topic Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards! in Relationships and Money

Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 01:45:18 GMT

As the title states I am getting married In July. Both my soon to be husband travel togetheer and I am huge Chase UR collector! (In fact I am using 34k points to get us both round trip tickets to Grand Cayman and back for the Honeymoon). We both NEVER carrt balances so we own nothing on our cards. I was thinking of moving my CSP limit to the Freedom, close it. Have him apply for the CSR and turn his CSP into a Freedom Unlimited??? I would be an authorized user on his CSR which would make it $525 and we would run our main spend out of the my Freedom, our CSR and both the Unlimiteds. We both dont need a CSP. I am thinking the way I collect URs the 3x would be so much better???

My Cards

Chase Freedom $4k

CHase Sapphire $6k ($95 fee)

Chase Freedom Unlimited $2.5K

Amex Platinum NPSL ($450 fee)

Discover $7.8K

Quiksilver 1 $10K

His Cards

Chase Sapphire $18k ($95 fee)

BOA Rewards $12k

Discover $16k

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 02:09:06 GMT

These days true joint accounts are rare. Mostly either you or he holds the account and the other is an AU but not an actual account owner. So I'm not sure you could have your Freedom and his CFU / CSR combined for one account of URs. May have to have all three be yours or his. Other than that, the plan souds good.

Best wishes for your upcoming wedding!

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

enjoimorenow — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 02:13:46 GMT

If I were you, I would joint apply for the CSR as a new card to get the sign up bonus. Then PC his CSP to freedom and add you as an AU. Combine all of your chase cards to the freedom unlimited and add him as an AU. Then both have access to all 3 chase cards to get URs.

You'll have to decide if keeping the Amex plat is worth it with the AF and somewhat overlapping perks to the CSR. Discover and CapOne probably sock drawer and put a small recurring charge like netflix or something just to keep them reporting.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 03:14:50 GMT

My advice, OP?

Don't.

And i'm not saying that as a man of little faith in the goodness of people. I'm saying that as a man of financial prudence.

Get a joint bank account for now (Or when you actually marry), Open it with the proceeds of your wedding gifts if you want!

Credit should remain seperate but if you must, add them as AU's.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

joltdude — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 03:18:16 GMT

You can shuttle URs between each others separate accounts ... if you want to do anything.. go get 1 card from a CU that still offers joint accounts.. but keep everything else separate...

-J

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

msm859 — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 03:25:46 GMT

If you want some free legal advice, short answer is don't do it. Long answer is if you want to get a joint credit card together that is probably okay. Longer answer if this is either of yours second marriage and/or either or both have substantial assets you should really be talking about a pre nuptial.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 03:45:11 GMT

My advice is don't do it. There are plenty of good reasons to not do it that are or will be discussed here, but I want to come at it from this angle. Say something horrible happens and one or both of you lose your job or become financially strained and can't make your commitments. By focusing on one of your commitments and allowing the others to take the hit, at least one of you would still have good credit to obtain good rates. When y'all are back on your feet you could use the good persons credit to build back up the persons credit who took a hit. If y'all are together on credit then you both fall and it becomes harder for both of you to bounce back. It's morbid to think about, but I'm sure there are plenty of people on here who could tell you it happens.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 03:47:02 GMT

Oh no let me clear I never meant joint as we apply together. I meant what to do with our cards each. There is no point in having joint cards. Authorized user yes joint accounts no.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 03:59:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Oh no let me clear I never meant joint as we apply together. I meant what to do with our cards each. There is no point in having joint cards. Authorized user yes joint accounts no.

@Anonymous wrote:
My Cards
Chase Freedom $4k (Keep, Take 2K from CSP)
CHase Sapphire $6k ($95 fee) (Close this and spread your limit as directed to your other two Chase cards, get CSP AU card with your soon to be Spouse)
Chase Freedom Unlimited $2.5K (Keep, take 4K from CSP)
Amex Platinum NPSL ($450 fee) (Up to you, If the benefits work for you...)
Discover $7.8K (Keep)
Quiksilver 1 $10K (Keep if 0 AF)

His Cards
Chase Sapphire $18k ($95 fee) (Keep, Get added as AU)
BOA Rewards $12k (Keep)
Discover $16k (Keep)

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 04:28:56 GMT

Don't join accounts. Add as AU on accounts both of you use to benefit each other (doesn't matter who the primary is), but have some separate cards. If you two have a falling out, it is easier to deal with. But more importantly, if something happens, a job lost, medical problem, etc would hurt both your scores. If one of you is separate as far as credit is concerned, they can be the one to apply for needed credit or mortgages, or loans as they would still have great credit if needed. I agree with Nixon as far as how to handle the cards. Remember that you can transfer UR to a relative fairly easily so you could have your own Freedom trio cards, and just have the AF card be the AU that you share.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 08:00:15 GMT

I have been married for 20 years, we have one account for our funds and make financial decisions together, our standing let me know if your going to spend over $200 rule has held us in good stead even though $200 is a really low number these days it is good to give eachother a heads up and we keep eachother in check when money is tight or we are working towards a financial goal.

On the credit front we are both on any car loans we have and mortgages but CC's are seperate although we make eachother AU. Its my job to monitor our credit and pay the bills. Once a month or so we sitdown and go over everything to make sure we are on the same page and it works great. I have friends that do everything totally seperate, from my perspective we are in this thing together in everyway.

Just my 2 cents, congrats and best wishes!

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

redpat — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 11:01:43 GMT

Yep, typical thinking already, what is his is yours, lol!

Just add as AUs, don't combine accounts as others said.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

redpat — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 11:27:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have been married for 20 years, we have one account for our funds and make financial decisions together, our standing let me know if your going to spend over $200 rule has held us in good stead even though $200 is a really low number these days it is good to give eachother a heads up and we keep eachother in check when money is tight or we are working towards a financial goal.

On the credit front we are both on any car loans we have and mortgages but CC's are seperate although we make eachother AU. Its my job to monitor our credit and pay the bills. Once a month or so we sitdown and go over everything to make sure we are on the same page and it works great. I have friends that do everything totally seperate, from my perspective we are in this thing together in everyway.

Just my 2 cents, congrats and best wishes!

I'd kill myself....... Plus, that means I would have to talk to her more.......JK......Wait a second, no I'm not......

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

newhis — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 11:50:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
As the title states I am getting married In July. Both my soon to be husband travel togetheer and I am huge Chase UR collector! (In fact I am using 34k points to get us both round trip tickets to Grand Cayman and back for the Honeymoon). We both NEVER carrt balances so we own nothing on our cards. I was thinking of moving my CSP limit to the Freedom, close it. Have him apply for the CSR and turn his CSP into a Freedom Unlimited??? I would be an authorized user on his CSR which would make it $525 and we would run our main spend out of the my Freedom, our CSR and both the Unlimiteds. We both dont need a CSP. I am thinking the way I collect URs the 3x would be so much better???

My Cards
Chase Freedom $4k
CHase Sapphire $6k ($95 fee)
Chase Freedom Unlimited $2.5K
Amex Platinum NPSL ($450 fee)
Discover $7.8K
Quiksilver 1 $10K

His Cards
Chase Sapphire $18k ($95 fee)
BOA Rewards $12k
Discover $16k

Yes, it is a good plan. If the CSR was 100K bonus I would say that you both apply, but now that it is only 50K is up to you if both apply for it or just him and you be AU.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

HeavenOhio — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 15:48:44 GMT

I think the plan is good too. Additionally, the OP might possibly want to add her future hubby to her newly combined Freedom. The bottom line in the end is that each of them would have access to the Sapphire Reserve, the Freedom, and a Freedom Unlimited.

With the QuicksliverOne, call each month to see if you can dump the annual fee by product changing it into a Quicksilver. That offer doesn't come up often, so you have to be persistent. In the month the fee posts, call to see if it can be waived. This is a nice card to have around because of the lack of a FTF.

With two high annual fee cards in the mix, maybe the OP wants to look into a product change on the AMEX. Or not.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

K-in-Boston — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 16:22:34 GMT

Chynnac, what are the account opening dates of all of the Chase cards? Since Chase lets you PC pretty much at will and allows you to move credit lines (except for $500 if the donor cards have had activity in the past 90 days), you may as well optimize the age of your accounts when doing this. Do you know (ballpark) what the APRs are on each card? You stated you never carry balances, but life happens and if the cards are close in age it's much better to close the 24% one than the 12% one. Also, how heavily do you use the 5% categories on Freedom?

My wife and I are AUs on many of each other's accounts. The Freedom and CSP are mine while the Freedom Unlimited is hers, but we each use all 3. I am debating PCing my CSP to CSR at some point even without the sign-up bonus unless it shows up in my Offers page before then, in which case I would rather take the sign-up bonus.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 18:15:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have been married for 20 years, we have one account for our funds and make financial decisions together, our standing let me know if your going to spend over $200 rule has held us in good stead even though $200 is a really low number these days it is good to give eachother a heads up and we keep eachother in check when money is tight or we are working towards a financial goal.

On the credit front we are both on any car loans we have and mortgages but CC's are seperate although we make eachother AU. Its my job to monitor our credit and pay the bills. Once a month or so we sitdown and go over everything to make sure we are on the same page and it works great. I have friends that do everything totally seperate, from my perspective we are in this thing together in everyway.

Just my 2 cents, congrats and best wishes!

Once a couple has been together for a few years in marriage, I can see why you might combine and AU on all cards. For the OP, just know AU's are still affected as though the account is their own. I still recommend avoiding having 100% crossover for unforseen circumstances as one person having a great credit score can make them alot more managable.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 18:30:23 GMT

I see no reason to do a joint account. My ex-wife charged up 30k on our joint accounts after we seperated. You may think that your spouse would never do that but why take the risk?

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

HeavenOhio — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 19:05:12 GMT

The OP has already clarified that she isn't looking into joint accounts and that the only goal is to maximize the points on their Chase cards. Maybe the concern is popping up because she used the word "our" in the lead when she was actually just proposing an AU situation on a single account.

Re: Getting Married! Advice how to combine our cards!

Creditaddict — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 23:15:27 GMT

I think CSR is great idea and then move limits to the Freedoms and close the rest.

I don't see the point of Freedom Unlimited because I think you could probably value UR points higher on CSR