Credit Card advice?

[dxkj]

My wife has 2 visas with 4500 and 5000 respectively. The one for 5k has 0% apr for 12 months, so we were thinking of dropping 4500 visa, and either getting a mastercard or american express.


Is this a good idea? which should she apply for.


I already have a discover, and a visa.

 

[vi edit]

Why do you need another credit card? Do you really need FOUR of them?!?!?!

 

[TMPadmin]

pay them all off and get rid of them.

 

[dxkj]

well, at least we dont need 3 visa cards...


Pay them all off and get rid of them.... hrm... great advice if my goal was to NOT build credit.

We pay practically everything on credit card, and then pay it off each month. Until I heard about this backcharging interest from a previous month thing, it seemed like a good idea.


Anyway, a lot of people don't use CC's responsibly. My wife and I. however, do. Our only current debt is in School loans, we have about 12k worth of credit limit, and our total balance at the end of each month is 0.

 

[Turkish]

Your wife should have a darn good credit score... 0 APR for 12 months?
or can anyone with an average credit score get this?

 

[dxkj]

I dont know. She has never had a missed payment that I know of, and she made all the purchases for the wedding + purchases for her boss last year and paid everything off right away. I just know she applied for the bank CC and got 5k limit and 12 month 0% apr.

 

[pyonir]

visa and mastercard are basically the same thing.

 

[StageLeft]

If all you want to do is build credit why do you need another card? I have only a single credit card and have no intentions of getting another one. In the two years I've had an SSN my credit went from under 600 to a little over 700 and it continued to climb until I bought a car and subsequently a house. Don't forget that once you hit a critical mass the more cards the WORSE your credit (not to mention the inquiry ding you get each time somebody pulls your credit).

Generally two cards will be better for your credit than 1, but 3 is starting to get iffy either way, and 4 credit accounts on the same person AFAIK will start to degrade your score.

I was shocked to find out how fast credit can build with just my single card. July 2001 got a SSN. Oct 2001 got a $2500 MC from MBNA. May 2002 when I checked my score it was even then about 700. It then slowly kept climbing until I got a car in Nov 2002 and then it was about stable until I got a house in June 2003 and I've not checked it since.

 

[dxkj]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
If all you want to do is build credit why do you need another card? I have only a single credit card and have no intentions of getting another one. In the two years I've had an SSN my credit went from under 600 to a little over 700 and it continued to climb until I bought a car and subsequently a house. Don't forget that once you hit a critical mass the more cards the WORSE your credit (not to mention the inquiry ding you get each time somebody pulls your credit).

I think it was basically so we wouldnt get stuck somewhere with the wrong card.


IE, Visa + Discover + MasterCard or + American Express = if for some reason one of the cards get rejected, and they dont take Discover, we would have another one.

Maybe stupid logic, but look who is doing the talking. (me)

 

[pyonir]

I've never seen a store that takes MC and doesn't take Visa.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: dxkj

Originally posted by: Skoorb
If all you want to do is build credit why do you need another card? I have only a single credit card and have no intentions of getting another one. In the two years I've had an SSN my credit went from under 600 to a little over 700 and it continued to climb until I bought a car and subsequently a house. Don't forget that once you hit a critical mass the more cards the WORSE your credit (not to mention the inquiry ding you get each time somebody pulls your credit).

I think it was basically so we wouldnt get stuck somewhere with the wrong card.


IE, Visa + Discover + MasterCard or + American Express = if for some reason one of the cards get rejected, and they dont take Discover, we would have another one.

Maybe stupid logic, but look who is doing the talking. (me)

That's a good point but only about 1 store in a billion take discover. More take american express, but if you're shopping somewhere without MC or visa you need to go to a new store 🙂 If I was travelling I'd feel very comfortable with both a visa and mastercard, to be safe...but the other two are really not as popular the world over at all (visa is the most popular).

 

[dxkj]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: dxkj

Originally posted by: Skoorb
If all you want to do is build credit why do you need another card? I have only a single credit card and have no intentions of getting another one. In the two years I've had an SSN my credit went from under 600 to a little over 700 and it continued to climb until I bought a car and subsequently a house. Don't forget that once you hit a critical mass the more cards the WORSE your credit (not to mention the inquiry ding you get each time somebody pulls your credit).

I think it was basically so we wouldnt get stuck somewhere with the wrong card.


IE, Visa + Discover + MasterCard or + American Express = if for some reason one of the cards get rejected, and they dont take Discover, we would have another one.

Maybe stupid logic, but look who is doing the talking. (me)

That's a good point but only about 1 store in a billion take discover. More take american express, but if you're shopping somewhere without MC or visa you need to go to a new store 🙂 If I was travelling I'd feel very comfortable with both a visa and mastercard, to be safe...but the other two are really not as popular the world over at all (visa is the most popular).

Aye, 99% of the time its not an issue, but when we went on our honeymoon, I put the hotel on my visa, and then I used my visa for the car rental (was only 80 dollars for 3 days, but they but a temp authoriz on it for 300), so I had no more limit (even though I did), so when we went out to eat the second night my visa got rejected, and they didnt take discover.... luckily my newly acquired wife had a visa with another 1k on it so we used that (everything was maxed out for the week before/after the wedding).

Anyway, I know we dont 'need' another card, but since I am ignorant of how credit works for the most part, I would think dabbling in all the major credit cards at least once for a little bit would be good.... but thats my flawed logic probably... since they are only supposed to look at your credit report, and not at how good/if you used them before.

 

[StageLeft]

Aye, 99% of the time its not an issue, but when we went on our honeymoon, I put the hotel on my visa, and then I used my visa for the car rental (was only 80 dollars for 3 days, but they but a temp authoriz on it for 300), so I had no more limit (even though I did), so when we went out to eat the second night my visa got rejected, and they didnt take discover.... luckily my newly acquired wife had a visa with another 1k on it so we used that (everything was maxed out for the week before/after the wedding).

Anyway, I know we dont 'need' another card, but since I am ignorant of how credit works for the most part, I would think dabbling in all the major credit cards at least once for a little bit would be good.... but thats my flawed logic probably... since they are only supposed to look at your credit report, and not at how good/if you used them before.

I don't know a hell of a lot about credit, but I do know more than the average layperson and even most car salesmen 😉 I learned it by reading the FAQs at equifax, experian, etc. and also getting a copy of my credit report and seeing what is truly being reported.

We like to keep our card at zero as well but the limit ($5300) at times seems like I could sometimes get close to it (not to say I put $5300/month on it, but it's not a massive limit). In time yours should grow decently - or you can just request an increase.

When I moved to the US I had a $4k CAN visa card and mrsskoorb had her own $4k can card and we both had them within like $100 of max. I know how "fun" it is. 🙂

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
That's a good point but only about 1 store in a billion take discover.

Slightly exaggerated there, Skoorb. I use my Discover card for about 30-40 transactions a month, and perhaps once a month I happen to be somewhere that doesn't take Discover. Clearly MC/Visa lead the way, but I suspect there are more places that take Discover than take AmEx.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: kranky

Originally posted by: Skoorb
That's a good point but only about 1 store in a billion take discover.

Slightly exaggerated there, Skoorb. I use my Discover card for about 30-40 transactions a month, and perhaps once a month I happen to be somewhere that doesn't take Discover. Clearly MC/Visa lead the way, but I suspect there are more places that take Discover than take AmEx.

Oh - I really thought it was a small minority of stores 😉

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Generally two cards will be better for your credit than 1, but 3 is starting to get iffy either way, and 4 credit accounts on the same person AFAIK will start to degrade your score.

Nope...not that cut and dried. I've got four (three in the past year) and my scores are higher than they ever were with one.

 

[dxkj]

Originally posted by: cougarls88

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Generally two cards will be better for your credit than 1, but 3 is starting to get iffy either way, and 4 credit accounts on the same person AFAIK will start to degrade your score.

Nope...not that cut and dried. I've got four (three in the past year) and my scores are higher than they ever were with one.

we plan to have 2 on each person, IE 4 total for the two of us...

 

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