Millennials and credit card use

[Anonymous]

Completely on the same page.. I don't make a lot of money, but run darn near everything through a credit card.. $30k in spending @ an average of 3% is $1000 per year in rewards.. Well worth the half hour every other Friday to go through my accounts and pay bills.

[Anonymous]

I think most millennials just aren't educated enough to take advantage of the different cards. It's not about how much you make, but how you spend it. It's free money if you PIF and only carry balances on zero apr cards.

[Berk]

Here:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/more-millennials-say-no-to-credit-cards-1.aspx

Here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertharrow/2016/09/13/the-complicated-truth-about-millennials-and-cred...

And here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/business/dealbook/why-millennials-are-in-no-hurry-to-take-on-debt....

[Anonymous]

I'm 28 and here's what I've noticed.

Alot of my friends use debit cards. It's just what they're used to. They never "got into credit cards" like I did. I'm surprised it took me this long to find this forum!

I also run a very successful retail store and let me tell ya.. It's not just millennials. Most of our card transactions are DEBIT. Young, old, rich, poor we cater to almost every demographic and for some reason debit cards are very popular. The products/services we sell are also high dollar items.. Anytime I'm running debit transactions for thousands of dollars I'm just thinking of all the rewards people are missing out on!

[Discover2016]

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@Berk wrote:

Here:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/more-millennials-say-no-to-credit-cards-1.aspx

Here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertharrow/2016/09/13/the-complicated-truth-about-millennials-and-cred...

And here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/business/dealbook/why-millennials-are-in-no-hurry-to-take-on-debt....

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And the ironic thing about it is that they turn their backs on credit cards and car loans but when they go to apply for a mortgage they find out they have a lack of a credit history and throw a tantrum.

[Berk]

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@Discover2016 wrote:

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@Berk wrote:

Here:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/more-millennials-say-no-to-credit-cards-1.aspx

Here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertharrow/2016/09/13/the-complicated-truth-about-millennials-and-cred...

And here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/business/dealbook/why-millennials-are-in-no-hurry-to-take-on-debt....

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And the ironic thing about it is that they turn their backs on credit cards and car loans but when they go to apply for a mortgage they find out they have a lack of a credit history and throw a tantrum.

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Bingo!

[Anonymous]

This thread also proves why Amex is where they're at. Millennials just don't care about that "Amex appearance" so they need to offer products that are more than just based on prestige.

[Berk]

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@Anonymous wrote:
This thread also proves why Amex is where they're at. Millennials just don't care about that "Amex appearance" so they need to offer products that are more than just based on prestige.

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Outside of the myFICO community, I don't think that there are a whole lot of people who think that Amex only offers cards based on prestige. What does "based on prestige" even mean?

[Anonymous]

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@Sharingan wrote:

As for the OP's second consideration, there are other banks with charge cards; however, they have AFs as well from what I can see. The challenge would be combining a competitive reward structure with $0 AF, as there wouldn't be a steady flow of interest for the bank to defray some of the rewards disbursements. Such a charge card may work well for customers but would probably perform quite poorly for the bank. The American Express Zync card (which I still have to this day) was AmEx's attempt to compete in this segment and it fell flat. The AF started as low as $25 and increased as the user added more rewards to the card in the form of "packs." I doubt you will see AmEx introducing a no-AF charge card anytime soon.

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I think AmEx could do a flat 1.5x cashback/MR charge card without charging an AF considering the higher swipe fees they get. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that nearly every credit card reward program is likely funded almost completely through swipe fees (which is why they've been tending to upgrade cards to Visa Signature/WMC/WEMC lately).

[Anonymous]

Early 30s here too. I never wanted to use a credit card before learning about credit here over the last 1.5 years because my only example of credit card use was my mom who has been perpetually carrying 10-20k credit card debt for most of my life. She seems to view credit cards as a bridge between income and desired lifestyle which was a huge turn off to me right from the start.

Now that i know better, i don't even carry a debit card anymore and use only an atm card for the very rare occasion that i need cash for something. Since finding this forum and another popular one almost 2 years ago I've been maintaining mid to high 700 FICOs, single digit monthly utilization, halved my car insurance premium, and got a 1.9% apr on my latest car loan. The previous car loan about 5 years ago was just north of 6% so that tells you the progress I've made mostly with responsible credit card use.

I think the biggest holdup for this generation in regards to credit cards is twofold. Many like me had poor examples in our parents, and i know many who as others have stated have poor money management and so have no savings, live paycheck to paycheck etc and thus rightly are afraid of the ability to rack up debt that a credit card provides.