I have excellent credit but low income . I don't travel much yet but want to start. I have 3 inquiries on my cards according to creditreport.com. I only have two open cards, and one is from 2003. Perhaps there is something else that caused that inquiry. I thought the old card would have not been on the report now. I opened a brokerage account last year.

Live in DC, near DCA and 45 mins from Dulles. I have family in Ireland and travel there once a year or more.

Anyway, my current cards are Chase Amazon (which I use b/c I shop at amazon a lot) and BOA Rewards from 2003, which doesn't appear on their website and doesn't appear to recognize my account number online -- never use it anyway.

Anyway, I want to open a credit card to accrue miles for airline, hotel and general travel. Perhaps two or three. I don't know how likely I will approved so I want to pick a good card to start with. I live in DC so United or American cards would be good, but I like the flexibility of the Sapphire or Amex Gold because that allows you to transfer miles to various airlines. Problem is I don't dine out much or spend on travel, YET. I have ruled out cards that just give statement of credit as miles appear to get better value. My goal is to get upgrades and fly in J on long hauls to Asia, because that is not possible right now. I also want to take advantage of bonuses but I don't know if in my situation it would be a good idea to open 10 cards and then close them.

So, here are the pros and cons of various cards for me:

CSP --- Don't dine out much but would like to start spending on travel
== Transfer miles, would use their shopping portal to accrue miles

AMEX Gold ------- Hefty annual fee, don't buy much groceries/gas - only book on airline sites for points.


The airline cards seem good if you fly on those airlines, but I have no decided to focus on one airline yet.

given I live in DC, perhaps the UA or AA card. British airways card might be good for getting Aer Lingus flights to Ireland cheap. I

Thanks
Flyer

Welcome; I'm also a DC traveler.

9/2 is the last day for the current 50k United Explorer card sign up bonus.

Link: http://mommypoints.boardingarea.com/2014/09/01/last-chance-55000-united-miles/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=last-chance-55000-united-miles#sthash.smelNjtO.dpbs

Here's the best advice I can give you:

Stop. You need to put some effort into this, and learn a bit about how things work before you rush into some strategy. You sound like another person who has been suckered by the blogs. They make money off of getting noobs like you to sign up for credit cards through their blogs (something nobody should ever do - the best offers are always available here on FT). Ignore what the idiot bloggers are telling you.

Given your situation...

...that tells me you need to do a lot more homework before you jump in.

Hint: it would NOT be a good idea to open 10 cards and then close them.

Especially for someone who has "excellent credit but low income" (as you describe yourself). Opening 10 cards and then closing them would be a great way to quickly become someone with bad credit and low income.

You need to educate yourself about this stuff. It's not impossible, but anyone who thinks they can just follow some simple circles-n-arrows guide and they'll soon be jetting off to Asia in a forward cabin with no effort made is a fool. Those with low incomes will find it more challenging that others.

There's no substitute for doing the "work" - invest some of your time here, read, read more, and be very skeptical of anything some professional blogger has to say (they count on suckers - don't be one). Take your time and be smart. Good offers on credit cards come and go every day. Better to miss out on the current craze and learn about the bigger picture than to maybe get one credit card (or maybe not) and end up with a tarnished credit rating to go along with your low income - a combination that is NOT going to get you a nice flat-bed seat and champagne on a flight to asia.

Slow down, take you time, be smart.

Good luck.

Thanks,

But how will opening 1 card lead to a tarnished credit rating?

I agree with nwflyboy (though perhaps he's being a bit harsh).

If you want to get into this game, you should start with a tangible goal. "Spend five nights each in Tokyo and Hong Kong in fall 2015" is a good example.

Figure out how flexible you can be with that goal. Do you have absolutely fixed dates that you can't move or is any 10ish day period a year from now workable? Are you traveling alone, with a spouse or do you have two kids to tow along?

Personally, I have no spouse, no kids and an extremely flexible employer so I can pretty much take any award space that comes along. If I have to add two days to my trip to make it work, I can do that. Figure out how flexible you are and go from there.

Honestly, if you don't have any flexibility, this becomes much harder, though you can still save some money (e.g., nice hotels on points while buying coach tickets�in Hong Kong this could still save you a ton of money).

Once you have your goal, work backwards. Which airlines can get you there? How many points would they require? What about their partners (such as using American miles for Cathay Pacific)? Do some sample searches, see how the availability looks.

Then figure out how you could get whatever points are required. Say you choose AA and their partners Cathay and Japan Airlines. You decide to redeem two for one-ways�IAD-TYO and HKG-IAD, buying a ticket from Tokyo to Hong Kong. That requires 110k (or whatever, I don't remember) AA miles.

How can you get that?

Etc.

You'll quickly see that unless you're in a position to run *LOTS* of money through your credit cards, even signup bonuses are unlikely to get you more than one trip a year in a long-haul premium cabin, if that.

Another phrase that gets thrown around FT a lot is "pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered". The Chase forum has a number of people who rapidly signed up for multiple Chase cards within a year only to get blacklisted. They got greedy and they got burned.

Start very slow, read a lot, don't rush.

Ok, so I've decided to be cautious and only open max 2 travel related cards for now. Nothing compared to the 20 cards people on here have and continually open/close (insane).

I want to know which would you advise opening. I intend to close my two AMEX department store cards that I signed up for last year in order to get a discount on a clothing purchase. That would leave me with just the Chase Amazon Visa with a 5k limit and the BOA rewards card (which I'll prolly cancel b/c i have not used it in years - i think they actually cancelled the card as it is not recognized when I enter the account number on the phone).

I am leaning towards either the CSP, the United Card, the Amex Gold, AA citi or British Airways.

Thanks

IMO, there is no good answer to this question until you have a specific plan for using the points. "J to Asia" isn't specific.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"I am leaning towards either the CSP, the United Card, the Amex Gold, AA citi or British Airways."

If your trip priority is free (Coach) trips to Ireland, get cards that earn you BA Avios -- either directly, or via a points transfer.

If your first priority is to get Business Class awards to Asia, then you should look at getting cards that will earn you high sign-up bonuses for AA and UA, as each of those FFPs offer one-way awards. But without telling us your actual income, I don't know if there is anyone on this board who can accurately predict the odds of your being approved for any such cards.

I didn't say one card would absolutely do that (although a rejection - which is not unusual - can hurt). You said you were thinking about opening - and then closing - ten credit cards. Your credit could be badly damaged (for years) before you got half-way through that.

Again: nobody is going to do the work for you. Don't be lazy. Why 2? Is that a magic number? Why not one, or three?

The answer to your question is it depends. There is no perfect, correct answer for everyone. The answer for me (someone with good credit good income, a long established relationship with all the banks, 20+ credit cards already, and a bunch of other factors) is going to be very different than it is for you. Or the next guy. There is no one size fits all.

You speak in sweeping generalizations of your goals:
Get out a map. "Asia" is a big place. Japan, India, Mongolia, Signapore - they are not all the same. Do you have an actual destination in mind (if so, what is it? the details may matter), or do you just want to see yourself in one of the pretty pictures the bloggers post?

The point is that in your case - someone completely new to all this, with (as you say) low income - and thus probably very limited ability to open large numbers of credit cards - and (to be blunt) not much of a grasp of how it all works - you are going to need to be careful, you are going to need to stay focused, and you are going to need to make smart choices, if you expect to succeed. Lots of people don't.

txflyer77 makes some excellent points. How many people are you trying to get to "Asia"? Just yourself? (in that case, it's less difficult). Got a spouse and or kids you want to bring along? It gets a lot harder as the number of seats you want increases. How flexible are your travel dates? No flexibility (eg school vacations, major holidays, etc.) means things get much, much harder. It's easiest if you have no job and no responsibilities, and can go by yourself with zero notice - a seat suddenly opens up to Jakarta in 3 days, and boom, you can go - great. But that's not how most of us travel. These factors are not trivial - they will make or break your efforts. One person who can go on any day is completely, utterly different from you+a spouse+a kid or two constrained to specific travel dates.

Pick a specific destination (or better yet, have a list - 'cause that flexibility thing is always working against you). Then learn about which airlines can most easily get you where you want to go. Figure out how many seats you need, and when you would like to use them.

Here's the dirty little secret the bloggers tend to ignore: getting the points....that's the EASY part. Actually using them - without paying double or triple the points - is actually the hard (often impossible) part. Most people only figure this out after they have some points and go to try and use them - then they conclude that the whole thing was a waste of their time.

Figure out where you want to go, when, and how many of you there will be. Then go try doing a dummy booking for that. Look for the ways that you could get to a few of your top priority destinations - use travel dates that are realistic (ie if you can't just drop everything and fly to Bora Bora alone on Thursday because a seat opens up, and instead you need to go during Spring Break with 3 others, be honest with yourself). Then do the math. How many points you gonna need, in whose program. Then figure out how long and how easy or hard it would be to get those points. Don't forget to allow for program devaluations, which happen with increasing frequency (figure once every 12-18 months to be safe).

This is not a game for those who can not or will not learn, for those who are not good about tracking details and following up.

Do your homework. That's the only way to know what strategy is right for you. If it's too much trouble, then sure, I have a credit card recommendation: just get any Capital One card*. They have cute commercials, and whenever I hear someone demand to know what's in my wallet, I feel intimidated, so I just apply for one of their cards and hope for the best.

*sarcasm - not actual advice

I totally agree with the other posters telling you that you really have some homework to do.

But if you are just getting started and want to get a card or two to start earning miles and points before you really figure things out, I'd say the Chase Sapphire is a good choice for both everyday spend and getting a decent signup bonus. If you find a citi AA card with a good signup bonus, that would be a decent second card to get (I wouldn't recommend trying to get two personal cards from Chase at the same time).

I dont disagree about those cards, in general - although it very much depends on his goals (AA miles are all but useless to *some* destinations - it really depends on what flights you want). Remember, the OP has a (self described) low income. Nothing wrong with that, but that is very, very different from most who play this game. Since the keystone to most successful strategies is signing up for more than a couple credits cards, I think it's important to keep the potential low income limitations on that strategy in mind. I think there's a general unstated assumption (both on blogs and here on FT) that credit availability is not going to be a limiting factor - at least not for quite a while. With a limited income, expectations for how many cards one can successfully get may need to be dialed down.

So while there's nothing wrong with grabbing 50K AA miles, for example (not to pick on them), if you only get a few bites at the credit card apple, you are going to want to choose which cards you go for very carefully. Those of us who are confident we will get the next 10 cards we apply for have a luxury that the OP may not. Just sayin.

I have removed a commercial post and responses to it. No more, please. Let's keep personalities out of the discussion too.

Thanks.

The OP is based in DC, the capital of the United States. There are two choices: IAD and DCA. If the OP is seeking easy international travel, United's hub at IAD is convenient. If the OP does not mind connecting, AA/US has a focus city at DCA. I'd go with a United card (probably the Explorer card) and fly out of IAD.

Thank you.

The fact that FT is generally, blissfully, free from commercial posts is one of the things I value about it the most. Apologies if my pushback on that guy's self-promotion added to your moderator's workload.

Back on topic...

Everyone's advice about self-education non-withstanding and provided that you are flexible, you have exactly two easy choices for your trip to Asia in J, using AA or UA miles.

AA miles: apply for two AA 50K bonus personal and business cards and one Barclaycad US Air card, then wait until US and AA combine their programs. That would give you 140K AA miles that are currently enough to fly to Asia in J or F. Apply for AA cards at least 8 days apart.

UA miles: apply for 55K Chase United TODAY, then for two Chase cards: Sapphire Preferred and one of the business cards, Ink Bold or Ink Plus for 50K bonus. That will give you enough miles to fly in J to Asia -- on United only. Do not apply for all three at the same time.

If you apply at a Chase branch you can get a 70K Ink card, but AF is not waived. That will be enough to fly to Asia in F (United only).

Make absolutely sure you can meet the required spending, or you won't get the bonus.