New credit card offers with cash back.

[lucigo]

We are getting tons of them in the mail, sign up for our card and get $250 in points, $200, $100 etc. Is it really possible to sign up for a card, fulfill the requirements, get your money and then cancel the card? Have you done this? I'm looking at a potential $850 on my desk just in the last 2 days.

 

[disneyfreakk]

You can do that, but your credit will take a hit. It will lower the length of your credit history. You will also take a hit for new credit , and then the inquiries will ding you.

 

[rvchat]

You can do that, but your credit will take a hit. It will lower the length of your credit history. You will also take a hit for new credit , and then the inquiries will ding you.

Too funny. I never EVER get these. I wonder why.

 

[RachaelA]

DH and I used to do that all the time with 0% offers when we were paying off our credit card debt. Our credit did take small dings, but always went back up pretty quickly.

 

[4under4]

You can do that, but your credit will take a hit. It will lower the length of your credit history. You will also take a hit for new credit , and then the inquiries will ding you.

I'm not a CFP, but my understanding is that if you have a solid credit rating, and don't plan to make any big purchases in the next year or two, then it probably won't matter about the ding of opening several cards at once. But remember, you will get hit both coming and going, so it's better not to cancel them, but rather just put them away, at least for a year or two before you cancel - assuming of course you DON'T carry credit card debt and can be trusted not to use the cards to carry any debt. Interest charges would just eat away any benefit from the cash back.

Between DH and I we have 3 Disney cards because we got back-to-back $250 offers right after our last trip. We have a number of credit cards, and track which are offering the best benefits at any given time. Our preference is to use our Discover or Chase Freedom cards for everyday purchases because they tend to have the best cash back programs for groceries, gas, etc.; we use our Disney visas for online purchases because they are easy to track for mistakes/id theft issues; and we use a couple others for specific discount features (gymboree visa only at gymboree, amazon visa only for amazon, etc.). We don't carry debt so for us the different cards just help us compartmentalize our purchases and maximize our rewards.

 

[lucigo]

We have solid credit and no intention to move or buying anything big. I went ahead and signed up for two Amex cards, one for me and one for DH...each have $250 rewards after you put $500 on them within the first 3 months. I can do that easily just paying bills and then paying them off. Heck $500 would pay for most of Christmas! Chase Freedom has $200 cash back, thats the next biggest one, not sure if I'm going to go any further with this or not!

 

[Celidh]

The one thing I wonder about that is the yearly fee for the card. If they are offering you a cashback offer, but there is a yearly fee you have to pay is it worthwhile? I'm not sure since my card doesn't have a fee and is a very low interest card and I'm happy with that but I did look into a Westjet card that offered $100.00 in Westjet dollars but the fee was $40.00, so in essence, I was only getting $60.00.

I have really good credit and do want/need to get a new car in the next year or two so I don't want to mess with that by getting credit cards. My car is 2003 Corollara with 265,000.00 km on it. It will only last for so long but I'm going to drive it till it drops and save my money for Disney instead of new car payments!

 

[RachaelA]

The one thing I wonder about that is the yearly fee for the card. If they are offering you a cashback offer, but there is a yearly fee you have to pay is it worthwhile? I'm not sure since my card doesn't have a fee and is a very low interest card and I'm happy with that but I did look into a Westjet card that offered $100.00 in Westjet dollars but the fee was $40.00, so in essence, I was only getting $60.00.

I have really good credit and do want/need to get a new car in the next year or two so I don't want to mess with that by getting credit cards. My car is 2003 Corollara with 265,000.00 km on it. It will only last for so long but I'm going to drive it till it drops and save my money for Disney instead of new car payments!

A lot of cards waive the first annual fee. DH and I signed up for a Continental card when we were flying last December so we could get the extra miles and free checked bags. Once the year was up and we would have had to pay the annual fee, we just cancelled it.

 

[bpesch]

You can do it but every card you open then close impacts your credit rating. I never really understood that but now I can see how it might go.

 

[DawnM]

I am not worried one bit about a credit rating from opening and closing credit cards.

I opened a CC last year, got the rewards/benefits, and cancelled. I also cancelled 2 CC I hadn't used in years.

My credit score was just run for our refi and I am still over 800.....807 I believe is the exact number.

Dawn