topic Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer in Credit Cards

Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 20:20:44 GMT

Hi! Need assistance on this if possible. I was sent an offer letter from Care Credit in the mail asking if I want to upgrade to a Care Credit MasterCard. There are reward points involved, MC benefits, and of course I'll be able to use the card almost anywhere. Care Credit promotional benefits will still be included too. But I have some concerns:

1.) If I activate the new card, will it start reporting as a new trade line or keep my current care credit history? I'm concerned about AAoA here as I'm still young and building that. I've had my Care Credit card since 2014 and I have 100% payment history that I don't want to lose. I called Care Credit customer service to ask this and keep getting different answers, even from managers. And when I was assured that it would just change the name of the card and account number vs. reporting as a new trade line and showing the old Care Credit account as closed, they couldn't give me anything in writing to confirm that. People say synchrony bank upgrades in the past have started reporting as a new trade line, so that is why I'm wary to believe them. I even asked TU what they have seen with things like this and they said it could go either way.

2.) will it show up as a hard inquiry? Almost all my hard inquiries have fallen off now, and don't want another one.

Thinking of opting out if AAoA or inquiries could be affected. Won't be worth it for me right now. But considering the offer as I don't use the card much since I'm not always going to have dental/medical expenses, etc. and I know that CareCredit will close it automatically if you don't use it for one year.

Anyone have experience with this? Advice on what to do? My credit score is great and I don't want to ding it unnecessarily because my husband and I are looking to get a house next year!

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 22:16:06 GMT

There's a thread on the "credit card approval " forum about this. From what I've read, yes it will report as a new account, no it won't take a HP.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 02:25:47 GMT

Ok thank you. I saw one thread, not sure if it's the same, but it seemed as if no one knew for sure as they hadn't actually upgraded it yet.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 02:29:23 GMT

Even if it is a new account I would still upgrade because then you will be getting the reward points even on promotional purchases.. at least that was my understanding of the offer.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 02:38:20 GMT

I see your point, tydawg, but if that's the case, wouldn't it be better to just get another card with better rewards?

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 02:59:37 GMT

Candace what state are you in? I heard they're only offering the mastercard to CA, UT and AZ

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 03:20:30 GMT

Candaceee, I am not saying use the CareCredit Mastercard everywhere but for those times that you do utilize the financing offers, I believe you get the points on top of that. So in essence you are getting the special financing as well as the points.

vs.

Right now where you only get the special financing.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 04:30:20 GMT

I'm in TX but I did live in CA until recently. They know I moved but I guess the offer is still on the table because I was in CA.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 04:30:44 GMT

Good point, tydawg. May upgrade now.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

damac2004 — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:26:05 GMT

i just dealt with this. i didn't read any fine print and blindly upgraded because the car was originally for a pet emergency and i was afraid they would close it if i don't use it.

so i activated it and put a small balance on it and within a couple weeks myfico had a few entries with a 25 point score drop!!!

the old account was closed a new account was opened. no hard or soft pull show up in myfico account as of now.

so i'm not sure what is going on. my score was 797 and i had no new credit for a year and a half and was trying to raise my score as much as possible.

i was in the process of using a couple cards i had not in a long time to keep them active. so not sure if a mixture of things happened behind the scenes or not.

but as of now i have a very small balance reporting on 3 cards. i am going to pay them all off and see what happens when the dust settles. i might get a few points back?

after that i will start using a different card with small balance for everyday stuff and am guessing i will get a couple points back from that vs. all cards reporting at 0

so obviously my profile took a hit from this because the balances and cards reporting don't match my profiles score changes when rotating cards around for the last year.

my installment loans are still open so those could only help my scores.

so for me i guess aaoa is an issue? this one new account reporting. i have

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:36:37 GMT

damac, AAoA is likely your issue. The effect will subside in time, if you go to Starbucks (a guilty pleasure of mine) have them charge $5 and reload your gift card balance every two months or so, one transaction should be enough from keeping the cards from closing. No need to carry a balance!

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:36:57 GMT

Thanks so much for that info, damac2004. That's what I was afraid of. My AAoA right now is only 3 years and I'm thinking that the only new account I want to open is a travel card next year. Not sure though. But for me, closing a 2 year account wouldn't be a smart move.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:38:31 GMT

Good idea, tydawg. I'm torn! I don't want the hit but it may be worth it

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:42:53 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Good idea, tydawg. I'm torn! I don't want the hit but it may be worth it

Remember that the closed account will not negatively impact your AAoA, it will continue to grow older for 10 years before dropping off!

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:44:12 GMT

I honestly didn't know that! That changes my perspective

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

pc01user — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:50:52 GMT

Congrats! Great offer. I hope I am sent the same upgrade letter.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:52:07 GMT

It is a relatively new discover in the fico field, so you may experience a small dip in your score, but in my opinion the rewards are worth it.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

damac2004 — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:59:07 GMT

there must be allot of things at play behind the scenes with scores because when i look at my last ap spree it was in early 2014 before i had surgery and was taking time off to rehab. when i go look back at those scores with the hard hits, balances and new account showing up the point drop of 25 points now doesn't seem relative to what i took back then.

i also hate the idea of closing the carecredit but i felt forced on this one. my card has sat for a year with no balance after i paid off my promo for a cats surgery and care.

so i am scared by some of the threads i read around here about closing that account based on inactivity. i can't see a way for me to charge to the regular carecredit card so the mastercard makes that easy for me.

i can't see myself getting the charge cards in the future because i already have reward cards? but i could see myself taking advantage of store cards with 0% finance deals, etc.

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

damac2004 — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 04:51:18 GMT

I have let things settle since my last post and for whatever reason all I got is a point back. All I have is one small credit card balance, my same 2 installment loans, and still haven't sought new credit and don't see a hard pull from carecredit.

So I took a 24 point hit for my aaoa being recalculated?

Seems like extreme swing based on activities over the past 2 years. So is this what they call a rebucket?

Re: Care credit MasterCard upgrade offer

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 06:36:18 GMT

@damac2004 wrote:
I have let things settle since my last post and for whatever reason all I got is a point back. All I have is one small credit card balance, my same 2 installment loans, and still haven't sought new credit and don't see a hard pull from carecredit.

So I took a 24 point hit for my aaoa being recalculated?

Seems like extreme swing based on activities over the past 2 years. So is this what they call a rebucket?

Most of that is probably because of the new acct being reported.

Honestly, anything above 750 is pretty much diminishing returns, as you're not going to see much better offers. Also, a lot of the decline is because you had such high scores to begin with.

At this point, you're just playing for high score (and trust me, no one here can really judge you for that ), so the hit is more to your pride than any lasting, noticable, and/or effective affect. It will climb back up pretty quickly, and probably even go higher, with time.