topic Re: Should I get an American Express card? in General Credit Topics

Should I get an American Express card?

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 23:38:37 GMT

I have been receiving offers from American Express to get a card. I have a two Mastercards, Visa, Discover, Home Depot, gas cards, and a couple of others. My credit score is in the excellent range. I have never had an American Express card. I am retired and do not travel. They are offering me 2X points, $0 annual fee, 0% intro APR, 15,000 membership reward points.

I try to keep most of my cards paid off each month. At this time, I have about $1700 in credit card debt. About $1500 of this is for Care Credit. I will pay this off in about a year.

I would not use the card very often as I don't need to.

Should I accept this offer or just throw away the offer and keep what I have?

Would accepting the offer lower or raise my crdeit score? The only reason I can think of for accepting the offer would be to raise my credit score. Am I correct in this assumption?

Does Am Ex still require you to pay it off each month? It seems I remember someone telling me this years ago.

I look forward to your responses

Thank you

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

dragontears — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 23:52:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have been receiving offers from American Express to get a card. I have a two Mastercards, Visa, Discover, Home Depot, gas cards, and a couple of others. My credit score is in the excellent range. I have never had an American Express card. I am retired and do not travel. They are offering me 2X points, $0 annual fee, 0% intro APR, 15,000 membership reward points.

I try to keep most of my cards paid off each month. At this time, I have about $1700 in credit card debt. About $1500 of this is for Care Credit. I will pay this off in about a year.

I would not use the card very often as I don't need to.

Should I accept this offer or just throw away the offer and keep what I have?

Would accepting the offer lower or raise my crdeit score? The only reason I can think of for accepting the offer would be to raise my credit score. Am I correct in this assumption?

Does Am Ex still require you to pay it off each month? It seems I remember someone telling me this years ago.

I look forward to your responses

Thank you

If you don't travel and won't really use the card don't apply for it. There is nothing special about Amex unless it suits your spend.

In general, opening a new card will lower your score in the short term.

Amex has both charge cards (that have to be paid in full every month) and credit cards which you can revolve a balance on. My guess is that the preapproval you got was for a credit card as the charge cards don't come with 0% APR last I knew.

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

Face_Value — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:31:47 GMT

@dragontears Would it be beneficial to him to get an amex card with a good balance transfer intro? So he can transfer that care credit debt.

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

dragontears — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:38:22 GMT

@Face_Value wrote:
@dragontears Would it be beneficial to him to get an amex card with a good balance transfer intro? So he can transfer that care credit debt.

Yes IF he can't pay off the balance before the promotional APR expires on his current card

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 01:05:57 GMT

Thank y'all for the insight. I think I will just keep what I have.

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

Citylights18 — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 01:30:24 GMT

AMEX has pros and cons.

Pros

1) Good point earning rates.

2) Nice offers for 5 or 10 dollars off.

3) Rakuten with very good shopping portal bonuses.

4) Good for flight redemptions

5) Card utilization doesn't get tracked on Green, Gold, Platinum ect.

Cons

1) Relatively high annual fees.

2) Not particularly strong on hotel redemptions.

I feel their business cards make more sense since their are limited choices out there on the market. The higher annual fee becomes less of a factor since your accepting that due to being a business card. Its probably worth while however to waltz through their personal cards to pick up the SUBs.

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

ccquest — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 01:48:30 GMT

If it's a $0 AF, that means its one of the credit cards and you can pay that balance whenever (just be aware of interest charges I suppose).

I mostly just got my card because I wanted A Amex card and to get the 3X CLI luck hopefully so it grows quickly, but beyond that it doesn't seem that great. I will say the portal and the other offers (like Shop Small and the restaurant Spend X get X off offers) have been working well though so I'm liking it.

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

SouthJamaica — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 03:05:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have been receiving offers from American Express to get a card. I have a two Mastercards, Visa, Discover, Home Depot, gas cards, and a couple of others. My credit score is in the excellent range. I have never had an American Express card. I am retired and do not travel. They are offering me 2X points, $0 annual fee, 0% intro APR, 15,000 membership reward points.

I try to keep most of my cards paid off each month. At this time, I have about $1700 in credit card debt. About $1500 of this is for Care Credit. I will pay this off in about a year.

I would not use the card very often as I don't need to.

Should I accept this offer or just throw away the offer and keep what I have?

Would accepting the offer lower or raise my crdeit score? The only reason I can think of for accepting the offer would be to raise my credit score. Am I correct in this assumption?

Does Am Ex still require you to pay it off each month? It seems I remember someone telling me this years ago.

I look forward to your responses

Thank you

I don't see what you need another card for.

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

Save-n-Invest — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 18:56:41 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank y'all for the insight. I think I will just keep what I have.

Good call!

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

sxa001 — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 02:39:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank y'all for the insight. I think I will just keep what I have

I used to be tempted to just apply anytime I got an offer, but now my general rule of thumb is A) Does the card actually provide me benefit (either card benefits or SUB) B) How many inquires have I had recently, I have been working to keep my new accounts below the 5/24 threshold. I agree I think you are probably good based on the spend that you have described.

Re: Should I get an American Express card?

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 03:10:58 GMT

If the card itself doesn't offer much value (to the applicant) I would think the next thing to look at would be the SUB and whether or not scooping that up would be "worth it" to the individual.