Luubert

I've been on this site http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com/ and checking out all the credit cards that give very generous bonuses. But also in the section its talks about the bad credit rating for having alot of credit cards. I think he was referring to the U.S. Well personally I've never heard of something like this in Canada but anyone have a little info on this as i would love to boost my FF account.

YYZC2

When a potential creditor pulls your credit file to gauge your creditworthiness, they will take into account the number of times it has been pulled by other companies recently, the amounts and frequency of fresh credit you have recently recieved, and your overall available credit facilities in relation to your income, as well as how much of those facilities are in use. If you have applied for 10 cards in a week, it may give a bank second thoughts about your fiscal responsibility.

Your credit can be affected in the near-term by a lot of pulls, but the effect of such activity is far less damaging and long-lasting as derogatory comments or late payment reports from creditors. It's just one of many factors in considering a potential applicant.

If you are planning on applying for a mortgage or any other important credit instrument soon, I would probably only apply for a card if I really needed it (do you ever REALLY need a credit card?)... otherwise, as long as you are not overextended as it is, there is little downside, IMHO.

Luubert

I'd also like to let everyone know that I pay off my bill every month, paid off my house in full, paid off my car in full, has never filed for bankrupcy, don't owe any banks any money.

YYZC2

I wasn't making any type of claim to your trustworthiness... if you have bad credit all the advice in the world is moot since no one will touch you anyway.

All I'm saying is while the CC bonus miles may appear "free" you may not want to play around with your credit *if* you have an inkling you may need to borrow serious money for a serious purpose in the near future.

taupo

The main credit reporting agency used in Canada is Equifax. They have an overall credit score that is called a Beacon Score. The Beacon Score is affected by many factors including the number of hits to a bureau, i.e. the number of inquiries. As YYZC2 mentioned, too many can be bad thing. A potential lender can deem you a credit seeker. Inquiries made within a 14 day period are generally treated as 1 inquiry, as it is assumed that you are "shopping" for a better deal (car loan, mortgage, LOC etc).
Some of the other factors affecting the Beacon, are the lengh of time you have been "on the system", amount of credit available to you, proximity of balances to limits (when a balance gets to or higher than 80% of the limit, the Beacon Score will lower), payment history (some companies report late payments much faster than others), judgements, employment type and employer (government employee rates high, self employes rates lower).

Bottom line, apply away for all the FF CCs' you want.

One more point, you can have a "narrative" added to your credit report to explain the higher number of inquiries. " I am addicted to FT, FFs and all that goes with them, someone please help me, this is not my fault"

Braindrain

Now, I'm not in the banking industry but, as I remember, the total amount of credit from your credit cards reduces your overall aggregate borrowing ability. This is irrespective whether you pay your CC on time or not.

From that, it's not really the total number of credit cards but, rather, the total amount of credit from all of your cards.

Then again, I could be wrong.

taupo

Different FIs' look at this in different ways. Some will include the aggregate limts into your debt service ratios, some will include the balances only.

parnel

You are either mentally ill, very rich or live in a shack and drive a cheapo 1985 car.

Braindrain

I was told the Big Banks include aggregate amounts. Would you have any more info on this?

YOWkid

Are you speaking of how you got to become successful?

Congrats on 7000.

wombat

taupo,

does the information 'age' out of the system? I've been told conflicting stories. I was interested to know if some of my 'youthful indiscretions' have been erased!

Luubert

Or it could be that i work my ... off in putting in overtime, and that I've been paying off that house for a verrrrrrryyyyyy long loooooonnnng

exAC

Do you feel that it is worthwhile to have Equifax send you a copy of your file every once in awhile?

Or is this a waste of time?

Does asking for a copy of the file many many times affect your rating?

parnel

It can take up to six years to be totally erased if you defaulted on any credit but your rating will go up annually if perfect from that time forward. I had my bank manager explain that to my kids one day

parnel

I sometimes think I created the word leverage in my business prime but it has all worked out quite nicely. Getting our LOC extended when the balance sheet went temporarily negative was quite a feat but scary as hell at the time.