What rewards credit card do have and you use?

Anybody use an airline rewards card? or hotel rewards card??? How about the mlife card?

Any recommendations or reviews?

 

For people of Hawaii, I use the Hawaiian Airline Bank of Hawaii credit card. When you charge things it puts miles on your Hawaiian air account. You also get the first bag free. yes, the annual fee is a little steep (something like $80 a year) but if you travel at least 2 round trips from Hawaii to the mainland US you will get your money back (1 bag @ $25 each way so it would normally cost $100). It also gives you a companion discount (or buy 1 get 1 free or half off, I forget). You get another 5k miles when you pay the annual fee.

Actually I used to alternate between rewards cards because some give you 35k or more if you spend a certain amount within a 3 month period. I liked the united air card, no annual fee the first year and they gave me 35k miles if I spent $900 within a 3 month period. If I knew I was travelling I would sign up for the card and use it for my trip. Not sure if the amount you needed to spend went up. Same thing with the Hawaiian air card, (except you have to pay the annual fee) get 35k miles if you spent $900 or something within the first 3 months.

You have to watch out though, some mileage cards require you to spend $3k in the first few months to get the mileage bonus.

 

I have a Total Rewards Visa. I received a pre-approval for a free night along with 10,000 rewards credits just for being a TR member. I thought that since I was a frequent visitor that the card would be worthwhile in terms of getting cheap rooms. The card isn't worth it since you need to spend 5,000 each year to maintain Platinum, which isn't even worth much. Vegas is already cheap as is so I don't find RC's to be valuable for my daily spending. The card also has a 3% foreign transaction fee, which I find unacceptable for a travel-oriented rewards card. The interest rate is also pretty high, around 24%, if that matters to you. The Mlife card is a much better deal in terms of perks since it gives you guaranteed Pearl status without a required spend and doesn't charge foreign transaction fees.

I'll be receiving my Chase Sapphire Preferred in the mail next week. I was pre-approved for being a Chase banking customer with a pretty generous credit limit for a student income. I appreciate the flexibility that the card will give me in redeeming points for flights. Also looking forward to maximizing points with the Chase Freedom.

 

Chase-- Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Signature Visa card.

 

TR credit card (visa)

 

I have a number of them and I churn.

You would have to discuss your spending and your desired rewards for any of this to be of any value to you.

 

Chase sapphire reserve for dining and travel, Chase freedom unlimited for everything else.

 

CSR could be a good one, yes, for someone who spends a lot on travel.

 

These are the cards I use everyday as well!! They are perfect together!

 

I have LOTS of cards. I get them primarily for the signup bonuses. Once I get the bonus, I look for another card. Then use that one to get another 25,50, or 75,000 miles.

I will pay the fee the first year for some of the bigger ones, but then not renew the next year. We get cards in my name, my wifes name or business name. We used over a million points in the past year or so to fly, hotels, etc.

There is very little advantage to have only 1 or 2 cards. Or like a brother got the Carnival Cruise card - racked up lots of points and never used them.

$450 cards like Saphire Reserve are in fact a good deal. - at least for the first year. Same with the $450 Amex Plat.

 

My best card is American Express Blue Cash Preferred. I pay an annual fee of $95 but I get 6% back on groceries (up to $6000 annually), 3% on gas and some department stores and 1% on everything else. I use the Chase Freedom in the quarters where it gets 5%. So April-June is 5% on groceries, so my Amex Blue Cash Preferred gets shelved for groceries for a few months. When 5% gas is active for a quarter, I use Chase Freedom for gas. I only used the Mlife MC and TR Visa this year to get their bonuses, otherwise they're shelved. I'll use them for a small transaction every few months to keep my points from expiring.

 

Just wondering, does the cc switcheroo affect your credit rating? I always wondered about it. Once when I asked for the annual credit report (when I refinanced my mortgage) it was noted on it that I had a large amount of cc's but I didn't ask for my credit rating so not sure if it affected it. Luckily my cousin was doing my mortgage so it didn't have any effect on my refinance. I heard that things like this could affect your credit rating and the ability to get a loan or mortgage and may incur fees because of the bad rating.

Later I cleaned out my wallet, got rid of the sears, macy, jcp and local cc's since I really didn't need them. I also had some cc's "reject" me and close my cc account because of inactivity. I was keeping an few extra cc's around "just in case" something happened and I needed the extra charging power. Right now I only have 4 cc's, 2 main ones (1 the city Costco card to get gas). The other 2 are "just in case" cards but 1 I had for the last 25 years so I don't want to get rid of that one (no annual fee).

I used to be like you, alternating signing up for cc's for the mileage bonuses. Actually United cc was good because the first year had no annual fee so I would get the card for the year, get the mileage bonus and cancel the card before the year was up. I would do this about every 3 years and after that I would sign up for a new cc. I had 3 cards I would do this with and alternate every 3 years signing up with the cc's but now most cc's require you to spend a certain amount of money before getting the mileage bonus and many require you to pay the annual fee upfront.

So what cards do you alternate between? do they have any minimums (purchases within 90 days or so?). I was thinking of doing the cc thing again to get more miles.

 

I use primary two as I have mentioned chase sapphire and freedom unlimited. And have other AX discover PenFed credit union AX & visa etc. One of the advantage of I received focusing on chase cards they are one of the highest limit cards I have - not to mention other credit cards offered me matching credit line. (Actually discover wanted me to switch over and offer me the highest limit out of all cards)

I have only one that I pay annual fee of $95 and since sticking with existing credit cards my credit score always above 820 if not higher.

 

say, I wanted to ask, does anyone use credit karma for their credit rating? Any pluses or minues? Not afraid of getting billed for bogus services? I was just wondering.

 

We have the TR Visa and use it for everyday budget items like food and gas (both are 2x). We use to use our debit, but if that gets compromised it's a hassle to get your money back, frozen account, etc, so instead we just charge everything without risk of theft and not take any money from the atm and pay in full at the end of the month. Now we get practically unlimited funds to spend at properties and we have the VIP access to allow us to enjoy any pool in Vegas, and have VIP access when we see shows. Great if you live here.

 

My business works with consumer credit. I can't tell you how common it is for us to pull a customer's Equifax/Experian and their FICO is 50-100 points less than what they are seeing on their Credit Karma. It seems to be grossly inaccurate a lot more often than the other way around.

I can't speak on their billing practices and other services.

 

I have the same cards minus the Mlife & TR. I play the game also, but why would you not use Blue for groceries, even during the Freedom 5% back on groceries? Blue is still another 1% more.

But, right now all cards are in the drawer as I try to get companion status for 2018 using my SWA card.

 

I have a Virgin Atlantic card which means I get reward miles and sometimes upgrades on flights.

 

Sorry, yeah. I still use Blue for the 6%. I only use the Chase Freedom when it's during the gas quarter or when I get a merchant that doesn't take American Express. I so rarely use the Chase Freedom that I don't even remember when it gets used! I just wait for the text message and then have it at for a while.

 

Don't know about credit karma but if you have a Chase card you can enroll in Chase Credit Journey for free and it has your credit score from TransUnion. When I applied for the SWA premier card in March it alerted me of it and my score dropped 2 points. When I signed up for the SWA Plus going for the companion pass I received an alert before I received notification from Chase. I also got the TR visa when Platinum still meant something but I still use it to keep my RC's active or when they have attractive offers for RC's or like last month TC's.

Mark