Which credit card do you use the most?

For those churning credit cards for bonus mile offers, does it affect your ability to get a mortgage or refinance? 
 
rkp said:
For those churning credit cards for bonus mile offers, does it affect your ability to get a mortgage or refinance? 
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i dont like to get credit cards, it seems like it would have a negative impact on credit. i have two that i got in college and i dont use them at all. i only keep them to show the longer credit history.  our main card is an SPG AMEX, we use that wherever they take amex and i have a bofa MC for when they dont take amex.
 
indirectly I think. For underwriters to approve your loan, they look in 3'Cs: credit reputation (more than just credit score), collateral (irrelevant in this discussion), capacity (debt to income ratio, among others).http://www.freddiemac.com/corporate/au-works/factors.html

having too many credit cards may not help:
  • if there are too many recent inquiries that would hurt your credit reputation
  • total balance is too high, increase your debt to income ratio. 46% is the cut-off for convention I think

on the other hand, if you keep your total balance low and trade lines are seasoned, you credit score would be high due to low utilization and long average age of account (AAOA). higher credit score improves your credit reputation and lower rates, obviously.

rkp said:
For those churning credit cards for bonus mile offers, does it affect your ability to get a mortgage or refinance?
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Good feedback Cal Court.  Based on my reading, it sounds like the credit score impact is minimal and goes away pretty quickly.  Tons of great comments here:http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/10/13/credit-card-churning-for-mustachians-or-sucka-consumers/

What do you guys think of this plan:  After a new mortgage, grab 4 or so big mileage bonus cards at once and hit their requirements quickly.  It sounds like it takes 90 days or so for the credit impact to completely go away.  After 90 days, our credit should actually look better as we have access to more dollars but have a very low balance.  And doing it right after a new loan would be ideal as there is no way we can buy another property that quickly anyway. 

Anyone an underwriter or work closely with an underwriter here?  Want to really understand how they would see it.  I was doing a ton of business travel and using miles for our family vacations.  With my biz travel down, I need to restock my mileage accounts and a few 50,000 bonuses seems like the ideal way to do it.
 
Gotta give a thumbs up to to Citi Double Cash card, nice to be able to redeem for statement credit monthly versus waiting for the Costco AMEX once a year cash out.  The Citi MasterCard is now our go to card for pretty much everything, dining, shopping, online.  Use to think its gimmicky with the 1% up front and then another 1% after you pay off.  But just noticed when you get the 1% from paying off, you also get the 1% from the new statement close.  So basically except for the first month, you are getting 2% every time. 

Benefits seem similar to AMEX as well with the 1yr (iPhone) extended warranty, travel, and something I haven't seen before:

60 day return guarantee (have to manually enroll).  Need to look into it more, but basically you can get your money back  by returning any unsatisfied item to them.  Interesting. 

They also have a online receipt upload database for your 1 yr extended warranty products.
 
here is our house rule. In the order of priority

1. can we pay with Chase Freedom and get that 5% category bonus?
2. if not, can we pay with American Express Blue Cash and get that 3% cash back? (for grocery only)
3. can we pay with Citi Double Cash and get that 2% cash back?
4. pay cash

When Costco switches to Visa next year, either do the Citi Costco Visa or Capital One Quicksilver Visa for that 1.5% cash back. Quicksilver is also good as there are no foreign transaction fees.

Also there is a credit card (Sallie Mae Mastercard) that gives you 5% cash back in grocery and gas (up to $250 a month) all year round. Since we do Costco gas and buy some food from Costco, $250 for grocery a month is not too bad. So may need to add that to our collection. Ranch 99 has that 1% reward program so effectively you get 6% CB in Ranch 99. However Ranch 99 price and food quality sucks
 
Just activated a new offer on my AMEX cards:  $20 off $20 Amazon purchase!  These were on my AMEX Blue Cash cards, no luck on the Costco AMEX card.
 
ps9 said:
Just activated a new offer on my AMEX cards:  $20 off $20 Amazon purchase!  These were on my AMEX Blue Cash cards, no luck on the Costco AMEX card.
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Thank you !! got also the $20 off $20 amazon purchase on my Amex Clear :)
 
ps9 said:
Gotta give a thumbs up to to Citi Double Cash card...
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Heh... turns out we have this card too.

The Mrs. mentioned applying for it since we also bank at Citi but I never used it. Going to switch our purchases over to it from the Amex and the Southwest Visa.

I thought we would use the Southwest Visa points more but there are always better airline deals on United/AA.
 
Don't forget, Chase is 5% back on restaurants starting April.  Have to activate on their website.  Discover too but most restaurants don't take DFS.
 
AMEX has another deal, $25 off $50 purchase at Smart&Final, can redeem up to three times.  We don't shop there, but for 50% off we'll ditch TJs for a few days.  If you don't see the offer in your account, try:

www.amexoffers.com

Sync your card to Twitter, and tweet #AMEXSmartFinal
 
ps9 if you happen to go to the S&F on Culver - let me know if they sell GC's please... and which ones they have left (probably cleaned out of Amazon at least).
 
aquabliss said:
ps9 if you happen to go to the S&F on Culver - let me know if they sell GC's please... and which ones they have left (probably cleaned out of Amazon at least).
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Wife shopped at S&F for the first time today, she got an Amazon gift card and said they still have plenty in stock.  All variety of GCs.
 
Out of Amazon GCs, plenty of iTunes/Google Play, restaurants, Nordstroms, BananaRep, Forever 21, Macy's, Lowes GCs left.  If you have a big purchase at Lowes, could be worthwhile to load up.  3 AMEX cards x 3 redemptions x $25 = $225 possible savings
 
aquabliss said:
ps9 if you happen to go to the S&F on Culver - let me know if they sell GC's please... and which ones they have left (probably cleaned out of Amazon at least).
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Considering they sell pretty everything the grocery stores do, I think you can use up your discounts without buying Amazon gift cards. That being said, this deal is good until June 30th so I'm sure they'll restock their gift cards plenty after the crazy slickdealers forget about it.
 
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