chase Ink Bold - H (5x point at office supply stores and cell phone/internet - H will close before the end of the year)
Chase Ink Cash - H - free version of the above.
Chase Freedom (5x rotating categories. Linked to the Sapphire card so I can redeem for travel)
IHG for me (free anniversary night including at the intercontinental chain + crazy sign up bonus when we did it. IHG also owns Holiday Inn so they are everywhere)
IHG for H (same - opened at the same time as mine so we can do annual 2-night anniversary stays)
Southwest card (for a few obligatory domestic flights we have next year - will close in the spring)

I also opened a Discover card in the last round I did. They were running a promo for new cardholders where they double all your points at the end of the first year. So their 5% back categories are effectively 10% back. It's a great deal, and we already know we will have at least several hundred bucks at the end of the first year with it. We are tentatively planning to TTC at the end of 2016, so I am going starting to hoard cash/points on my cash back cards as a way to defray the costs of gear.

It's hard to calculate how much value I have gotten since I started doing the sign-up bonus thing because prices for flights and hotel rooms change. However, I know I have earned more than $1,000 on my various cash back cards since January, and H and I have also gotten 2 flights to Europe for free, 4 domestic flights for free, and we have redeemed 3 hotel room nights so far. Altogether I value the travel bit somewhere around $4,000.

It seems like a lot to keep up with, but it's really not. We have 3 or 4 cards that we use all the time and the rest are pretty much just used to pay my LLM tuition and then we stick them in a drawer in the office until it's time to close them. I keep a spreadsheet to make sure we don't lose track of it, and both of our credit scores have remained over 800 while doing this.

Do you track each of these 1-2x monthly to watch for possible fraud? Bless your heart for keeping up with all of these! I think I need another coffee after reading through that!

bmo88 · October 2015

csuave: I believe it is normally 1.5%, but I got an offer in the mail for a promotion: 15 months 0% interest, 2% cash back until July 2017 and then it goes to 1.5%. So it's not a permanent 2%.

hoffse · October 2015

I think one of the reasons banks lock down cards so often overseas is because of how few Americans actually leave the country for vacation. I think I read once that more than 85% of American travel is to domestic destinations. So yeah, if your card is being used out of the country then banks know that there's a high chance the transaction is fraudulent, and they don't always check their own travel alerts to see before shutting you down.

The most popular foreign destinations are Mexico and Canada, and that's no surprise. So the chances of a transaction being fraudulent are even higher if your card pops up in Germany or Peru or Thailand.

dragonstarjk · October 2015

I love working CC for points, so we have quite a few:

H-Capital One--this was one of his first ccs and hasn't been used in years. I'm surprised they haven't closed it actually.

H-Amazon store card--H likes to use this for the 0% financing on purchases over $299; we've used it to buy items such as our treadmill, laptop, Roomba, etc.

H-Cabelas--this is the card he uses all of the time, for 100% of expenses that are allowed to be paid w/ a credit card. He is a major hunter/outdoorsman and Cabela's offers a really generous points program. Points can only be used for Cabela's gear, which H is more than happy with.

H-Sears--only used for appliance purchases to take advantage of the 0% financing

H-Home Depot--again, only used for large purchases to take advantage of the 0% financing

Me-Amazon Visa--I have this as my default payment on Amazon and only use it for Amazon purchases. I do a lot of shopping on Amazon, so I earn a lot of points even though I don't use it for anything else.

Me-Discover--This is the card I use for all purchases, except when one of my other cards is offering a special points deal that I am trying to complete. I need to take pp's advice and get it switched to the It card!

Me-Citibank--I only use this for the occasional 0% offers; for instance, this is the card that I am putting the excess porch charges on because it is 0% for 16 months. Although, I did get an offer to earn $50 if I spend $500 by the end of the year, so once I complete the current promotion I am working on, I'll switch to using the Citbank for all expenses to try to meet that offer.

Me-local bank MasterCard--I only use this when they are offering special points promotions. Right now, I am working on a 'spend $2000, earn a $250 gift card'. I don't know if I will meet the threshold (I never overspend just to get a points bonus) but I am going to try! Ends at the end of the month.

Me-Alaska Airlines/B of A Visa--Has a $75 annual fee, but I get a $99 companion fare ticket once per year, and most flights from our area are over $400, so it easily pays for itself. Normally I am firmly opposed to paying an annual fee. I only use this card on Alaska Airlines expenses.

Me--Fairmont Visa--just opened this to take advantage of the 2 free nights that we earned by spending $1500. I made H an authorized user so we could both charge everything to it to make sure we earned the free nights. This is going to save us $800+ on our summer vacation.

I think that's all of them. Like I said, some rules that we follow:

-Put every possible expense on our credit cards and pay in full each month. I actually make a payment twice a month (every payday) just to make sure I am not overspending.

-Never spend more than we normally would just to earn a points bonus

-Check accounts online religiously to make sure we don't forget a payment/balance since we switch between which cards to use on a regular basis.

hoffse · October 2015

blondie42107 said:

Do you track each of these 1-2x monthly to watch for possible fraud? Bless your heart for keeping up with all of these! I think I need another coffee after reading through that!

Well almost all the cards are through Chase, so there's one login to see all of mine and one login for H to see all of his. I monitor the store cards for fraud monthly when I get my statements. Actually, every travel card we have is Chase and the Amazon card is also Chase. So I really just log in to his Chase account, my Chase account, and then the fidelity account and that's it for daily fraud monitoring. I would log in to Fidelity every day anyway to see how the market is doing.

Except for Target, we don't carry those store cards and only pull them out when we are going to that store. Kohls and PB get used 3-4x per year, Macy's gets used 1-2x (which is why I will probably shut that down). Those cards are also ONLY good at those stores, so the likelihood of fraud with them is pretty low.

If I had a separate login for each card it would be too much, but since the majority of them show up on one or two screens.... nah, it's not that hard to monitor for fraud.

bmo88 · October 2015

hoffse: I completely agree. I have traveled quite a bit and despite notifying my credit card companies and banks ahead of time, I have had cards blocked.

brij2006: You are quite lucky not having your card locked up. Also, about the mortgages. I have had friends with non-existent credit who couldn't get a mortgage. So a zero isn't necessarily automatically better than a poor score. You will likely have a higher interest rate if you have bad credit, but can still qualify. We use credit cards, but have never bought anything just to get the points/cash back. I have never really understood that mentality.

A fun story about cards getting blocked overseas:

I worked at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver in the Team USA House. While in the gift store, the President of VISA came in to make some purchases. I rang him out for a $300 purchase and then he decided he wanted more stuff. When I swiped his card for the second time, his card had been flagged/blocked. His own company shut his VISA card down (it was actually happening to a ton of Visa customers during the Games).

He was so mad and then pulled out a Master Card (which I found hilarious he even owned one), but I had to tell him, "Because the primary sponsor of the US Olympic Team is VISA, I unfortunately cannot accept your Master Card." He was really irritated and had to have his assistant pay for him.

So, lesson learned: anyone can have their card locked up at anytime!

Xstatic3333 · October 2015

@bmo88 that's hilarious! Also, how cool that you worked at the Olympics. I'm a total Olympics nerd and regret not trying to get to Vancouver or London. The next few locations are way trickier.

hoffse · October 2015

bmo88 said:

A fun story about cards getting blocked overseas:

I worked at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver in the Team USA House. While in the gift store, the President of VISA came in to make some purchases. I rang him out for a $300 purchase and then he decided he wanted more stuff. When I swiped his card for the second time, his card had been flagged/blocked. His own company shut his VISA card down (it was actually happening to a ton of Visa customers during the Games).

He was so mad and then pulled out a Master Card (which I found hilarious he even owned one), but I had to tell him, "Because the primary sponsor of the US Olympic Team is VISA, I unfortunately cannot accept your Master Card." He was really irritated and had to have his assistant pay for him.

So, lesson learned: anyone can have their card locked up at anytime!

That is an amazing story.

csuave · October 2015

bmo88 said:

csuave: I believe it is normally 1.5%, but I got an offer in the mail for a promotion: 15 months 0% interest, 2% cash back until July 2017 and then it goes to 1.5%. So it's not a permanent 2%.

Great deal!

julieanne912 · October 2015

None for me, basically.

I filed for BK last year and it was the best thing I ever did. I was carrying credit card debt for quite a few years with little hope of paying it off, leftover from when the real estate crash hit in 2008, so I tried to start my own business, and it failed. I had to use the cards to do stuff like pay income taxes, buy groceries, etc. I was literally broke. I relied on those cards far too much, even after I started to get back on my feet (even though I'm still making less than half of what I used to). I was never late on any of them, and my credit score was in the mid 700s, so it was a difficult decision to make, but again, so glad I did. Very freeing to not have that burden. And my score only dropped into the mid 600s, so still not terrible. Now just have to work on building up my credit history again.

The BK did not cover a few cards that didn't have a balance, store cards like Neiman Marcus and West Elm, but I pretty much never shop at those stores anymore (wish I could haha!). I'm leaving them open since I've had them a long time. I might eventually get one that has some good cash back rewards or something like that, but for now I'm doing pretty good without having any, as I know I would still have the tendency to rely on them when I'm short on cash.

My H has many, but he's pretty responsible with them. His main two are his Cabela's Visa and his Southwest card. He travels very often for work so he puts all the work expenses (hotels, food, car rentals, etc. which are then reimbursed within a week or two) on the Cabela's card, and so he racks up the reward points. He currently has almost $900 in rewards to use there when we're ready. He tries to travel almost exclusively on Southwest if at all possible, so he has almost 400,000 miles with them due to using the card and just the travel in general. When he had to travel to Canada for 6 months he used a United card there (the Cabela's would have charged a foreign transaction fee), so he has some decent miles racked up there too. His other cards are only used during their 0% interest intro period, and he uses those for house projects.

We did finance our air conditioning and our bed jointly with zero interest, since he has great credit and income, so being on those two cards is helping to bump my score back up and rebuild.

ETA: I'm not suggesting that filing for BK is a great idea for everyone. I just know it was the right choice for me and my situation.

brij2006 · October 2015

Maybe it helps that we work with a credit union and not a large chain? I have never once had an issue. We have 2 banks that we have accounts and debit cards with. I always make sure there is enough money in the checking at the 2nd bank, in case we were to run into an issue while traveling. I also call and authorize the dates of travel beforehand so they can know the transactions during that time frame are legit.

bmo88 · October 2015

Xstatic3333: It was a really cool internship opportunity through my college since the US Olympic Committee is in the same town. Probably the best work experience of my life even though I was an intern and had to work long hours and do odd tasks. Between meeting athletes, celebrities and just being at the games, it was the coolest 2 months of college for me.

I agree, the next few locations are a little trickier to get to and safety is somewhat of a concern. Fortunately, Vancouver was very safe and fun. I have not heard as great of things about other games locations though.

MM: How many credit cards do you have? What's ideal for you?

Re: MM: How many credit cards do you have? What's ideal for you?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards

MM: How many credit cards do you have? What's ideal for you?

Re: MM: How many credit cards do you have? What&#039;s ideal for you?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards

Re: MM: How many credit cards do you have? What's ideal for you?