New to Flyertalk
 

Hi guys, I am new here and have a lot of questions. Would really appreciate it if you guys would help me out or refer me to threads that could. Well right now I am a college student and this will be the first credit card I will be applying for. I've recently been looking at the coin for mileage idea and have some questions.

Would a first time applicant and college student be accepted by cards offering these miles, such as chase preferred or starwood?
Is it okay to strictly use these cards for coin purchases?
How often and how much do people usually purchase(coins)?
Will doing this lower your credit score?
I read somewhere that having a lot of cards will be bad for credit reports?
What happens if a CC company finds out you are doing this?
Are miles transferable between different CC companies?

thats all i can think of for now...
im sure ill have more later on..
thanks for the help!

For information about buying Dollar Coins from the Mint Start at this thread

Having lots of cards and missing payments is bad for your credit score. A quick search on this topic should produce relevant threads. There are general rules for credit scores, check out this post, but YMMV.
If you apply for too many cards you will start to get rejections.

Most Miles/Points Programs have some form of transfer, with either internal transfers to other members or externally to other programs.

welcome to flyertalk!

OK, your folks in a credit union? Got an account there? If not, get one and see if they have a credit card you might qualify for, maybe offering proprietary points. Build up a little credit history buying proprietary grocery cards (invisible cash equivalents) and don't really go into debt. Pay off the balance each month. Check credit karma or the like to see your score. If you only get a low credit line it will be hard to coin. The big spenders here have 100s of times that since you try to limit the percentage of your credit line you use. Also coinflow is unpredictable and the big spenders are adequately capitalized for contingencies.

Have a job, other income? That might raise your credit line up. Coin $500 a pop if you have at least 2k unused credit on a card. For a student, you might next look at an Amtrak card if you are on the east coast and use trains. Low credit line, no fees, sign on bonuses. Ramp up credit steadily, but never use any credit card for anything but making money. Same goes for taking out student loans. In my day I continued to work after taking out loans and invested my money in 15% yield preferred stocks. Today that game doesn't work. The RoR on a college degree these days may be negative and bank interest is the pits. But there will always be opportunities for those who see how the world works and not how it was supposed to work. Wait, watch and learn.;) As to the quantity of what gets purchased, lets say many folks here feel like a million bucks.:p

welcome to FT! if you're a college student, you'll probably be accepted but with a very low credit line. i would concentrate of getting no annual fee cards which will help you build your credit long-term, rather than going for attractive offers with annual fees

Welcome to FT!

Your best bet is to start reading here at FT. There is a wealth of information here. It seems that you can always learn something from the gurus. Take your time. Don't jump into something at first glance. Someone in your position, starting out, might just be missing a better opportunity or perhaps a safer opportunity. Make yourself a strong cup of coffee and start reading.

The good thing is you're a college student. That means you're at the beginning of your earning history and that you're willing to learn. The bad side of that is that you're at the beginning of your earning (and credit) history and that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Don't try to jump in too quickly. There are tons of tempting offers here, and more pop up everyday, so much so that you will probably feel that you need to apply for everything you see.

Don't. Before you do anything, you need to understand credit and how it may affect you. Just as you can't learn everything from one college course, you can't learn everything from one board. Before jumping into this, it's a really good idea to learn about credit in general. One good internet resource is here, http://creditboards.com/forums/.

Once you've got credit down, you can mix that knowledge with what you'll get here. In general terms, understand that while love may be a game for the young, credit and FF programs tend to favor us who have reached an age where, perhaps, we've got a bit more experience under our belts.

I don't mean that entirely in jest. Many people here are able to qualify for the promotions offered because of a longstanding, good credit history, or if lacking that history, a tremendous earning potential at the very start of their careers. It's unlikely that as a college student you'll be in that position but it's easy to become envious of all of the people who can take advantage of all the offers discussed on these boards. Those folks, perhaps like me, are a little older and able to take advantage of offers that many cannot. In an attempt to translate my experience to yours, I can only tell you that when I was a college student, I was thinking how great it would have been if my mortgage payment could have been as low as my parents, who paid $100 per month. I pay much more than that now, and although I wouldn't mind paying $100/month, I know the amount I'm paying is comfortably within my budget. You'll eventually reach a similar comfort level with the passage of time.

I wouldn't do a thing for a month other than review the threads here and at creditboards (you're in college, what else are you doing before noon?). Of course, you'll miss out on some great deals, but what you'll gain in return is an understanding of whether those great deals are your great deals. And as we've seen following the deals for awhile, there's always a better deal coming. Many people on this board jumped on a Chase credit card this spring for 100,000 British Airways miles without an understanding that those miles might carry substantial fuel surcharge and tax fees. I don't have a problem with those charges, given my individual travel habits. A lot of people do, and understandably so, given their travel habits. I think that experience simply reinforced my belief that you shouldn't apply for any credit card offer that doesn't meet your particular needs.

Your summer school course, if you will, is to figure out how you can celebrate graduating from college without incurring significant debt while taking the kind of trip your classmates will only envy you for. At the same time, you are likely to learn enough to become responsible with your credit so that you'll also be the first person you know who can qualify for a loan to buy a car or a condo/townhouse/home. And, because you'll have been that responsible with your credit, you're also like to be the first person after making those major purchases who can also take further trips because your superior credit will allow you to qualify for offers they may never reach.

take a few hits off the pipe before starting a farm.

+1. Great advice.

For OP, yes, start from creditboards.com for credit score/history/rating/worthiness issues. Come to FT for the mile/point game.

Do understand that quite a few FTers are getting fat signup bonuses from credit cards because they ARE credit-worthy in the eyes of the banks (long credit history, good income...etc). That's why for starters like you, you have to grasp the "credit concept" and work on your credit first. Reading creditboards.com like crazy will be a good starter.

No idea about frequent flyer programs and mile/point games? That's where FT comes in. Read the sticky threads in fora of your interest. Read and read and read threads on FT to "build" your knowledge base. Have a question? Great! Search and see if that's asked before on FT and how the question was asked and answered.

Still confused? No problem. Ask a different and/or more detailed question than the person before you. By doing so, not only will you build the knowledge, but also you expand your own horizon about the mile game. Plan for sleepless nights crunching on FT. :D

Don't forget, you can learn all the basics from the official website of the airlines too. Sometimes the airlines just give you easy and straightforward answers to their frequent flyer programs from ground zero. And the airline websites are not as overwhelming as FT. ;)

Welcome to FT!

If your parents have an Amex card, ask them to get you a card on their account, with a $1 limit if they don't trust you;). You will instantly have a card with a history going back to their "member since" date.

Hey guys thanks for all the great advice. Looks like I'm not yet ready for this forum yet, I'm going to be studying creditboards for a while. Feel free to continue to add any additional input and advice! I'll be back once I build up that credit score!

Sounds like a reasonable course of action.

Start now with pulling your free annual credit report, and making sure it is correct.
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

You are allowed one from each of the 3 organizations every year. I would highly recommend doing them 4 months apart, as it seems when you make corrections to one, it flows across to the others a fair amount of the time.

Dispute any "potentially negative" items. Stay on top of it, and keep it clean. Since you are starting out, make sure all your accounts report and show. If any don't, you will need to contact the account holder and ask them to submit your info to the credit reporting agencies.

Note that the free credit report is just that - the report. You will have to pay extra to see your score, and they will try and sell you subscriptions for continuous monitoring, etc (which I would always skip)

Wilson, this is good advice. Do this if your parents have an AmEx card.

Also, as a new member as you read through threads you will undoubtedly run into lots of abbreviations that you may well be unfamiliar with. When that happens, go to the top right of the FlyerTalk page, click on Help, then click on Glossary.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Does this only work with Amex card? Are you guys referring to be registered as an AU?
Yea I noticed all the abbreviations and it really made my head spin the first time I saw this forum, but I'm starting to learn this lingo now! :)

I think so.

Yes.
(Note: I didn't know what AU meant...so I myself just went to the Glossary. It wasn't there, but I concluded it must be "authorized user".