I love credit cards so much!

[Lain]

ACK!!! It seems like I am the opposite of most data points with regards to business cards. I have a "business" and was almost instantly approved for the CIP with just $500 of revenue and given a 13K CL. But for the SPG biz, I got a call yesterday that they have questions on my application. Could just be easy questions since I have no other AMEX cards and no relationship. I do have a long Chase relationship with the CF, Disney Visa, Checking/Savings and Mortgage. I am waiting until Monday to call back. Crossing my fingers.

Fingers crossed it's just verification.

Amex called @amalone1013 's DH about his SPG Biz application last week, and it turned out to be verification:

Just picked DH up from the airport. Apparently someone asked him how he got his priority pass... he told them his wife

On the other hand AMEX called him today about his SPG biz card app...

An update to DH's SPG biz app: They were calling for address verification. He worked late last night so we didn't call since he wasn't home until 9pm... Today he got an email that if he does not send in a letter on bank letterhead listing his home address (from the bank his main account is with) in 30 days, they will cancel the app. I'm going to have him try and call first though, because he's out of town from tomorrow night until Wednesday evening...

Guys I'm so proud, DH called in all by himself and got his SPG biz approved.

Or as he said, he just had his entire identity stolen. So we'll see if a card shows up

Worked out in the end!

If Amex does probe deeper into your application, remember to have a story ready; perhaps, you've been selling on the side for some time (selling what?, where? for how long? how much did you make?), but decided you wanted to take it more seriously and need a credit card to buy supplies/inventory and generally keep your business expenses separate all on that card.

Good luck on your call!

 

[Psychodisney]

this is 100% logical- try to pay off that balance with a part of the amount you want to put on your vacation,and proceed from there if you can

But they pay 0% on the balance....otherwise, I'd agree.

 

[taraaplin]

But they pay 0% on the balance....otherwise, I'd agree.

Yea it’s 0% interest (I chose to only pay 100 a month on it) and it’s more of a me not wanting to pay off my husband’s ex’s debt in whole lol. It’s what he ended up with in their divorce. I have been toying around with the idea of paying bills with a credit credit and paying it off each month. But it terrifies me that I will screw something up and end up with Interest.

 

[Psychodisney]

Yea it’s 0% interest (I chose to only pay 100 a month on it) and it’s more of a me not wanting to pay off my husband’s ex’s debt in whole lol. It’s what he ended up with in their divorce. I have been toying around with the idea of paying bills with a credit credit and paying it off each month. But it terrifies me that I will screw something up and end up with Interest.

It takes discipline and some organization for sure. Most, but not all bills, can go on a credit card. If you can be disciplined enough to pay the bill when it comes, why not make your money work for you!

 

[tink1970]

ACK!!! It seems like I am the opposite of most data points with regards to business cards. I have a "business" and was almost instantly approved for the CIP with just $500 of revenue and given a 13K CL. But for the SPG biz, I got a call yesterday that they have questions on my application. Could just be easy questions since I have no other AMEX cards and no relationship. I do have a long Chase relationship with the CF, Disney Visa, Checking/Savings and Mortgage. I am waiting until Monday to call back. Crossing my fingers.

Just my 2 data points...I applied for the SPG biz and had to call in...apparently I was so nervous about applying for my "business" that I somehow put in the incorrect city (um, Orlando actually).

Then we got hit with our $13K tax bill and I wanted to take advantage of the Plat Biz ...I'd totally forgotten that most banks don't want to issue 2 cards within 30 days so got hit with recon again, oddly AFTER I had been auto approved. They apparently just wanted to make sure I was the one applying for a second card (cough cough) in such a short time. I had to give my phone number, stay on hold while they called back and verbally approve the card application. Since I just have a "business" I was sort of worried but in the end they didn't seem to care at all about the "business" aspect, just making sure no one was getting crazy with my information and going on an application spree.

So...a lot of words to say it could be something fairly simple!

Good luck

 

[trenty]

Yea it’s 0% interest (I chose to only pay 100 a month on it) and it’s more of a me not wanting to pay off my husband’s ex’s debt in whole lol. It’s what he ended up with in their divorce. I have been toying around with the idea of paying bills with a credit credit and paying it off each month. But it terrifies me that I will screw something up and end up with Interest.

I put all purchases and some bills on my CCs. I log on to my CC accounts each day and pay whatever has posted.

 

[SmallMama]

Yea it’s 0% interest (I chose to only pay 100 a month on it) and it’s more of a me not wanting to pay off my husband’s ex’s debt in whole lol. It’s what he ended up with in their divorce. I have been toying around with the idea of paying bills with a credit credit and paying it off each month. But it terrifies me that I will screw something up and end up with Interest.

I honestly pay everything with my cc and the moment i swipe or put a transaction in is the moment i login in on my app to pay it off. This is a way for me to not forget that i used it.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I put all purchases and some bills on my CCs. I log on to my CC accounts each day and pay whatever has posted.

Or you could just put your CC on autopay. I have over 20 cards, logging in to each every day would be tedious. I do login frequently but I pay cc balances monthly. Keep the money in my own accounts longer for whatever little interest they might earn.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Hey guys, I was directed to this thread. I tried to skim through but couldn’t find an answer. Let me start by saying that currently my husband had one credit card at 600 with a zero interest rate. We typically take turns applying every 16 (or annually depending on the promotional zero interest rate) and transfer the balance to keep it interest free. The balance began at 5000 9 years ago and slowly but surely it is almost paid off. The only other loan type we have is mortgage (new mortgage in 2016)and garage (built last year). Garage will be paid off in two years. With that said, we have excellent credit. 835 and 825.
We are looking to put whole vacation on a credit card to get rewards/points/cashback. It will be paid off immediately. Which credit card offers most money back etc... the balance will be roughly 4 grand.

But they pay 0% on the balance....otherwise, I'd agree.

Yea it’s 0% interest (I chose to only pay 100 a month on it) and it’s more of a me not wanting to pay off my husband’s ex’s debt in whole lol. It’s what he ended up with in their divorce. I have been toying around with the idea of paying bills with a credit credit and paying it off each month. But it terrifies me that I will screw something up and end up with Interest.

I get the 0% part but having that hanging over my head for 9+ yrs would make me batty. I’d rather get it over with. To each their own I guess.

 

[trenty]

Or you could just put your CC on autopay. I have over 20 cards, logging in to each every day would be tedious. I do login frequently but I pay cc balances monthly. Keep the money in my own accounts longer for whatever little interest they might earn.

I have 4 CC that I use regularly. My bill paying checking acct does not earn interest and I prefer to have the money come out as I spend it so DH and I know what is in there day to day without checking in with each other when we need to make an ATM withdrwal. I put a lot on those 4 CC and paying it off monthly would overwhelm me in terms of "how much I owe." Seeing low current balances on my CCs is the only way I could play this game.

But I do see your point as well. If I had over 20 CC that I use regularly, it would be daunting to log on every day. I am a slow churner. Right now I have a total of 11 cards, 5 in the last 24 months. But as I said, I only regularly use 4 of those cards.

 

[jhoannam]

Hi everyone, if you have links on the reddit group go make sure they are still active. I got a message from a kind person that tried to use my link but it was no longer active. I just update all of mine.

 

[Judique]

Yea it’s 0% interest (I chose to only pay 100 a month on it) and it’s more of a me not wanting to pay off my husband’s ex’s debt in whole lol. It’s what he ended up with in their divorce. I have been toying around with the idea of paying bills with a credit credit and paying it off each month. But it terrifies me that I will screw something up and end up with Interest.

Well, since I was the first one to send you over here, I'm going to chime in with what I think might be a simple strategy that you could start with and then figure out what works for you as you go along:

Stick with your 0% interest plan. It seems to work for you and a $100 a month is a reliable way to get it done, and there's only $600 left.

The Chase cards come in many varieties. I know a lot of us see lots of possibilities for you, but given your feelings, it might be best to start out small, with a no fee card that gives you some dollars in your pocket. You could get a no fee Disney card with a $200 statement credit. Small potatoes but fairly uncomplicated.

There are cash back cards such as the Chase Sapphire, which would pay 60K points and someone else can tell you how much more you could get back in statement credit - maybe enough to take care of that $600! It's got a $95 fee.

There are others who will come along with the best cards.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I have 4 CC that I use regularly. My bill paying checking acct does not earn interest and I prefer to have the money come out as I spend it so DH and I know what is in there day to day without checking in with each other when we need to make an ATM withdrwal. I put a lot on those 4 CC and paying it off monthly would overwhelm me in terms of "how much I owe." Seeing low current balances on my CCs is the only way I could play this game.

But I do see your point as well. If I had over 20 CC that I use regularly, it would be daunting to log on every day. I am a slow churner. Right now I have a total of 11 cards, 5 in the last 24 months. But as I said, I only regularly use 4 of those cards.

Whatever works for you is the right thing. I pay monthly. I have a rental property that I have a savings account for, all rent goes into that account, all taxes and insurance come out. I pay with whatever card I am meeting MSR on, then pay cc from the rental account. My mom, OTOH, has everything on autopay. She only has 2 credit cards and utilities. It drives me batty because she never checks any of her accounts. She carries a relatively high balance in her checking account so can cover her expenses without overdrawing. (It drives me nuts because she would never know if there were fraudulent charges) She has done this since my dad passed 5years ago and it (mostly) works for her.

There is a perfect way for each of us to manage cc. Whatever works

 

[platamama]

as far as online banking (from about 6 million pages back lol) I don't like how long it takes to transfer our of Cap1 360...(it's 3-4 days!) does Ally bank or an y others transfer faster?

DoC has a nice summary of what he calls "hub" accounts - those bank accounts that you use to send/receive money and what the turnaround time on those are. Here's the link

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/hub-...es-fees-limits-across-financial-institutions/

I was dealing with this last year when I signed up for some savings account bonuses, and was getting frustrated by the daily caps and how long it was taking for funds to transfer especially since I had a deadline to meet. If it weren't for the practically non-existent interest rate, I'd keep my money in Schwab. Alliant looks like a good choice too, since there is a little interest earnings on the checking account.

There's some details missing, which vary from bank to bank. Some don't allow a tranfer into an outside savings account, some don't allow a transfer from a joint account into an individual account, and so on. But it's a place to start.

 

[pillow]

Check giftcardwiki .com for what different sites are offering.

Different sites also impose different requirements/restrictions on new sellers. For example, Raise may hold new cards pending for days while they verify the card, and then Raise made me submit a scanned copy of the gift card and any available receipts after I had already sold them. If you sell a lot, they’ll ask you set up ACH or submit a W-9. All that said, Raise still has been the easiest to deal with even if they don’t always offer the best price. You set your own price after looking at what other cards are selling for, Raise takes a 12% commission, then sends you a check, PayPal or ACH when your card sells. Cardpool was fairly easy to use too, but unlike Raise you don’t list it; Cardpool buys your card for a set price. Ebay is also an option if you take a look at if your merchant’s gift card has sold recently, for how much, then list an auction or Buy It Now, factoring in 10% eBay fees and ~3% PayPal fees. I recall ABC gift cards (?) made me jump through so many hoops to start selling, I told them to forget it and close my account even though they were offering the best price.

Great info - thank you!!

 

[linzjane88]

Ok I know I was in the 'I don't MS' camp pretty solidly a few days ago buuut...being sick with a cold has caused me to spend an extraordinary amount of time online the last few days and I think I my have changed my mind.

Would it be reasonable to try to pay my mortgage with a MO from WM purchased with gift cards . My mortgage is $947 so I could buy 2x $500 GCs for a fee of $3.95 each and then get a MO from WM for .88. I always pay a extra on my payment so no bigger to get 1k in GC's. This would end up costing me $8.78 VS Plastiq's $25.00 plus I wouldn't have to worry about fudging names trying to force a mortgage payment through.

Is this a thing that can happen or am I making this up?

 

[kmc8826]

I have 4 CC that I use regularly. My bill paying checking acct does not earn interest and I prefer to have the money come out as I spend it so DH and I know what is in there day to day without checking in with each other when we need to make an ATM withdrwal. I put a lot on those 4 CC and paying it off monthly would overwhelm me in terms of "how much I owe." Seeing low current balances on my CCs is the only way I could play this game.

But I do see your point as well. If I had over 20 CC that I use regularly, it would be daunting to log on every day. I am a slow churner. Right now I have a total of 11 cards, 5 in the last 24 months. But as I said, I only regularly use 4 of those cards.

I agree with @Judique and maybe start small with a no fee card. Another option other than the Disney could be the Freedom and/or Freedom Unlimited. Both solid cash back cards that if you decide to start gathering UR’s they would be good cards to have. Unfortunately though if you are definitely 5/24 you can’t get them and might want to just wait a bit until one of the cards goes off. The fact you don’t use a card does not change your status with Chase...any credit card opening will count. A no fee Discover might work too.

 

[miztressuz]

Hey guys, I was directed to this thread. I tried to skim through but couldn’t find an answer. Let me start by saying that currently my husband had one credit card at 600 with a zero interest rate. We typically take turns applying every 16 (or annually depending on the promotional zero interest rate) and transfer the balance to keep it interest free. The balance began at 5000 9 years ago and slowly but surely it is almost paid off. The only other loan type we have is mortgage (new mortgage in 2016)and garage (built last year). Garage will be paid off in two years. With that said, we have excellent credit. 835 and 825.
We are looking to put whole vacation on a credit card to get rewards/points/cashback. It will be paid off immediately. Which credit card offers most money back etc... the balance will be roughly 4 grand.

Sounds like the cards @calypso726 @Psychodisney @Judique mentioned have the best value for the immediate purchase even with the annual fee. I'd look at each one and see which might earn you the most back using it in that first year to get the most out of the fee (if you pick one with it; there are two offers for the CSP right now, one is 50k UR points with the $95 waived for the first year or the other is 60k UR points but you pay the $95 fee.)

If you want to dip your toes into rewards long term, I liked the Discover it or Chase Freedom cards to start. They don't have big sign up bonuses, but both have no annual fees and rotating quarterly categories that earn 5% back (1% everywhere else). Both also have shopping portals that earn various cashback amounts as well.
For the Discover it card they match your cashback earned in the first year you've had the card, so on the first year it's an effective rate of 2 -10% back depending on the purchase. When it's time to redeem the cashback there's a few ways; I've used the statement credit but mostly I redeem for gift cards because you get a bonus value of at least $5. So $20 in cash would get you at least $25 as a gift card (like Lowes, AMC, restaurants, etc). They have a partnership with a travel agency where you can also earn and redeem cashback through them.
The Chase Freedom card earns UR points which can be used as cashback or towards travel. It's not as useful on the travel as it's the same rate of return as just getting a statement credit, but if you get one of the Sapphire cards you can pool your UR points and get better travel redemption values (like all the folks here have mentioned.) I don't usually max out the 5% categories but even still I usually earn enough points for about $200 cashback in a year.
But it might be nice to get into a rhythm with charging and paying on CC's with no AF cards that give rewards that are easy to see immediate value. If you wanted to you could use all the cashback earned that month as a statement credit each month or save it up for a particular occasion (or if something unexpected came up and you were concerned about not being able to PIF there's a little safety net)

 

[Alexle2007]

I was talking to a friend on Fri who has a catering/food truck business with her husband and she was interested in my credit charge usage since I have been talking about all of free flights and travel we have been doing. Just sent her my referral link for CIP I’ll help her to get the SW CP towards the end of the year so she has it for 19-20 since that of interest to her also. In the meantime, she can use her UR points for her SW flights.

 

[SmallMama]

Or you could just put your CC on autopay. I have over 20 cards, logging in to each every day would be tedious. I do login frequently but I pay cc balances monthly. Keep the money in my own accounts longer for whatever little interest they might earn.

Yeah i never actually set my cc on auto post after experiences with my auto and toyota taking payments out twice. Most of my cc is with chase so when i login in i pay everything, but i may do it with my amex since it is new I tend to forget about it