topic Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card? in Credit Cards

What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:37:47 GMT

I am looking for a card that offers a large sign up bonus, but yet doesn't have an annual fee. Do you know of any good ones out there?

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Elcid89 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:38:45 GMT

For what? Cashback? Travel rewards? Points?

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:48:37 GMT

Haha the post in the last forum we were both in made me ask this. Thought it would be interesting to see what people could come up with.

How about one for each category, or just anything you can think of. Include application requirements and terms for bonus rewards.

Examples.

Cash Back:

Chase Freedom

Good credit

$100 bonus with $500 in purchases during the first 3 months

Travel:

Capital one Venture one

Good Credit

10,000 miles with $1000 in spending during first 3 months

No foreign transaction fees

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Elcid89 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:48:34 GMT

For points / travel, I'm a fan of my Citi Hilton HHonors card. Chase Freedom is also excellent. While I'm loathe to recommend anything put out by Capital One, their VentureOne card isn't bad either.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:50:44 GMT

Thanks for the post

I think Cap1 has some of the poorest customer service in the industry.

I will look into the Citi Card.

Do you have a referal link? If so, feel free to post it.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:03:19 GMT

Looks like the Citi HHonors is a top contender for travel rewards.

40,000 HHonors Bonus Points

after $1,000 spent on purchases within the first 4 months2

6 HHonors Bonus Points per $1

spent on hotel stays within Hilton Worldwide portfolio2

3 HHonors Bonus Points per $1

spent at supermarkets, drugstores & gas stations2

2 HHonors Bonus Points per $1

spent on all other purchases2

HHonors Silver Membership2

Visa Signature® Benefits

All with no annual fee and an APR of 14.24%

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

AZHeather — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:57:16 GMT

If you utilize Discover's 5% cash back rewards program, it is a great no af card.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:04:12 GMT

AZHeather wrote:
If you utilize Discover's 5% cash back rewards program, it is a great no af card.

Have you had any problems with acceptance or merchant classifications?

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Elcid89 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:04:34 GMT

Nah, just apply for the card if you like. I will say that they are going to look at more than scores with this card. They have minimum income floors in place as well.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

AZHeather — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:06:03 GMT

Nope. I run quite a bit on it every month and pay it in full twice a month, and have never had any problems (so far - knock on wood). Use it all over the place too.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:07:28 GMT

Elcid89 wrote:
Nah, just apply for the card if you like. I will say that they are going to look at more than scores with this card. They have minimum income floors in place as well.

Do you know what the income floor is? It is probably just whatever is needed to qualify for signature. Maybe $36k annually as long as everything else looks good.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Elcid89 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:07:34 GMT

AZHeather wrote:
If you utilize Discover's 5% cash back rewards program, it is a great no af card.

It's ok. Discover will only allow you to redeem cash or statement credit in $50 increments, so unless you use the card regularly and heavily, you could be waiting a while to collect any of your rewards. They also only offer the 5% cashback at selected market segments during different times of the year. For example, January through March might be gas stations and grocery stores, while April through June is theme parks and bordellos (kidding ...)

I found it to be a mediocre card, so I just never applied for one.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

AZHeather — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:17:14 GMT

If you take advantage of the additional rewards they have on their site (some places like Starbucks, etc. run 10, 15, 20% cash back deals), plus your 1% on anything outside of those or the quarterly 5% deals, your rewards can\do add up quickly. Especially if you push a lot through it every month.

Whether or not it is worthwhile just depends on your needs or your qualification citeria. Me personally, I am in a rebuild mode and cannot qualify for some of the top tier prime cards...yet. :smileytongue: For me, Discover is a nice staring prime card. I get rewards (that I use), no af, 0% financing for the first 15 months, and a card that will grow with me. Is it the best out there...no, but for a beginner, I think it's a pretty nice card. Oh, and customer service has been really nice too. :smileywink:

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Elcid89 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:10:51 GMT

I have no idea what their cutoff is. I was approved with my scores and $335k in income. My son was declined with 760 range credit / no baddies and $65k in income.

The only reason they provided for the decline was "you do not meet our underwriting guidelines for this product".

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:09:14 GMT

Discover build your own card.

https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/get-discover/build-card/index.html?ICMPGN=LNV_CB_TXT

Choose between cash back or travel. Choose between a sign on bonus or an interest free period.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:11:13 GMT

Elcid89 wrote:
I have no idea what their cutoff is. I was approved with my scores and $335k in income. My son was declined with 760 range credit / no baddies and $65k in income.

Does he have other high limit cards? Sometimes that can cause problems. If open utilization is already high relative to income. For example, if he already had $50k in available credit. They may determine his income and length of credit history aren't sufficient to cover more available credit.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Elcid89 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:14:10 GMT

Dustink wrote:
Elcid89 wrote:
I have no idea what their cutoff is. I was approved with my scores and $335k in income. My son was declined with 760 range credit / no baddies and $65k in income.
Does he have other high limit cards? Sometimes that can cause problems. If open utilization is already high relative to income. For example, if he already had $50k in available credit. They may determine his income and length of credit history aren't sufficient to cover more available credit.

All of those would have triggered a specific line item on the denial letter. There was nothing, at all, other than "you do not meet our underwriting ...". They didn't even pull his credit as far as we can tell. No inquiry ever showed up.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:16:59 GMT

Elcid89

Have you ever thought about getting the reserve card? I think your spending and use of the benefits might warrant the annual fee.

https://creditcards.citi.com/credit-cards/hilton-hhonors-reserve-card/

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Elcid89 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:22:14 GMT

Dustink wrote:
Elcid89

Have you ever thought about getting the reserve card? I think your spending and use of the benefits might warrant the annual fee.

https://creditcards.citi.com/credit-cards/hilton-hhonors-reserve-card/

I considered it, but I don't stay in Hiltons often enough for the slight increase in rewards to justify the fee. It's really not much of a bump up IMO. to really get any value out of the Reserve card, you need to basically live in Hilton hotels.

Re: What is the best No Annual Fee card?

Dustink — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:23:34 GMT

Elcid89 wrote:
Dustink wrote:
Elcid89 wrote:
I have no idea what their cutoff is. I was approved with my scores and $335k in income. My son was declined with 760 range credit / no baddies and $65k in income.
Does he have other high limit cards? Sometimes that can cause problems. If open utilization is already high relative to income. For example, if he already had $50k in available credit. They may determine his income and length of credit history aren't sufficient to cover more available credit.

All of those would have triggered a specific line item on the denial letter. There was nothing, at all, other than "you do not meet our underwriting ...". They didn't even pull his credit as far as we can tell. No inquiry ever showed up.

Wow, now I just want to apply for the heck of it. I think I will wait until I actually have a shot at approval. Although, always hard to tell what that is. I will go check some stats at Credit Karma. It looks like the average limit is between 5 and 10k. The average credit score is between 720 and 750, and the average account holder is around 30 years old.

Credit karma has my score at 744, but that is a FAKO score and is low this month due to utilization. I think I would likely be declined, but never know.