We haven't had a Credit Card Sign-up Bonus-O-Rama thread in a while, so here I am making one

aleck said:   tante said:   I think the signup bonuses right now are pretty mediocre. My last app-o-rama was in late December and I am going to wait until I can find at least 3 worthwhile cards.

Yep, nothing beats Chase Southwest with 50,000 points late last year.

venture card last year matched up to 100k points. Chase sapphire was 50k until recently. The AA cards were huge, BA had 100k last year.

I myself (me and spouse) did Vacation-App-O-Rama few weeks back (late Feb, early March). We are planning for a trip next year (Europe) and hoping to cover airline tickets plus lodging.

After everything is done, We will have:

Me:

54K United Miles (50K signup bonus plus 4k from Netflix sigup)
60K+ Chase UR pts (60K Chase Ink bold card) and a huge potential for lot more pts using UR mall and 5 pts on office supplies) -Pts already posted
30K AMEX SPG pts (applied in Dec 11)-Pts already posted
60K AMEX HHonors pt
100K Citi AAdvantage (applied both personal and biz cards)
70K Hawaiian Airlines miles-->140K HHonors (BOA and BOH, both serviced by FIA card services)

Got rejected for Barclays US airways card.

Spouse:

50K Citi TYPs (will take sometime to meet spending requiremets)
50K HHonors Citi
70K Hawaiian Airlines miles/140K HHonors (BOA and BOH, both services by FIA card services)which can be transferred to HH at 1:2 ratio)
20K ($200) Barclays NFL card

I will be more than happy to share the links but searching should be fun!

I would also suggest (anyone considering AOR)getting Chase bold ink card (There is a very huge potential here and I believe more than AARP card, if you know where to look)

I think this BOR was a flop. Should have spread apps across issuers, not hit the big ones for multiple accounts.

How many citi and chase accounts did you have? I try to keep three or less before applying for one new.

badsister said:   
my questions:
- Once i get my bonus i stop using the card but still keep the account open. would it be best to continue using the cards (and if so, for how long)?
- can banks see what my monthly spend is on each card?
- is 10 cards too many? can i keep my AOR going or should i give it a rest for a while? (i usually apply for a card every 2 or 3 months or so)

Thanks in advance!

You say you're retired, so the answer to your first question depends. How old is your oldest line of credit? If you're of retirement age, and opened a card in the 60s/70s that's still open, keeping new cards open vs closing them won't have too much of an impact on your credit score.
Banks can see whatever each card reports to the credit reporting agency. If you pay off your credit card balance at the end of every day, the balance for the day the card is reported will show up on your credit report.

I do not personally think that 10 cards is too many. I currently have 14 open. I apply for 3-5 every 3-6 months. Try to spread it out to one at each bank and spread out my hard enquirers over the 3 agencies.

badsister said:   

i'm 55 and my oldest line of credit is from 2004 (i closed the old accounts). (breakdown: 1 card 2004 / 2 cards 2009 / 1 card 2010 / 4 cards 2011 / 1 card 2012)
i do spread the cards across banks, but never considered spreading the hard checks across agencies. how would one know what agency is doing the job? and dont they basically all have the same info?

with your 14 cards, do u actually use them all once the bonus is posted?

tia...

creditboards.com (look for creditpulls in the top right) has a search engine that allows you to see what banks run what credit agency in your state (it does depend by state). I find that searching the bank name and state (ie. Citi GA).

If one bank checks equifax, the hard the inquiry won't show up on the transunion report, and they won't see inquiries that appear only on transunion. CapOne runs a check on all three of the big agencies, so they would know all the inqs you that appear, and each agency will show one report from CapOne. The credit line should be reported upon approval to all agencies though.

There are a few cards I have not used since I got the bonus. Some I will cancel. Some I will keep open. This is where the concept of a sock drawer comes in. I have 4 cards in my wallet (dining, groceries, 5% CashBack rotating, other). The other 10 are in a drawer (some people use a sock so they are in one place, I use an old wallet).
For the cards I plan on keeping - cards that have no annual fee that will help age my credit profile - I will pull them out every few months and buy a pack of gum for 75 cents so they remain "active", then put them back in the drawer.

I just paid off a bunch of balance floating on my AARP card at 0%. Decided to take advantage of the good stuff going around.

In for 1 Citi ThankYou Premiere? for $500 bonus with $1500 spend in 3 months.
In for 1 Chase Southwest for $50k points ($500+worth of airfare) with a purchase.

Had to transfer credit line over on both. Citi called me. I called Chase's lending services.

Tried to get a Capital One card for a $100 bonus, but really to have the card for no foreign transaction fee purposes, but got a rejection it seems. Need to work on that one.

TheGMan said:   dk240t said:   Tried to get a Capital One card for a $100 bonus, but really to have the card for no foreign transaction fee purposes, but got a rejection it seems. Need to work on that one.
FWIW, Omar stated earlier that Penfed has $250 and they also have no foreign fees.

Ummm Citi Thank you Premier has no foreign transaction fees....

scripta said:   Isn't Barclay's one of those that let you open a card at first, but re-check your credit a month later and close your account due to too many inquiries/new accounts? That's what happened to my National Park Foundation Visa a few years ago.
not in my experience. In fact barclays has been very liberal with limits and the fact I've opened more than a dozen cards since I opened my barclays card.

Get a different no forex card in 8 months or so. Then cancel citi TY before annual fee hits.

JohnDrake said:   scripta said:   Isn't Barclay's one of those that let you open a card at first, but re-check your credit a month later and close your account due to too many inquiries/new accounts? That's what happened to my National Park Foundation Visa a few years ago.
not in my experience. In fact barclays has been very liberal with limits and the fact I've opened more than a dozen cards since I opened my barclays card.

It's happened to me. Twice in 4 years.

tehlorax said:   imbatman said:   Get a different no forex card in 8 months or so. Then cancel citi TY before annual fee hits.

I never understood cancelling BEFORE the annual fee hits. I use that bill as a reminder. I call them, cancel, and they remove the fee. You don't even have to fight for it, since the fee doesn't "count" until the next billing cycle starts.

Or just make an appointment on your outlook calendar to remind y0u. That's just as easy. And it saves me 2-4 months of having to monitor that card.

cbfan4luc said:   Can I buy gift cards with my credit cards that require you to spend $$ to get the bonuses?

yep, they are treated just like a normal purchase at almost all stores.

Received approved email from Barclay, credit limit unknown.

For different credit cards, how long usually take to receive the card (or receive the credit card number) so you can use it to buy stuff online? So the fastest is around one week?

BingBlangBlaow said:   Do you mean $2500 spend for the TY premiere? Just wondering if there's a better offer out there.

Typo. Or mis-remembering. Its $2500.

ultraramp said:   As of now your score is 2/10. You should call the reconsideration phone number of CC companies and talk to them immediately to get approved for rest of the CC's.

Applying 10 CC's at a time is dangerous. You may expect any of the following (if you cannot spend at least 30% of the CC's CL and keep it revolving for at least 2 years),
CC Company approves the card and by the time you receive the CC, your account will be closed when they manually look at your CR
CC Company approves the card and less than 6 months during normal soft pull CR they see lot of inquiries and close your account
Get blacklisted forever and settle with CC from Credit Unions or Secured CC.

Take it light

So how do you handle AOR?

how many cards should we apply inorder not to alert the credit cards?

Hey imbatman, I see that you had another bonus-o-rama a few months ago. I'm currently planning a bonus-o-rama of my own (first AOR). Are there any other card offers on your radar that you didn't pull the trigger on since its so close to your last one?

EDIT: Sorry, confused you with the original poster, but same question. Any other good deals out there?

And check te "what credit card should I get?" sticky. Lots of useful info in there.

imbatman said:   There are lots of good deals. I previously got a few of them. These cards fit my needs/wants. I wanted one from citi, AMEX, chase, and every once in a while I throw in a barclays.
My answer to your question is... More questions. what are your needs/wants (cash, hotel points, airline points, bank points good for transfer)?
When was the last time you had a credit hit?
How many cards do you have with each bank?
How much can you spend in the next 3 months?

Answered these questions in the "What credit card should I get?" thread so that I don't hijack this one with noob discussion.