Thanks Guys,

I ended up taking the discover card offer. I didnt have the credit score for the Starwood or any Amex card.

I'm sorry you made that choice as the card will not do you any good out of the USA and basically the NA area. No Europe charges for you, or India. Miles will not earn or trade very favorably either.

Its pretty tough to get a good cc with a beginning credit score. I figure with discover I can just use the cashback to buy a ticket. Also I got a deny on the city pp card but figure that in 5 months of good standing with discover they might accept me if i reapply for credit.

Citi and Amex (and presumably others) offer cards targeted towards college kids. I think you need a pulse to qualify for those. Go to Citicards.com and click on College Student Cards for example. The mtvU card is pretty decent. They offer an AA card (only 1 mile for every $2, no annual fee), Dividend Platinum Select, etc. Will help you a lot more than Discover. Once you've had a card for a few months, you can try applying for the various airline cards with big sign-up bonuses. Those tend to have relatively lax acceptance criteria.

This card would be easy for you to get from Amex:

https://www201.americanexpress.com/c...gmID=undefined

This citi card is also designed for college students or those with limited credit:

https://www.accountonline.com/ACQ/Ap...9BBF112C24592C

Apply for the AX first and then after approval or 5 business days apply for the other one.

The Discover card is not looked upon favorably and will not help you as much.

A ticket to India will normally cost over $1200. That would be $120,000 spend on your Discover Card. Not all cards and points are created equal!

If you sign up for one of the Citibank Thank You Points card, you can cash in $60,000 points - ie $60,000 spent (or much less - see below) - for a ticket to India...regardless of ticket price for your needed dates.

Not only so, but there are lots of ways of multiplying your Thank-You points. For example, the Diamond version earns 5 points/$ spent on gas/groceries/drugstore purchases. You can also earn bonus Thank You points from hundreds of online merchants, from Expedia.com, and from flying (with the PremierPass Card). If you sign up for the card when they are offering 10,000 sign up bonuses again (they have been going back and forth) earning 60,000 Thank You Points could look something like this:
1) 10,000 Points - Sign up for first card
2) 25,000 Points - Spend between self/family $5000 on groceries/gas/drugstore purchases
3) 10,000 Points - Sign up for second Citibank Card
4) 15,000 Points - Student bills of $15,000 charged to card

Net result: You spent $20,000 on Citicards and earned 60,000 Thank You Points for a free (often prices as $1500-$2000) ticket to India.

Earning 120,000 Discover Points is much much harder and would only cover your ticket to India if you need cheap dates - for a $1200 ticket.

Citi does issue these cards to students. My brother just applied for and was approved for the Diamond Card - as a student with a beginning credit history.

The best Thank You Points card for the infrequent traveller is the CitiBank ATT Universal Card. It offers 5X in the same categories at the Citibank Diamond Card - but with the Diamond Card the 5X is only for the first 12 months. The Diamond Card is however easier to get approved for than the ATT version based on the experience of 3 people I know who applied for both and were atleast initially rejected for the ATT but approved for the Diamond.

Once you have a credit history with Citibank you should apply for the Premier Pass Card if you fly much. This way you can match all the poins you earn from spending when you fly the tickets you would normally fly already. Say you spend $6K a year on gas/groceries/drugstore purchases on the ATT card. That is 30K points/year. Then spend only another $15K a year on everything else on the Premier Pass Card and fly one ticket to Asia a year. That ticket to Asia would earn you another 15K points = 30K points. Total: 60K points year without any signup bonuses. I recomend doing some churning (closing a couple accounts a year and applying for a couple similar new ones) for the sign-up bonuses. All in, fly for free without being able to spend hundreds of thousands a year.

Never mind the fact Citibank would issue your card as a Visa or MasterCard meaning it would actually work in other countries. Your Discover card will be Useless.

There is a reason I like Thank You Points and am currently offering the house for them on coupon connection. They can be used without problem for expensive tickets - it is easy to get 2 cents/points or far more if you need expensive tickets.

Note that the AT&T Universal Rewards seems to have stopped giving the 5x on groceries/gas for new accounts. 5% seems to be dying out with Citi. Dividend Platinum cut back to 2% on bonus categories, Diamond Preferred is 5x only for the first year. Driver's Edge is still a good choice (not the student version though). 6% for the first year on bonus categories, 3% thereafter. Plus I think those can be matched with driving miles. And the Driver's Edge points can be converted to TY points (not sure about the driving points).

Thanks Guys,

In 3 more days I will apply for the City PP card. Does anyone know if you can transfer pp points between citi cards. IE if I open the elite card with 15k bonus if I can open another one with 5k bonus a few months later?

Also I was wondering how so many of you get gold status at hotels, is it through cc offers or just staying alot?

You are unlikely to get approved for the Premier Pass card with beginning credit - and if memory serves right - they do require a minimum income.

Give the Diamond card a try. I think you are likely to get approved to that one - and it gives the bonus for gas/groceries/drugstore purchases.

All Thank You points can be combined into a single account. That should have been clear from my post above.

Wow - I hadn't see the ATT card change - I am sure glad I now have 3 accounts with them! I thought this would go away for new account but just wasn't sure when.

Each card earns points which are transferred to a Thank You account. Have Citibank link them to the same ThankYou account. You should check mtvU. As a student, I would have earned more with mtvU than PP.

Don't waste your credit applying for the PP, approval is slim unless you have a 35k income or extensive history. I posted two links for you and the amex will actually help you travelling on DL.

Hotel status is earned by staying in a hotel the required nights or having extremely good credit and large spending so that you can get a card with a high annual fee that will allow you the benefits without the stay.

They do have a minimum income, but this can always be gotten around by a creative definition of household income. Or by realizing that they will never try to verify it unless their credit exposure to you starts to get extreme. Not that I would actually advocate such behavior. Ahem.

Otherwise historically people on creditboards.com have reported the PP card as actually one of the easiest Citi cards to get. This may have just been in the early stages when they were trying to get people to sign up for it. There is an extra benefit for Citi in that MC World cards have higher interchange fees than regular platinum MCs.

You are advocating bank fraud and that is a Felony.

I would not recommend PP to someone with limited credit history. They do not report the credit limit or high credit. This causes a negative impact on credit scores.