@Anonymous wrote:@sarge12... what a situation to be in
You could pursue City National Bank's Crystal Visa Infinite and bump with the big time rollers in the event, you would find that of interest
Got'ta keep your interest so you stay in the loop!
But, isn't this counterintuitive to the OP's goals? Based on the CC lineup, there doesn't appear to be any indication that the OP is interested in high AF travel-type of CCs. It was mentioned upthread that the OP drives ~1,000 miles annually.
@FinStar wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:@sarge12... what a situation to be in
You could pursue City National Bank's Crystal Visa Infinite and bump with the big time rollers in the event, you would find that of interest
Got'ta keep your interest so you stay in the loop!
But, isn't this counterintuitive to the OP's goals? Based on the CC lineup, there doesn't appear to be any indication that the OP is interested in high AF travel-type of CCs. It was mentioned upthread that the OP drives ~1,000 miles annually.
True...I never travel anywhere hardly because my disability, which does not prevent travel, does however prevent travel from being enjoyable. I finally decided that planning a trip that I dread going on makes little sense.
@sarge12 wrote:
@privacyadvocate69 wrote:
@sarge12 wrote:
@privacyadvocate69 wrote:
Why do you need so many credit cards?It is just a matter of the free money they offer just for getting their cards and charging 500 to1000 dollars on the card for spending I was going to do anyway. In return they give me 150-250 dollars, often for a card that will just be thrown in the sock drawer. I don't need the credit, I don't need the money, and I don't need a very high credit score either. It is not about need at all, I just have problems with saying no to these offers that give me free money for doing nothing except paying bills or buying things I would buy regardless.
So then, the issue is really you're running out of incentive offers, rather than running out of banks.
As for saying, "no"...if you're not getting the offers, there is nothing to say "no" to.
The Quicken US bank credit card was an offer in the mail. The 2nd card I found on the internet... HSBC. The Quicken provides 1 year free quicken and 100 SUB. The HSBC provides 3% cash back for the first year up to 10,000 dollars in charges. Both offer 0% interest for 18 months and 12 months respectively. Nearly every card I see on the card sites is in my mind an offer, since I can't remember the last time I applied with a new issuer and received a denial. If double dipping with a current issuer, they can easily see I have never carried a balance, and I stopped any significant use after receiving the SUB. I suspect most of them would issue a denial based on the use of their card, because they regularly denied CLI increases. In private these issuers call transactors deadbeats, that is not a joke, they really do call those who always PIF deadbeats. PS:: Yes it is getting harder to find banks with cards I want, that I do not already have.
I saw on the news a couple of years back, a reporter was interviewing a cc company rep who mentioned the “transactors” are considered “deadbeats” if they pif every month. I can honestly state, I’m proud of being a “deadbeat” in cc companies eyes. 😉
Starting Score: 784
@sarge12 wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
Since you're fond of cash back, the PenFed Power Cash Rewards card is good.How would having another 2% cashback card be beneficial?
In keeping with your SUB-seeking, there are other 2% besides
the CITI Double-Cash and they are offering SUBs.
Depending on how you calculate it, they may not be
as rich an offer as your present HSBC card but if you
run out of cards to seek, they are available.
They are a certainly a valid suggestion for your profile.
*FNBO (First National Bank Omaha) Complete Rewards is offering $50 SUB for simply making a purchase (amount unspecified) within the first three months. It also pays 2% on everything when deposited to account.
*PenFed Power Cash is offering $100 SUB for spending $1500 in first 90 days. It pays 2% on everything if you are military (Honors Advantage) or if you maintain a checking account.
*SDFCU (State Dept Federal Credit Union) Premium Cash is offering $200 SUB when you spend $3000 in first 90 days. It pays 2% on everything.
You also don't yet have cards yet with any of these lenders.
@sarge12 wrote: "They offer these SUBs to gain market share in the competitive credit card business, but they are finding that a fairly large and growing number of card holders are getting their cards solely for the SUB. It is becoming more difficult to find higher SUB cards, and it is quite possible that the SUB will eventually go away."
@sarge12 wrote: "Trust me, if enough people used their cards like I do, these SUB and rewards would evaporate."
Sad but true observations. I've seen a lot of changes in credit over several decades and SUBs simply didn't exist not too long ago. For all of our sakes, it would be disappointing to see them disappear completely. I don't blame people for trying to qualify for them, and I've done it myself. In the past 16 months, I've gotten literally thousands of dollars worth of "free money" from Chase that could be either cashed-in or used for even more value through travel (UR portal). However, I've observed three very different types of behavior when it comes to SUB-seeking.
Obviously, the banks don't "make" money when they give it away for a SUB. It's a loss-leader to entice people to set up an account where the bank hopes to make money from them in interest or late charges or swipe fees or BT offers. The interest-payers and fee-payers are their bread-and-butter but even though they might call the PIFers "dead beats", they are still apparently glad to have us along for the ride because they are still making money off of us in terms of swipe-fee volume and low lending risk.
So the first category of customer, which happens to be the one the bank is targeting, whether you are a revolver or transactor, is a LOYAL customer who plans to keep and use the card. I have never applied for a card purely for the SUB and I never will for a couple of reasons. It's a lot of trouble to go through IMO to open an account just to close (or have it closed for inactivity) later. It causes a hard inquiry or two on my credit reports and I value those hits on my credit more than I value a couple of hundred dollars in SUB. And, of course, I know it's not the intent of the bank to just give out free money to anyone and everyone. So my personal feeling is that applying for cards just for SUBs alone feels dishonest. I want to apply for cards I find value in beyond the SUB, whether it is for continued use, balance transfer, credit line movement to another account with that lender, or somehow improving my financial picture otherwise. While I have applied for a lot of Chase cards, I am also a 19-year customer and plan to continue to use most of these cards for the long term. I'm a very profitable customer for them, even with the SUBs they have given me.
The second category of customer is what sarge is doing where a customer opens accounts occassionally and strategically but purely for the SUBs. I don't fault him for that. He's following the rules and the banks allow it. He's also limiting the number of times he applies and spreading it out among the banks, so I respect that pattern of behavior. It's not something I would do but 'live and let live" about what choices other people make. It's reasonable behavior and for him, it's almost as much about the "game" of getting free money from the bank as it is about the money itself. It probably causes little threat to the SUB availability in the industry for the rest of us, as long as literally everyone doesn't start doing it because the banks make so much money in other ways.
The third category of customer is the one that I believe may most threaten the existence of SUBs for the rest of us; the frequent churner. Banks have done this to themselves by allowing repeated bonuses in many cases, but some customers have sometimes become overly obsessive chasing SUBs. They are why banks have started putting limits on apps that we didn't used to hear about like Chase's 5/25 rule or 48-month rule or Bank of America's 2/3/4 rule. While it can make more hoops to jump through when applying, I'm actually a little glad to see these rules exist because of abuses by the churners that could shut down the entire SUB system for the majority of us.
The banks should be able to offer incentives to compete for our business and we should ALL be able to share in them, within reason.