Tavoludo

aloha people!

For a looooong time, I just had 2 main CC's that I would take turns using, quite happily btw, the Onepass and the Citi AAdvantage MC. Now, I find myself with 4 more cards that I know I will not keep in the future. I thought I was going to go back to my usual Citi AA MC and Onepass but Venture's flexibility really pleased me, noooow don't know what I am going to do :P

Thus so far this is what I've applied and been accepted for,

• Citi's AAdvantage (MC & Visa) Don't have the trifecta since I just canceled the AMEX after having it for 2 years.
• Continental's One Pass (MC)
• Cap1 Venture Card
• United's (MC)

...when I thought I was done after taking advantage of cap1's awesome match your miles offerrrr...BA comes with his creme-de-la-creme 100,000 bonus miles (sweeeeet! )

Today, I just received my brand new BA Visa Signature I never thought on applying before being BA and me living in the US, but how could I turn a blind eye on 100,000 miles! luckily since I was a first time customer, I was eligible for this great bonus offer

Which CCs are you going to keep?

P.S. Funny fact? I just checked credit karma, thinking 2 credit pulls (Venture's a month ago and BA's a week ago) were going to lower my score and the truth is they didn't! on the contrary it went up! noooo idea why...

QSYH

I've been happy with SPG to be honest. I like my AMEX Plat as well. I think I will be cutting my SPG card and sticking with AMEX Plat. As far as merchants who don't accept AMEX, I have yet to decide which Visa/MC to keep in my wallet. I have just been using my business card thus making it harder to do accounting in the end.

Credit Karma is a good reference tool but not completely accurate.

flyaaah

What an enthusiasm in that post! I know that feeling ^^


It's probably because of the two new accounts with added total borrower limit. Those would literally KO any little so called hard pull out of the competition. I do the 3 pulls in 3 months formula. Wouldn't like too many neither.

flyaaah

Agreed! Credit Karma should not be followed to the T but it will definitely give you an estimate of where you are credit wise. For example CK won't tell you you're 700+ when in fact you're 500-. Trust that!

Tavoludo

Yeah, that's the reason why I didn't stick with AMEX, I couldn't even pump gas in Sam's Club. I have USAA's AMEX though, great card too and no annual fee.

shehzb

what is the 3 pulls in 3 months formula BTW? sorry, newbie.

skynerd

Some of these cards I don't have yet, but here are some recommendations.

No annual fee, no paid membership requirements

Fidelity American Express: 2 WorldPoints/$ = 2% cash back or 2 Aeroplan mile/$. Also has other redemption options you might want to check, such as buying airplane tickets directly.
http://personal.fidelity.com/product...r?showcard=all

Fidelty Visa: 1.5 WorldPoints/$ on first $15k/year, thereafter 2 WP/$.
http://personal.fidelity.com/product...ard.shtml.cvsr

Capital One Venture One (not to be confused with Venture Rewards): 1.25 "miles"/$. This card may offer some or all of the specials for earnings and redemptions available for Venture Rewards, such as an extra 4 miles/$ on priceline. However, I have not verified this. See the Capital One discussion below.

American Express Hilton Honors? http://www201.americanexpress.com/ge...Hilton-HHonors

Edit 5/5/2011: While almost all no annual fee cards are potentially worth keeping, a subset that will keep your life interesting is the "rotating bonus" cards. http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/2011/...-credit-cards/ shows a recent discount calendar for Discover More, Citi Dividend, Chase Freedom, and American Express Blue.

No annual fee, but requires paid membership

CostCo AmEx: 3% on dining, 3% capped at $90/year on gas (including Costco gas, which like all Costco purchases has a 2% "executive member" rebate), 2% on travel (Fidelity AmEx is a better deal), 1% on all other purchases. Rebate is paid annually. Costco membership costs $50-100/year. The business version is the same but raises the gas discount to 4% capped at $240/year, but you represent that the purcahses are for business, and business cards aren't subject to certain consumer protections.
http://www201.americanexpress.com/sb...Nav-_-Amex_gas

Chase AARP Visa. Associate membership is open to everyone for something like $10-15 annually, and I thought I read a report of someone being offered free membership during the phone application process. The 3% discount on travel may make this a keeper, although most of the excitement on the internet is, justifiably, about the sign-up offers: 0% for 12 months on balance transfers (transfer fee: 3%, $5 minimum) and balances from purchases and, what makes this potentially the best sign-up offer for any credit card today, a 5% rebate on the first six months of spend, with no cap. So you can potentially net thousands of dollars in those fix six months by using your credit card to pay taxes, rent (williampaid.com) and some other non-credit-card bills (chargesmart.com) in addition to your usual spending. Note that Chase frowns on high volume purchases from the mint. Anyhow, as a card to keep, the basic argument is simply that the 3% travel discount may be worth the AARP annual membership dues.

Annual fee cards possibly worth keeping, even without negotiating a retention bonus

Capital One Venture Rewards and Capital One Venture For Business Visa. 2 "miles" per $ if you redeem for travel, which works out to 2%. The restrictions on redemptions mean you will probably have enough of a "miles" balance when it comes time to renew that you won't be able to negotiate a retention bonus. However, what might make these cards worth keeping are some of additional earning and redemption options that Cap1 seem to change frequently and without warning, such as $900 stay certificates for Hyatt and Ritz Carleton for 64,500 miles (up from 51,500 miles a few days ago) via the personal card (but you can transfer miles from the business card), and earning additional miles on many major vendors, currently including 4 miles/$ on priceline (6 miles/$ total). Some of these discounts require "activation", so be sure visit the "perk central" part of the web site to activate them. The first year's annual fee is waived, and there is a 10k mile sign up bonus for both cards, and, I believe a bonus for adding an authorized user to the business card. Beware that this program had "massive devaluation" in the past (see http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...t-capital-one/ ), and you do not have an automatic right to downgrade the personal card to the fee-free "Venture One Rewards" card, although perhaps you could negotiate it if you threaten to cancel the personal card.

Note on Cap1 vs. Fidelity: Assuming a 2% redemption rate on the cap1 cards, the $59/year annual fee may make this not as good a deal as the AmEx/Visa pair if your Visa-only purchases are less than $983/month, and the maximum savings versus Fidelity combination are $15/year (if you have at least $1250/month of Visa-only purchases, as the Fidelity Visa earns 2% after $15k/year). This calculation omits, on the one hand, some additional discounts and redepmtion specials on cap1, but also omits, on the other, the argument that Aeroplan miles from Fidelity and other redemption options may be worth more than $.01/WorldPoint, although that will be harder argument after Aeroplan's scheduled devaluation this July.
Cap1 personal rewards cards: http://www.capitalone.com/creditcard...e-all/rewards/
Cap1 Venture for Business: http://www.capitalone.com/smallbusin...-for-business/

US Airways Barclays Premier World MasterCard and World Platinum MasterCard. This is a special offer that includes a 10k US Air Dividend Miles on each annual renewal, thereby offsetting the annual fee of $89 or $49. The cards also have annual companion voucher offers which are valuable if you actually fly USAir operated flights. The offer URL is a single application that will give you one of the two cards, depending on which one Barclays thinks you qualify for. Contrary to the complaining on the FlyerTalk thread about this, the lesser $49/year is, in my opinion very much worth keeping, and, for some people a better deal than the $89/year card for those who don't fly USAir. My understanding is that without the special offer, the cards do not include the annual bonuses that would make them worth keeping in my estimation.
http://www.mostmiles.com/Chairmans

If you value PriorityPass airport lounge access (there are different levels of this), the $150/year Ameriprise World Elite MasterCard might be worth keeping. http://banking-credit.ameriprise.com...mastercard.asp

I'll mention one last obscure possible "keeper" card for some people, just for variety. Asiana Bank of America American Express costs a $99 annual fee, offers a $100 annual rebate on Asiana purchases and earns 3 miles/$ on Asiana purchases, and, most importantly, 2 miles/$ on all other purchases (similar to Fidelity AmEx). I only learned about this card from Gary Leff's View from the Wing blog a few days ago. Like ANA, Asiana offers distance based redemptions to Star Alliance and possibly other partner carriers, which may be advantageous for inter-continetnal flights between near coasts that don't span so much distance. https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit...000|2047565|JU

Even though this posting is too long already, I want to clarify that this is not a complete list of cards worth keeping. For example, I hope others will comment on hotel cards that typically pay for their annual fee in automatic annual bonuses. Also, the a credit card of whatever airline you fly regularly will often have some perks that make it worth its annual fee even if you rarely use it to buy anything.

BrazilFlyer333

I feel I'm only willing to pay an annual fee on a card in year 2 and onward if that card is going to give me some type of gift every year on the anniversary date.
Right now, I'm about to cancel my SPG card for that reason, and am looking to keep my Chase Continental Card for year 2, because I'll get some discount vouchers and two club passes for a day.
I'll also keep my Chase Priority Club card long-term because of a free-night voucher every year, which more than covers the cost of the annual fee.
I find the hotel cards usually offer you a free night voucher every year to make up for that fee, while the airline cards typically don't offer a gift like this.

travelpye

With my miles/points earning cards, I plan to keep long term the ones that offer elite qualifying miles, which can help boost me to next level--US MC and UA Visa. US converts 10K to preferred qualifying after $25k spend and UA provides 5k elite qualifying at anniversary.

To keep my credit history long, I plan to keep forever my no annual fee cards acquired decades ago as well.

I may well keep the BA longer term, provided I feel savings from having no foreign transaction fees offsets the annual fee.

gnat_

I don't pay annual fees. Period.

Just close the card. If the issuer allows, transfer the credit limit to another card you have without an annual fee. Then wait a few weeks or months, and reapply for a promo offer that 1) gives you bonus miles if churnable, and 2) waives annual fee. Repeat every year.

Currently of the cards with annual fees, I have 2x SPG, 2x Citi AA, Chase CO, Chase UA cards which I intend to cancel after the first year.

efox

I thought the 5k anniversary bonus for UA card is RDM, not EQM. No?

travelpye

I see, the 5k anniversary bonus is RDM, and this is the provision I was recalling that will give me the 5K EQM:

"Earning EQM: You can earn up to 5,000 EQM each Year at a rate of 1 EQM for each $1 of net purchases at United.com ("Year" means, for your first year as a cardmember, the period beginning with your enrollment date through your December statement date of that same year.."

efox

Yes, that is what I remembered. Although not as generous as 5k EQM outright, this feature will make me keep the UA card as it just helped to push me over the qualifying limit of 2P.

jjmiller69

I'm going to be dropping my Amex card, because of it's limited use. I'll keep the Venture card and enjoy the rewards. MC and Visa are more universally accepted and easier to use.

glennaa11

I have had my UA MP Visa card for probably close to 10 years. That one I will keep forever I think due to it's long history.

Lately I had been using the SPG Amex almost exclusively.

Have had the BoA Aeroplan card for a couple of years. But since I am probably going to shift away from Aeroplan altogether now that I have wiped out my balance and they are raising their award mileage requirements I will cancel soon before the next annual fee hits.

Just got the Citi AA Amex and Visa to cash in on the big bonuses. I will end up keeping one or the other, probably the Visa.

Got the CO MC for the 50k bonus. Don't see any reason to keep it once the merger is completed.

Got the US MC for the 35K bonus. It's supposed to have a 10k bonus on each anniversary and a few other perks when traveling on US so I will probably keep it.

Just got approved for the BA Visa. Once the spend is done I will probably keep it for the no foreign transaction fee aspect and the 1.25 miles per $1 spent. It may end up being my everyday card. But I do like the flexibility of the SPG Amex since you can get the same 25% bonus when you transfer 20k points to miles. So I will probably use the BA card when out of the country or when I am shopping online in foreign countries.