I love credit cards so much!

[amalone1013]

what is the general consensus about doing this? my 'kids' are older, but I still hesitate getting them cards for this.... not saying it's bad,just wondering about opinions here... Ok I just read reply-it's an AU...that makes sense,I did that for ds2 to have a card of mine to use when needed also-

I don't have kids yet... but I didn't even have a debit card until my second year of college. I tracked my expenses halfway decent using the checkbook register maybe partly because of age/partly because of living in an apartment, but I was intimidated by it. And credit cards for a long time. I had an atm card and my cash just flowed through my hands in high school. I think I would have saved a bit more of it if I had been able to track it easier, like you could with a card. My parents got me a prepaid debit card for a school trip to London when I was 15, along with some British pounds. I used all the cash and only used the debit card once because I didn't really understand it. So I'm definitely, even with no kids, for introducing my kids to money and credit card and budgeting early, so they're not so scared as I was. I would be doing it for a teen, like some others are, so they could learn and build credit.

Hey, you could even give them a lesson on "paying interest" if they can't pay you for what they charged that month. Have them pay you what the interest would be until they "pay off" their charges, and then you could save it for them for college/reward/whatever

 

[hsmamato2]

well ds2 has an AU on our freedom card when it's needed....that helps his credit score?

 

[AmyAnne]

well ds2 has an AU on our freedom card when it's needed....that helps his credit score?

It does help his credit score - however, in our experience credit card companies (and also leasing companies for apartments) very much understand that an AU is not responsible for the payments and so it doesn't necessarily mean that your kid will be able to get his own credit card (or apartment lease). My 800+ credit score with 25+ years of actual credit history is looked at very differently than my kids' 800+ credit scores that they had before they got their own incomes and credit cards in their names.

 

[DisneyMandC]

My mom got me a credit card in my name when I was 15. She paid it off in full every month to help me build my credit, but I was never using it for anything crazy or putting a ton of charges on it. Just my gas and when I would go to the movies or get dinner with my friends or something. I'm certainly glad she did it as my credit score is great now!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Chase Shutdown Discussion
@Albort made an interesting (and very warranted) response to my Chase recommendation yesterday where I was saying one could potentially get 8 Chase cards under 5/24. He brought up the recent shutdowns (see this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/7jb8mp/shutdown_reports_megathread/ for more details on reddit) and that perhaps hitting Chase hard wasn't a good idea anymore.

So I think we have a great community here of experienced churners - wondering about folks opinions on some of these questions:
- Would you steer clear of the non 5/24 cards (Hyatt, IHG, Disney, etc.) out of fear that you could get shutdown? If you haven't been following, this seems to be a potential trigger for shutdowns when somebody has a ton of new accounts/inquiries even with other banks and then applies for a Chase non-5/24 card
- For those in 2 player mode, are you still trying to get one person under 5/24 and then hit Chase "hard"? I'm defining hard as going for 5-8 cards in the course of 12-15 months.
- Do you feel Chase shutdown risk is worth steering clear of potential bonuses? Or would you not care if Chase shut you down - i.e. there's plenty of fish in the sea, right?
- Do you think the whole concern over shutdowns is warranted? There have been minimal reports of shutdowns vs. what likely is thousands of people hammering Chase for new cards

If anybody wants to take the time to give some thoughts on those questions or anything else on the Chase Shutdown topic I'd love to hear what you have to say. Selfishly this is really important to me right now because of 2 reasons: a) I'm considering getting a Hyatt card and I'm over 5/24 with lots of new accounts and inquiries AND b) my wife is going under 5/24 in April and my plan was to hammer away at Chase for over a year (considering some combo of CIP, 2-3 SW, CSP, CSR, Marriott, Freedom, FU). BUT unselfishly I think it warrants some discussion for the benefit of all.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

My mom got me a credit card in my name when I was 15. She paid it off in full every month to help me build my credit, but I was never using it for anything crazy or putting a ton of charges on it. Just my gas and when I would go to the movies or get dinner with my friends or something. I'm certainly glad she did it as my credit score is great now!

I think you need to know your kid. My 11 yr old niece started middle school this year. My sister put $25 on her lunch account for occasional use, she usually takes lunch. It was gone in a couple weeks, mostly on ice cream. When my sister asked, niece instantly replied not to put more money on account, she could not handle the temptation/responsibility. My DS8 however, is very money conscious and would probably never spend much, especially if he had ground rules.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Charged some travel res to CSR 12/17, posted today along with travel credit.
Safe to PC to CF yet with hopes of AF credit, or should I wait until next week? FWIW, AF posted November 1.

 

[eeyoresmom]

I asked this earlier but haven't gotten a response and I need a little Chase UR math help. We have the CSR. There's a hotel I want to book that costs $216 or 14, 400 points. I can't figure out if this is a better deal than the room I am holding for cash that is $176. Should I be concentrating on the points part? So 14400 points equals what with the CSR??

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I asked this earlier but haven't gotten a response and I need a little Chase UR math help. We have the CSR. There's a hotel I want to book that costs $216 or 14, 400 points. I can't figure out if this is a better deal than the room I am holding for cash that is $176. Should I be concentrating on the points part? So 14400 points equals what with the CSR??

14,400 points = $216 with the CSR (14,400 x 0.015)

I guess the question you have to ask is would you rather spend $40 more worth of points to spend $0 out of pocket...

 

[havaneselover]

I asked this earlier but haven't gotten a response and I need a little Chase UR math help. We have the CSR. There's a hotel I want to book that costs $216 or 14, 400 points. I can't figure out if this is a better deal than the room I am holding for cash that is $176. Should I be concentrating on the points part? So 14400 points equals what with the CSR??

Personally I'd save the points. If you can get the room for $176 cash, then your UR points are only worth $0.0122 each. I try to find things to buy with them where they are worth closer to $0.015. For example, I paid for 7 nights at Cabana Bay with points but the cash price and price in the UR portal were the same so my points were worth $0.015/each.

 

[disneedee]

I asked this earlier but haven't gotten a response and I need a little Chase UR math help. We have the CSR. There's a hotel I want to book that costs $216 or 14, 400 points. I can't figure out if this is a better deal than the room I am holding for cash that is $176. Should I be concentrating on the points part? So 14400 points equals what with the CSR??

to me this says 14400 points is equal to $216. so spending $176 is less then $216, but free is always better than paying cash. so you could get it for free or spend $176. depends on weither you want to save the $216 worth of points and only spend $176 out of pocket or if free room would be more beneficial to you at this time.

 

[eeyoresmom]

Thank you both so much. The room I have reserved is for a value and the one available on Chase is a moderate but I think I'll stick to the cash room and keep looking.

 

[hsmamato2]

Thank you both so much. The room I have reserved is for a value and the one available on Chase is a moderate but I think I'll stick to the cash room and keep looking.

Again...there are valuations..and there is using points however you want to save money best. It changes from person to person. Whatever works best for your finances.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Thank you both so much. The room I have reserved is for a value and the one available on Chase is a moderate but I think I'll stick to the cash room and keep looking.

Or do cash and points, like $100 cash & remaining with points.
Win win, less points used, less $ oop.

 

[Lain]

I asked this earlier but haven't gotten a response and I need a little Chase UR math help. We have the CSR. There's a hotel I want to book that costs $216 or 14, 400 points. I can't figure out if this is a better deal than the room I am holding for cash that is $176. Should I be concentrating on the points part? So 14400 points equals what with the CSR??

14400 UR = $216. 14400 UR is otherwise worth $144 at 1 point = 1 cent. Booking travel through a CSR account gives your UR points an extra 50% value, or 14400 x 1.5% = $216.

ETA: I see lots of people chimes in. I’m on Hawaiian Time, all!

 

[eeyoresmom]

Thank you all so much. I took Nyquil last night and feel like I had a few martinis for breakfast! I would rather use points but I think I'll hold off a bit and see if any value resorts pop up on the UR site (expedia) for a bit less than the moderate at $216.

 

[Ava]

I added my DD8 as an AU on my wife's CSP when I applied for it yesterday, to get the extra 5K bonus points. And I'll carry it to use while we're meeting spend on that card. I plan to PC it to a Freedom or FU after a year, so then will just "sock drawer" DD's card until she's old enough to start using it herself. @amalone1013 I like your idea of having the child pay you interest if they can't pay back something they charged on your credit card - great lesson in how CCs work!

So, now that I have those new cards squared away, I'm working some more on a points strategy for our 2018 vacations. We're a little behind the 8 ball this year & still can't completely finalize summer, but I at least have a plan to take advantage of IHG's Accelerate promotion for Q1 and get us enough points for the Disneyland portion of our CA summer trip. Our trips for 2018 are 4 or 5 nights in Washington, DC during Feb break and a week in CA in the summer (Disneyland for 3 days plus another location TBD).

I can earn a total of 70,900 IHG points and only pay for one night OOP (for which I'd find a cheap rate locally in Jan). The rest of the required nights will be covered by my & DW's CSR travel credits. Or I can forfeit 1500 of those points and probably cover all the nights with the CSR credits. That will depend on the rates I get come Jan 1st when I can actually book nights towards the promo. I'll need to stay 6 nights total to meet all the requirements; 4 of those will be in DC in Feb and 2 local. Or we may extend DC to 5 nights, haven't quite decided yet. Again, may depend on the hotel rates available. The points from the Accelerate promo plus the 25K points I currently have will be enough for 3 nights near Disneyland, and I'll use my anniversary free night for a 4th night.

For transportation, I have more than enough Amtrak points for 4 tickets from NYC->DC. Haven't figured out exactly how we're buying plane tickets to CA, but if nothing else we should somewhere in the range of 300K UR points available to use after we get the bonuses from DW's CSP & CSR. So transport & hotel for both trips should be covered by points; we'll just need to pay for food, DLR tickets/other attraction tickets if needed, and souvenirs. I have $600 in Disney GCs (that I got for $475) so far towards those tickets.

I'm also thinking about what my/our next cards should be. I'm not too concerned about 5/24. I've taken it slow on opening new cards since I started doing this, and there aren't many more Chase cards that I want. I'm currently at 4/24, DW is at 3/24. I'll drop back down to 3/24 in Feb. I would like DW to get an IHG card in Feb, so our anniversary nights will become available at the same time in the future. After that I'm interested in Marriott cards for both of us, again at the same time so the anniversary nights will line up. (Although who knows what will become of that benefit after the merger. If it goes away we'll cancel the cards, and at least we'll have gotten 160K points between the two bonuses.) Then I want to move away from Chase. We don't have many options for SW flights from our home airports, so those cards aren't really of interest. JFK is a hub for JetBlue, Delta, and American so I'll probably go for one of those cards. Either that, or SPG to get it before the merger. Or I'll go for an MR-earning AmEx. Decisions, decisions.

 

[Albort]

Chase Shutdown Discussion
@Albort made an interesting (and very warranted) response to my Chase recommendation yesterday where I was saying one could potentially get 8 Chase cards under 5/24. He brought up the recent shutdowns (see this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/7jb8mp/shutdown_reports_megathread/ for more details on reddit) and that perhaps hitting Chase hard wasn't a good idea anymore.

So I think we have a great community here of experienced churners - wondering about folks opinions on some of these questions:
- Would you steer clear of the non 5/24 cards (Hyatt, IHG, Disney, etc.) out of fear that you could get shutdown? If you haven't been following, this seems to be a potential trigger for shutdowns when somebody has a ton of new accounts/inquiries even with other banks and then applies for a Chase non-5/24 card
- For those in 2 player mode, are you still trying to get one person under 5/24 and then hit Chase "hard"? I'm defining hard as going for 5-8 cards in the course of 12-15 months.
- Do you feel Chase shutdown risk is worth steering clear of potential bonuses? Or would you not care if Chase shut you down - i.e. there's plenty of fish in the sea, right?
- Do you think the whole concern over shutdowns is warranted? There have been minimal reports of shutdowns vs. what likely is thousands of people hammering Chase for new cards

If anybody wants to take the time to give some thoughts on those questions or anything else on the Chase Shutdown topic I'd love to hear what you have to say. Selfishly this is really important to me right now because of 2 reasons: a) I'm considering getting a Hyatt card and I'm over 5/24 with lots of new accounts and inquiries AND b) my wife is going under 5/24 in April and my plan was to hammer away at Chase for over a year (considering some combo of CIP, 2-3 SW, CSP, CSR, Marriott, Freedom, FU). BUT unselfishly I think it warrants some discussion for the benefit of all.

i think its 2 versions of shutdowns. 1) applying and hitting 5/24 within a year then hit a non 5/24 card. 2) going lol/24 and then applying for a non 5/24 card. which i think applies to you and your wife... :\
Im still sitting here wondering if i should apply for the Marriott Card.

 

[tink1970]

So I think we have a great community here of experienced churners - wondering about folks opinions on some of these questions:
- Would you steer clear of the non 5/24 cards (Hyatt, IHG, Disney, etc.) out of fear that you could get shutdown? If you haven't been following, this seems to be a potential trigger for shutdowns when somebody has a ton of new accounts/inquiries even with other banks and then applies for a Chase non-5/24 card
- For those in 2 player mode, are you still trying to get one person under 5/24 and then hit Chase "hard"? I'm defining hard as going for 5-8 cards in the course of 12-15 months.
- Do you feel Chase shutdown risk is worth steering clear of potential bonuses? Or would you not care if Chase shut you down - i.e. there's plenty of fish in the sea, right?
- Do you think the whole concern over shutdowns is warranted? There have been minimal reports of shutdowns vs. what likely is thousands of people hammering Chase for new cards

Here are my thoughts, for what they're worth.

I value Amex MR much more than UR (refresher-somewhat of a DL hostage where I live). That said, I don't value UR or my relationship with Chase as much as Amex. So...I don't shy away from Chase, worried they will shut me down. I am definitely LOL/24 and in November got both a R-C and Disney Premium (R-C for the travel perks obviously) and Disney Premium for the $200 credit. If they shut me down, then wow, okay, I don't have to pay any upcoming AF or downgrade/cancel my cards! If not, I'm going along my merry way.

I do think concern is warranted, even if statistically it's a 1/10000 change, if it's you it's 100%. So I absolutely don't play fast and loose with Barclaycard or Amex, don't worry at all about Chase or Citi. As with most things, I think it's how you value your relationship with that entity (Chase is a lot like my in laws, Citi like my brother's in laws whereas Amex is like my DD and Barclaycard is like my dogs).


As for AUs, my DD (17) is an AU on 2 Amex and 2 Chase cards. She uses the EDP primarily and the Chase IHG overseas and it has worked out well for us. If I decided to keep my CSP I might add her as an AU since I don't value IHG points very much. Thanks for that reminder

Interesting topics and I appreciate the discussion.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

i think its 2 versions of shutdowns. 1) applying and hitting 5/24 within a year then hit a non 5/24 card. 2) going lol/24 and then applying for a non 5/24 card. which i think applies to you and your wife... :\
Im still sitting here wondering if i should apply for the Marriott Card.

The only thing I value with Chase currently is referrals. I'm struggling to decide whether it's worth risking shutdown (and losing potential referrals) for a Hyatt card.

Luckily with the wife she will have an absolutely clean credit report and can hammer Chase hard. If she gets shutdown...oh well (as long as I still have my cards).

Decisions...decisions...I probably don't go for the Hyatt card to preserve my relationship but won't hesitate for a moment to have wife go for 7-8 Chase cards in the next 15 -18 months.