Credit Card Cannibalization

[EdMan63]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I agree less is more. I have no desire to open any more cards period. Im not willing to pay more than one annual fee. My QS was my workhorse because they helped me rebuild, it's simple and no FTF. Now that I have the Sapphire and the FU with the Freedom I can concentrate my spending all on UR.

My cashback from my QS always went to my travel fund anyways.

Like I said earlier Discover I got to diversify and grow the limit.

5 cards is enough lol and I'm glad 3 of them work together!

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You and I have almost the exact same cards. I had the Freedom but PC'ed it to the Unlimited. The only thing I want to add is a Discover and then I am done as far as any new accounts go for a long time. 

[Anonymous]

Having accounts absolutely matters.  If you are unable to be approved for a card due to poor credit, then there is a backdoor way by keeping over $10,000 [or $15,000, I forget] on balance with Chase.  You have to speak to a banker and request a Special Consideration Form.  The banker may not even know what it is so inform them of it.  I think it works for CSP, Freedom and Slate.  Increases your chances of card issuance dramatically, particularly with Freedom and Slate. 

[wasCB14]

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@galahad15 wrote:

I have a total of 4, AF-free 2% cashback cards, which I find to be very useful b/c I can earn points on each of them by using each one every month moderately, but then I PIF at the end of the month for all of them (except for DC which I am also currently revolving a 0% promo on).  That way I don't have to worry about having to spend so much on any one single 2% card that I have to revolve on it and not be able to PIF.

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If I understand this correctly, the purpose of four 2% cards is to avoid having even low utilization report on any of them except Citi DoubleCash? If a balance is going to report on DC anyway, why not just use DC and make a modest payment before each statement cuts?

That is, unless you need to use an Amex or Visa somewhere, you could put all your 2% spending on one card and pay off whatever you don't intend to carry into the next statement period.

Or am I missing/misunderstanding something here?

[galahad15]

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@wasCB14 wrote:

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@galahad15 wrote:

I have a total of 4, AF-free 2% cashback cards, which I find to be very useful b/c I can earn points on each of them by using each one every month moderately, but then I PIF at the end of the month for all of them (except for DC which I am also currently revolving a 0% promo on).  That way I don't have to worry about having to spend so much on any one single 2% card that I have to revolve on it and not be able to PIF.

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If I understand this correctly, the purpose of four 2% cards is to avoid having even low utilization report on any of them except Citi DoubleCash? If a balance is going to report on DC anyway, why not just use DC and make a modest payment before each statement cuts?

That is, unless you need to use an Amex or Visa somewhere, you could put all your 2% spending on one card and pay off whatever you don't intend to carry into the next statement period.

Or am I missing/misunderstanding something here?

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All very good questions -- I guess the reason I am rather reluctant to use my DC as a rewards card right now is because I am already over 50% util on that card with the 0% promo, so I am trying not so much to add to the balance.  Plus, because of the way payments are allocated if I am understanding correctly, all of the minimum payment goes toward the lowest APR (the 0% promo), and only anything above the minimum payment goes to higher APR balances that I would be charging monthly for rewards.  So for the sake of simplicity, I just figured it might be easier to just exclude the DC for now from accruing rewards points, at least until the promo balance is paid off?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I just opened accounts with them last week. Does having accounts with them really help or is there more so a threshold you need to hit in balances before it matters?

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In my experience, it makes a huge difference. My husband and I both had pretty big app sprees at the beginning of this year. We've banked with Chase for a long time, and both our names are on several accounts for our children with high balances. While other lenders like Barclay, BofA, Discover, AmEx and even CUs like Navy gave us token baby limits around $2000, Chase gave us higher limits and gave both of us both the Freedom and the Amazon cards. We were pretty shocked by them. It has to be because of our long checking history with them with high (to us) balances on the kid accounts. It sure is convenient to have the high limit freedom card to use for most of our normal spend and pay it from our Chase checking. If I didn't need the other cards to build credit, I think I'd be happy with just the Chase Freedom, Discover, Amazon Store and Target. (I spend way too much money at Target and Amazon every month to not get their 5% bonuses, though.) Maybe I'd keep the AmEx too. Oh heck, I like them all. Never mind.

[sr383]

I don't see what's so hard about optimizing spend per category. There's even an app for that.