Dbears

Hello guru's. I'm looking for your advice on the best direction for my daughter who's looking for a new "travel" credit card.

History
1. She recently applies for a BofA travel card with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee. She was declined because of a blemish on Experian that was later cleaned up. She never went back for reconsideration but her credit is now clean albeit brief.
2. She has had for six month one BofA credit card with $500 credit for $100 balance in checking account. She's been an authorized user on many of my cards.
3. She graduated in December and started a new job at $60k per year. Monthly rently $1200 and owns her car.

What she wants:
1. She wants to establish good credit and doesn't handle rejection well.
2. She's envious of my free hotels and flights but wants to start slow.
3. She has no desire to keep a balance. Like her father, she thinks credit card debt is non-sense.
4. She doesn't want to pay an annual fee or foreign transaction fees.

A few choices:
1. Try for the BofA travel card again. She's had a BofA checking account for four years.
2. Try for the Barclay's arrival card and get the points. I understand this card may be a bit harder to get.
3. Try for the Barclay's rewards card.

Advice???

Thanks

NYCRuss

I'd try for multiple cards. No reason to risk having something happen to the one card with no backups while traveling. She should also diversify with different banks and different networks.

I don't recommend applying for another BoA Travel Rewards card when she already has a BoA card that does nothing for her. She should ask BoA to PC the card to Travel Rewards. After the account turns one year, she can request a CLI.

For a second card, she can go for a Barclay's Arrival. The no annual fee card has no FTF. It's also a MC, which compliments the BoA Visa.

She can also go for a Discover card, but it may not be very useful overseas.

To round out the initial credit card portfolio, I think that the Chase Freedom and Amex EveryDay are good choices. These do charge FTFs, but there are no annual fees, and she'll get her foot in the door with two of the financial institutions with better travel credit cards.

mbece

Can't she convert her current BoA card to a travel rewards card? I converted my secured card probably three months after getting it without trouble.

Otherwise, maybe the new Discover card may suit her.

msfrugalista

I was in this position a 5 years ago when I first moved to the USA and had to build up my credit here. I would recommend a no fee card - Chase Freedom or AMEX Every Day are two good cards to start off with and also to build a relationship with these two banks. UR points and Membership rewards are quite versatile for travel rewards as well.

VABuckeye

I think the Freedom suggestion is a good one. She should be looking at the entry level type of card right now. The ones with the good rewards will come later when she has a credit history to warrant approval.

GOP_Tiger

If she has been authorized on your cards, then she might actually have the credit score to get some really great cards. What's her score? If she doesn't know, she should go to credit karma and get it for free.

Dbears

I didn't think Credit Karma was too reliable. Last time I checked it for her she was about 770. I've suggested she try to upgrade her BofA card. What number should she call for best success?

biggestbopper

IMHO, none of the above mentioned cards are very good choices.

'Cause it's all about the bonuses. Get a few good airline bonus cards and you'll be set for some foreign trips in biz or F for free. Go for the "cash" cards mentioned above and you don't get much, if any, bonus and measly amounts of cash back.

The essence of what I learned on FT and elsewhere is that the card app bonuses are where the free trips are.

A good start for daughter would be a Chase Sapphire Preferred (40K bonus), UAL card (50K bonus), BA card (50K bonus right now), Citi AA card and Amex SPG card (25-30K bonus).

By the way, if you are afraid of rejection this may not be the hobby for you.

msfrugalista

Credit Karma only shows your TransUnion and Equifax credit score I believe. Here are other free sites that allow you to check the others - different banks use different sources (TransUnion, Equifax, Experion) when they pull your credit scores.

Quizzle = Equifax (updated every 6 months)
Credit Sesame = Experian (updated monthly)
Credit Karma = TransUnion (updated every 7 days)

NYCRuss

I'd try to accomplish this in branch first. If that's not an option, here are numbers for credit analysts: 800-881-4730, 866-226-8225, 866-877-8991. Here's the number for the office of the CEO: 800-218-6670.

The OP's daughter will probably get denied for every card that you mentioned. She has next to no credit, and no credit card relationship with the banks that issue your suggested cards.

That's why the Chase Freedom is recommended. So she can get a useful card, with no annual fee, that can be kept open for AAoA, and establish a relationship with Chase. After six months, Chase will be much more willing to issue her a CSP, BA or UA card.

She'll almost definitely get denied for an SPG. But if she starts a relationship with Amex with a card with underwriting standards that are realistic, she stands a better chance of getting an SPG in the future. Especially as the future will come with a better credit score.

As for the BoA Travel Rewards being a poor choice, I strongly disagree. It's an outstanding choice because the recommendation here is to PC an existing card to it. It provides more utility than what she has, and can likely be kept open for many years.

None of those are FICO scores. FAKOs are simply not very useful to assess the likelihood of getting approved. This is because she'll be dealing with institutions that use FICO 08, as well as internal proprietary metrics, but not what Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, and Quizzle use. If the OP's daughter wants credit scores to assess where she is, she needs FICO 08 scores from each of the major three credit bureaus.

flyernick

One that doesn't get much publicity anywhere is the Citi AA Gold (not Plat!) card. But, I've seen it be approved for someone with almost no credit history and lower income than what you stated. $49 annual fee though (but waived first year). Back in January there were some 50000-60000 bonus AA miles signup offers.

And, you can get it and qualify for the bonus even if you have recently had the AA Platinum card.

chuzzlewit

No offense, but this kind of takes 'helicopter parent' to a whole new level, no? If you navigated her way through college, congratulations, but now perhaps it's time to take a step back, if she can earn $60k she can probably look for her own cc if she chooses. Can't you just point her to a few of the more useful cc discussion forums and let her take it from there?

Dbears

She applied for and was approved for BofA awards travel card for $1500 credit limit. I suggested she move her existing $500 credit to the new card and cancel the other one. She seems satisfied with just the one card. Thanks for the suggestions.

State of Trance

You really should encourage your daughter to open up more lines of credit, provided that she is responsible enough to do so. As someone her age, it's incredible how mis-informed most of my peers are about credit. I've accumulated hundreds of thousands of miles/points/etc, raising my FICO score to ~800 in the process, while many of my peers are set to graduate university without ever holding a single line of credit.

drminn

chuzzlewit, I think you missed a great opportunity to keep your opinion to yourself.