So if I have a promo rate of 0% I should not carry a balance?

The Starwood Amex is generally my favorite (feel free to read my review), though as younger person that may not have such a high spend, the $65 annual fee (after the first year) may be significant relative to your spend. I generally value starpoints at around 4 cents each (though they may be worth a bit less to a student used to more budget accommodations, so let's call it 3 cents each. There are free options that will provide at least 1.25 cents cash, so you would need to spend $4,333/year (65/(.04-.0125)) on this card to make it worth renewing. The 10,000 bonus points certainly makes it worth keeping for a while, though. The Hilton Surpass is my second favorite card, but that one has an annual fee from the get go and one of my favorite benefits requires spending $40k/year.

Good luck!

Trying to help my nephew start building his credit, he is 20. Trying to educate kids these days, jeesh. Guess I would be better off texting him, they don't seem to be able to take verbal input anymore. Just exaggerating a bit.

Anyway, is there a good AMEX card with no annual fee so that he can hang on to it for a long long time?

THX

Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know that I applied for the no-fee Hilton HHonors Amex 62.5k promo and got approved immediately! Thanks again for everyone's help, and I'll definitely keep FT posted on any future CC-related decisions. Time to earmark $500 of spending...

Flyer talk is a great forum. Another great forum that is more geared towards credit questions is creditboards.com

If you only want good credit having 2-3 cards and just buying 1 thing on each and paying it off is the quickest way to build good credit.

If you want to whore credit card bonuses I would do it now as long as you keep getting approved. Your average age of accounts is so low that new accounts won't hurt you too bad. Just only whore the bonuses that are the best since most of them are 1 time only or at least have necessary waiting period between churns.

I'm 27 and probably have 10 new credit cards a few hundred thousand miles and a few thousand dollars in bonuses this year. I think it dropped my score from like 735 to 725.

My first AMEX card was the Blue for Students that I had since 2008 when I was 20. Still has this and will most likely keep this.

Congratulations... I did the same, and it was my first immediate approval... I had just gotten the Continental Chase Card, which wasn't approved right away, and only gave me a 3.5k credit line, and had been rejected for the United Chase card, so I wasn't expecting an immediate approval, but it worked...

For foreign nationals I would highly recommend getting an Amex card. If you ever decide to move out of the US, Amex seems to be the only company that will consider a credit history with them accumulated in another country. MC and Visa are bank-issued cards, and they generally do not consider your foreign credit history.