First Card, Best Card, Worst Card, Wish Card

[Anonymous]

First Card -  A Gold card from First National Bank of Marin(I think) back when I was young and financially a moron. Got a CL of $500 and Used it mostly for buying food for the house. Did well until I realized, "Hey this is like having extra $$$!! I want a Playstation ONE. I can't afford it, but hey I can pay the minimum and I should be good!"  Yep, that was my introduction to screwed up credit and DEBT.

Worst - It's a tie between the card above and my current card from Roman's store.

Best - My Secured Capital One Platinum. Once my screwups fell off my CR, C1 sent me an offer in 2010. this card inspired me into taking financial responsibility for myself.

Wish - Amex platinum :-) Now that I have a great job and means to travel, this is the card I want.

[2GreenThumbs]

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wrote:

This is a little game for us all to play, and perhaps even educational.

Its simple, tell us about your cards.  The first one you ever had, the best one you ever had,  the worst one you ever had, and the one you wish you had. 

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Ooh...I like games.  I'll play along:

First card:  So long ago, I can't even remember, but if I had to take a guess I'm sure it was a store card.  The Broadway or maybe May Company.

Best Card:  It changes.  Right now, I'd have to pick my Costco Visa.  The cash back has been good to me.  Sometimes it's my Disney Premier.  I'm at Disney a lot.  I turn around and spend the rewards on more Disney.

Worst Card:  I had a WAMU visa that Chase CLD after they bought out WAMU.  It put me way over on utilization. It was in the beginning of a bad financial time in my life.

Wish Card:  Chase Sapphire Preferred.  I have a lot of bucket list traveling I'd like to do and I think Chase could really help me in that aspect.

[Anonymous]

First Card: Sears 1984 (still used carbon slips)
Worst Card: American Nat’l Bank $300 limit 1989
Best Card: No personal favorite in my lineup
Wish Card: CSR

[Anonymous]

First ever card was a Sears store card. I was 20, was initially turned down, called in and was approved for $200. It later was well into the high four digits before I got into a dispute and they closed the card. Best card back then was AmEx. My brother thought I should have one and applied for me. Worst card was Union 76 a gas card. I was the victim of I.D. theft and they took off the charges, but closed the account. I really don't think they believed me. Had all of the CC's back then, wanted none.

This rebuild: Cap1 Quicksilver with a $300 starting limit. Best is now AmEx. Worst is A&F, gotten because my daughter was an accountant there and I thought I should show loyalty. It has a very low limit. BoA, the only major CC I don't have. I might look into PenFed in the early Fall.

[Anonymous]

First: American Express Blue for Students. They gave me a $500 line and they would not budge on that for years after I graduated (even though I had no derogatories and other cards since). Eventually they relented and it's now a Blue Cash Everyday with a $9000 line. It's nice for the grocery bonus and the free ShopRunner.

Best: Chase Amazon Prime Visa, if only because I shop at Amazon a lot, and now the Whole Foods bonus makes it even better. Doesn't hurt that it looks cool, too. I now have a Chase Sapphire Preferred that I will be using for non-Amazon stuff, though.

Worst: Capital One Sony Card. I got this when the Playstation 3 was still $599; I don't remember the sign-up bonus, but it allowed my poor student self to afford one at the time. Capital One doesn't allow product changes for this one (not even to the Playstation card!) and the earn rate on rewards isn't great. It used to be you could scan in receipts for Sony products purchased elsewhere and get bonus points, not sure if they still do that. Regardless it's a pain and I don't buy a ton of Sony stuff anyway. It served its purpose and now it's just there to help my average account age.

Wish: Chase Sapphire Reserve. I'll probably downgrade my CSP to a Freedom or Freedom Unlimited and then grab the sign-up bonus for the CSR when I can.

[beutiful5678]

What a fun topic!

Citi mtvU Platinum Select VisaFirst card: My first card ever was the Citi mtvU Platinum Select Visa for students. I was actually just a senior in high school but was taking a class at the university up the hill from my high school so I decided to take advantage of my university email address and my part time income to get a card and start building my credit. (My dad was not credit savvy and had no cards on which to add me as an AU.) I actually never even watched MTV as we did not have cable at home - it was just the first student credit card I found online so I just went for it, haha.

In December, after a few years hiatus from credit (and shamefully, quite a few charge-offs and collections) I found a pre-approved offer in the mail from Capital One for an unsecured Capital One Platinum card with 18 months at 0%. I applied for it and was miraculously approved despite scores in the mid-500's. So this Capital One card is my first card for Credit Building, Round 2. (I'm not sure what my precise scores were at the time of approval as I didn't pull my FICO8 scores until mid-January when they were 546 EX, 571 EQ, and 566 TU.)

Best Card: Right now my best would definitely be my Capital One card. I'm not quite sure how I got the 0% financing with scores in the mid-500's but I'll happily take it.

Worst Card: Credit One, for obvious reasons. But it's doing its job and I will hopefully be in a place where I can dump it in a year or so.

Wish Card: Oh man, do I have a lot of cards on my wish list. I obviously can't get them all at once and especially not with my scores. I'd say the card that I am hoping to get next would be the Blue Delta SkyMiles AMEX or the Target REDcard. Once I get some derogatory items off my report and my scores up either of these should be in reach.

[tacpoly]

First card: an AU on my parent’s Amex Gold at 17 when I started uni. I think the first card I got on my own was a BoA Visa when I turned 18. This was when credit was easy; they gave me a 50k limit (they gave my brother 65k). I wish I knew about AAoA back then because I closed cards when I opened new ones (and I got new cards because they looked nice). I would not have gotten new cards for frivolous reasons, kept my oldest cards, and be enjoying 30-year old accounts.

Worst card: A Saks Fifth Ave World MasterCard that had more fraud charges than my actual spend. Thieves must have been drawn to it. I eventually closed it after the 3rd replacement card. I don’t think I had it for a year.

Best card: I use the CSR and Prestige equally.

Wish card: Was offered the JPM Reserve but didn’t think I needed it. I found out it was a hidden trade line on FlyerTalk — well after we moved all our money out of JPM PB. If I had taken the JPMR, I would not have gotten the CSR.

[Anonymous]

First card - rewards 660

Best Card - Cap1 QS

Worst Card - Cap1 QS1

Wish Card - Any AmEx, I just want in the AmEx club

[Anonymous]

BOA Cash Rewards, Citi Double Cash, CreditOne (Never Had), Venture Card (On My List to Get)

[Anonymous]

First card:  Gordon's Jewelry back in 1988 and I was NOT 18 yet, about 3 months shy of it, so I don't know how they even approved that. But it was my first and I loved being all adult with credit, knew NOTHING about managing credit at all and royally screwed things up about 2 years and 8-10 cards later.  But my first purchase on that Gordon's card I was so proud of getting was a pair of 1/8th ct diamond stud earrings. They cost $99.00 and I still have them, 30 years later.

Best card: Discover It that I just got a few months ago, after 8 years of nothing reporting but student loans and an autoloan, due to credit screw up #3 (hopefully the 3rd time is the charm, I'm getting too old for this rebuilding thing every decade or so--doing well so far, AZEO, utilization below 9% and PIF as soon as the statement cuts each month).

Worst card: I'm not sure, but I think it was a Credit One that had an annual fee charged in monthly installments, a fee for this, a fee for that, if you opened the envelope from the front instead of the back, I think there was a fee for that too. 

Wish card: I would like a simple Chase Freedom Visa. Just because I now have a Capital One Quicksilver, Discover It, Amex BCE, but no Visa (other than my work BOA Visa which really isn't MINE) ...once I get that one (they just denied me a couple of days ago) I'm done. I'm a small time player with a small time salary and a simple life. 4 cards are enough for me, then it is retirment to the garden forever!