I would definitely take a look at your spending over the course of a year and see what is not being filled by your BoA cards. Amex is a pretty wide category for instance. For charge cards, Green is now a pretty solid all-around card, Gold is a fantastic restaurant and grocery card, and Platinum is pretty much unbeatable for travel perks. Do you (or would you) use a particular airline or alliance? If Delta and SkyTeam make sense for you, the Delta family of cards are great. The Marriott and Hilton cards can be fantastic value even for someone who travels only a little. And there are still others to choose from.
A 40 point drop sounds extremely unlikely for simply adding a new account, at least with FICO score models used by almost all lenders. Where did you see such a large drop?
@Anonymous wrote:Hi all,
I'm quite new to the forum, I was a long time visitor.
I want to apply for a new credit card (5th) one and just wanted to get your thoughts on which one to apply for?
Currently, I have 3 cards from BofA (cash+premium+travel) ($32K total) and last month I got an Amazon Prime store card ($3K, which unfortunately dropped my score from 780 to 740), with a max account age of 3 years and an average of 2 years. The reason I have many BofA cards are they gave them all without having an SSN, while I was a visitor in the US. Then all of them are added to my profile after I got my SSN and GC.
Instead of applying for new cards in the longer future, I thought it's best to get new cards at the earliest so that the average age of accounts will be lower in the long term.
Definitely, I want to build a good credit score (aiming 800), as well as have well-reputed cards in my wallet. I have cards from 2 other countries that I lived in earlier, around more than $120K total limit, but now trying to understand how the system works in the US.
I was thinking of getting an Apple card or an AMEX.
What do you think?
We would need to know what kind of card you'd like to have. Low interest, cash back, travel rewards, etc
@Anonymous wrote:What I spend per month:
~$1000 for groceries (Safeway, TJ, local groceries, Costco)
~$500 general shopping (houseware, clothing, tech)
~$250 restaurant/dining
~$250 for gas (Costco gas mainly)
~$400 online payments, bills etc.
~$250 Amazon
I try to use BofA Premium as much as possible for groceries and gas (it gives 2.625% for anything, 3.5% for dining due to being a preferred reward client).
I just get the Amazon store card, so I'll be using it for Amazon (5%)
I use the BofA Cash Rewards card for any online purchase (Set rewards category as online to get 3%).
Due to Covid, I'll not be a frequent traveler at least for the next 18 months, so I'm not into travel reward cards too much as of now.
So regarding cashback, I think I'm in good shape, not sure if I should go for Amex Blue cash preferred for grocery and gas (or gold?).
Regarding Amex, I read that starting a charge card usage early helps to build a good relationship and increase transaction limits over the long term with Amex. That's why I want to jump onto the charge card train (Although I read that it doesn't help as much as other cards to the score).
Based on my spending, do you think Gold makes sense as of now? (Platinum looks fancy but I'm not sure I can justify the AF as of now).
How do you compare Amex rewards to cashback?
I don't think the Gold is so great. I don't think it adds anything significant to what you already have'
To me, I've never gotten a lot of use out of Amex MR's. To me their highest value has been trading them in for JetBlue points, but they're only worth 8 tenths of a cent in that trade. If I were you I would go for a Chase card rather than an Amex card.
@Anonymous wrote:What I spend per month:
~$1000 for groceries (Safeway, TJ, local groceries, Costco)
~$500 general shopping (houseware, clothing, tech)
~$250 restaurant/dining
~$250 for gas (Costco gas mainly)
~$400 online payments, bills etc.
~$250 Amazon
How much of your grocery spend is at Costco vs not at Costco. Amex Blue Cash Preferred only gives 1% cash back at Costco. Would the Citi Costco Anywhere card be worth considering?
@Anonymous wrote:
@NoHardLimits wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:What I spend per month:
~$1000 for groceries (Safeway, TJ, local groceries, Costco)
~$500 general shopping (houseware, clothing, tech)
~$250 restaurant/dining
~$250 for gas (Costco gas mainly)
~$400 online payments, bills etc.
~$250 Amazon
How much of your grocery spend is at Costco vs not at Costco. Amex Blue Cash Preferred only gives 1% cash back at Costco. Would the Citi Costco Anywhere card be worth considering?
Costco is around 10-15% of my grocery spending.
With that much regular grocery spend, Blue Cash Preferred would give you 6% cash back for roughly 7 months at which time you would hit the $6000 annual cap. It's still a nice return for your spend. The current sign-up bonus is also very good: $300 bonus for $3000 in spend with the $95 annual fee waived.