How bad is it to apply for 2 credit cards within 2 months?

[CrzyforPiglet]

Ah I can hear the moans now but please hear me out! So I'll heartily admit I did something pretty stupid - I was lured by the offer of enough miles for 3 roundtrip tickets that back in January I applied for and was instantly approved for a Spirit Airlines credit card. I thought it was the perfect plan, I would get the miles, use them for our Nov. WDW trip, then cancel the card after. I made sure before I applied that our dates fell within the standard award travel, which they did, so I moved forward with the plan. So in Feb. I got my first statement, had the miles, called Spirit and was told the only award level ticket would take more than 3x the amount of miles I thought would cover 3 tickets - WHAT!?! Ultimately we waited until the Delta prices were the same as Spirit's and bought tickets with them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the Spirit credit card but that's another post.

So now I'm on the verge of being lured again - this time by Delta. We do fly with Delta about twice a year so it makes more sense - they will give me 25k miles after my first purchase, another 25k after 6 months, free companion certificate after my first purchase, and another 2,500 miles if I add an additional card, plus no annual fee for the first year. I am sorely tempted to do this b/c we do fly with Delta, if I stop using our Chase Disney and use the Delta cc exclusively we would earn about 1 standard ticket a year which depending on our flights would be well worth the switch. So how bad would it be to my credit score to do this? I don't know my exact score but I do know it is in the high 700s - I pulled it in January (before the spirit card) b/c I was fearful of potential ID theft and forgot to print the report. DH currently have a mortgage, 1 car loan, and CCs we don't use (except our Chase which we pay off monthly). We won't need another loan for 3 years when we'll need to replace my card so I'm thinking even if my score dips it'll be back up by the time we need it again. So am I crazy or what?

 

[bettymae1121]

I don't think your score will take a hit, if it does it would be a small one and since you don't seem to need a loan in the near future I think you'll be okay on that front.

I'm not sure the Delta card will work out as well as you think, Delta is one of the worst for being able to get flights with available frequent flyer seats. All airlines are tough these days, but I hear more complaints about Delta than any other airline (I'm a travel agent). And that free companion ticket may have a lot of restrictions. I have a United credit card and their companion certs are only good if you buy the really expensive unrestricted fares, which can be quadruple what the the lowest sale fare is, so there isn't any real savings. So I'd try to find out the companion cert restrictions before applying for the card, in your shoes.

 

[auralia]

remember the yearly fee on these us usally 70 or more it can make it not so worth it.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Well with the info you listed you should be ok credit score-wise BUT you may not be approved for the card given you JUST got one. Especially if you got a decent limit on the Spirit Card. That being said, there are plenty of rewards cards WITHOUT annual fees. I don't think I would apply for one with fees- even if you get one free year.

 

[alyssa810]

I don't think your score will take a hit, if it does it would be a small one and since you don't seem to need a loan in the near future I think you'll be okay on that front.

I'm not sure the Delta card will work out as well as you think, Delta is one of the worst for being able to get flights with available frequent flyer seats. All airlines are tough these days, but I hear more complaints about Delta than any other airline (I'm a travel agent). And that free companion ticket may have a lot of restrictions. I have a United credit card and their companion certs are only good if you buy the really expensive unrestricted fares, which can be quadruple what the the lowest sale fare is, so there isn't any real savings. So I'd try to find out the companion cert restrictions before applying for the card, in your shoes.

I agree 100% about getting flights!! Since Song is no longer around we don't fly Delta very often, but I still have the delta card and a ton of miles that I have a hard time using. I think my fee is $90 and I only keep the card active so I don't lose the 100k+ miles I've accumulated (on all those old song flights and from the NW merger). We've been trying to book miles flights for DL in September and it's brutal- the schedules stink as well as the miles price on the flight!!!

 

[librarygal]

My Delta credit car has an annual fee of $95 so I will cancel it when it renews. They will probably offer to take the annual fee off when I call though. I have done test searches on Delta and there is never FF availability at the low mileage level. American is much better. Luckily, we booked a trip to Asia before the merger and our miles are used up.

 

[elgerber]

I did this last fall, got individual cards for my husband and myself. I was able to get 3 FF tickets to Wash DC from Mpls for Memorial Day weekend, so I was very happy. I did it the year before also, with a different card, also for Delta, and was able to get 3 tickets to Buffalo from Mpls. Now, I know this is not the norm, as we have never had luck with NWA/Delta booking awards tickets to Orlando or most other popular places. But it did work for a couple of other trips for me.

 

[Missytara]

I don't think your score will take a hit, if it does it would be a small one and since you don't seem to need a loan in the near future I think you'll be okay on that front.

That is very true; I ran into this issue when I purchased my last home in 1995.

I have a debit card with my bank; and a credit card with a $7,500.00 limit. I have a Penney's card with a $1,500.00 limit. That is it. I have excellent credit, no loans, no mortgages, no nothing at this point.

But when I went to purchase my home, I was at first denied, because they told me I had too much credit extended to me out there. When they told me it was at $19,000.00, I couldn't believe it.

They gave me a listing of my credit extended to me; exactly what I showed you in the second paragraph, plus a $10,000.00 for a Chase Bank card. I couldn't believe it.

Turns out, about a year before, I had received an offer from Chase, because of my good credit, and I would receive my card shortly. I didn't want it, I didn't need it, wanted to get rid of it. I wrote a note on the letter saying Do Not Send and initialed it. They were able to use it as if I wanted it and issued the card, but somehow I never received it and didn't even know I had it, or who else had it.....

 

[jgates]

Delta will often find you needing 35,000 miles to take a trip. It really depends on where you want to go. However, it does seem you can always get a ticket - which is more than I can say with trying to use the 60,000 miles I have in my Midwest account - I can't get anywhere even trying to book 8 months in advance. Air Tran isn't quite as bad although you can at least use credits on 1/2 of the trip & just pay going rate on other half as they priced each portion separately.

So in that respect I rate Delta a lot better than some of the others - you normally can at least get on a plane!

However, I received 50,000 miles on my offer last year also. 25 immediately & 25 by charging $1000 in 90 days. I also received the companion voucher. We paid for 1 ticket & taxes only on the 2nd. This allowed g.f. & I to each fly from Madison to Las Vegas for $135 (it was about $274 total for 2 ppl). Rates that week were cheap & they had about 50% of the flights each day you could use the voucher on. So we didn't get exact flight we wanted but were very happy with what we did get for the price. In that situation I used the companion voucher & saved my FF miles.

It doesn't really answer the 'credit' question, but I will say I am not complaining about the miles & offer Delta gave me - it will give me a minimum of 1.5 tickets plus the free companion one we used.