Looking Back, Any Credit Cards That You Regret Going After?

[wasCB14]

I find the best way to avoid regret about a card is to get a good SUB when I open the account. With a start like that, it's hard to go very wrong.

[KJinNC]

I am the opposite end of the spectrum from the OP. I am 2-3 months into a build or rebuild. My main regret is that I was in an unnecessary rush to get to three cards and was frustrated that I was rejected for Discover secured, so I got a Primor secured. Then, I got the Discover secured a week later. The Primor is completely unnecessary and I wish I hadn't bothered.

A lesser regret is that I also got a Capital One secured card, due to my incorrect belief it could graduate. If I could do it over, I'd also probably skip that, and get a TD Bank secured card.

[NRB525]

@Revelate, when was your US Bank experience? In the last few years they have significantly improved the website and ability to work with accounts.

One card is the State Dept FCU Secured card. Got it in 2015 when it was a SP all the way. Turns out it was fun to play with the $500 limit, but found SDFCU to be not simple to work with. I probably missed some features but closed it as I have Diners for Chip+PIN and don’t need extra accounts.

Other cards with SUB make the pain bearable, until I just close the account as not worthwhile.

[pinkandgrey]

There’s more than one lol but the big one would be the Venture. I got it and then cancelled it before the physical card even showed up lol. Stupid me. 

[zerofire]

To this day my Speedway CC still gives me shivers just by thinking about it. Why in the world did I apply for that card? You know something is wrong when you get an approval, the thing arrives as just a mag stripe card(in a chip world), has a $6,000 SL, and you do not want to use it because another card is better. It was even worse that the rewards program was completely described on the site and I read through it. (Facepalm)

[Anonymous]

I regret PenFed Platinum Rewards. I didn't do my homework and saw "3x grocery / 5x gas" and assumed it meant 3% and 5% respectively. Not so -- it costs 5,880 points to redeem a $50 prepaid Visa, so the actual return is 2.55% grocery and 4.25% gas. Plus the fact that you can't redeem for a cash deposit, only a gift card, reduces the return (i.e. that's $50 spend on which I can't earn 2.5% cashback with my Alliant card, so its value is effectively $48.75). Plus... gas is only gas-paid-at-the-pump, not inside. Besides all that, 5,880 points is a pretty high minimum cashout limit, especially for such a narrowly-categorized card.

I got mad at this rather deceptive advertising (my mistake for not doing my due diligence though, of course), and used manufactured spend to bring my balance to exactly 5,880, got my $50 gift card, and won't ever use again. Sock drawered.

[FloydWonder]

I regret getting my Amex ED card. Rewards structure is utterly useless for me, and I only received the regular (10k) SUB.

It does, however, serve as a backup MR bank in case I ever decide to close my Gold card. So it stays in the SD.

[CreditCuriosity]

Oh we have all hit these landmines and various cards probably more than I can remember I have gotten then closed a few come to mind

FNBO M-LIFE - No real purpose as had the hyatt card which was better in every way and lack of the sp cli others appear to have gotten with fnbo obviously has since been closed

Any of my few us bank CC, for whatever reason they always low ball my with limit as had a few granted one was when credit was so-so, but other is when credit was good.  I will not fall into low limit cards (to me) again.

Other kinda pointless cards as well a few that i still have, but get bored and end up with a meh rewards card when i already have better.  I guess i just like the hunt as aggregate cl's of 500k+ etc i really don't go after, but somehow i am pretty dang close!

[etatauri]

Most store cards I got before I got interested in credit scores.

I had a TJMaxx card I got for the 15% discount and it was canceled because I never activated it. Now its there as a hard pull and I don't even have that card. Thankfully my Gap card did not close so I'm keeping it for credit history even though I will probably never use it.

I also bought a Pixel Phone from Google. On the website, it said there was 1-year interest-free financing. However, in my credit report it reports as a credit card account despite not having a card to go with it. I can't use this anywhere so it is completely useless. If I knew better I would have bought it outright.

[EdMan63]

Mine is a Home Depot credit card. 2 years ago we bought a new house and had them come out to do a fence project. They had 12 months same as cash and I applied and got 8k. The project was going to run 12k so I took another hard pull (Citi) and got 13k. To make it all the worse, the city would not approve the fence on one side so we had to scrap the whole project and start over. Have barely used the card for anything other than utilization padding. Want to close it every month but just my luck I’ll need it after I close it. Inquiries just fell off in March.