Your best cards, may not be my best cards. What is best depends on your personal needs! However, the benefits often do span a broad range of people so here I am sharing my choices!
I have chosen to add 4 credit cards over the last half a year. From oldest to most recent:
Bank of America Travel Rewards
Discover it Cashback
Chase Sapphire Preferred
Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard
I will describe how I got to this point, and also the benefits of each of these card!
It is important to manage your credit history as this affects your credit score and your ability to get approved for credit cards or loans. So, first I’ll describe what I had done before getting 4 credit cards in the last half year.
Building a Base
Before these 4 recent credit cards, I had two credit cards.
Bank of America Cashback Rewards
Target RedCard
Both of these have no annual fee. This is important since a main factor in your credit score is the age of your oldest account, as well as your average credit age. This makes sense since lenders would likely view you as less risky if you have had responsibly managed credit for a long time. Therefore, having no annual fees on your first few credit cards means you can keep them open indefinitely and not worry about paying an annual fee even if you no longer use the cards after upgrading to better ones.
Keeping these no annual fee cards and paying them ON TIME means you credit score will have a good base. Then, you can start exploring more credit cards, knowing that your credit score has a good foundation.
Bank of America Travel Rewards
I opened this card in August of 2018. Bank of America had increased their sign-up bonus for this card to 25,000 points. Applied to you credit card statement for travel related expenses, this is worth $250. The requirement was to spend a minimum of $1,000 in the first 90 days. With this card, you get 1.5x points which is worth up to 1.5% if redeemed for travel expenses in your statement. This was a step up in percent rewards for me compared to my older Bank of America Cashback of 1%.
This, as well as the cash rewards card from Bank of America, both have sign up bonuses currently and no annual fee, making them great cards for those looking to get started with credit cards.
Discover it Cash Back
This is another no annual fee card. It offers 5% cash back categories that change every 3 months, and 1% cash back on all other purchases. They publish categories beforehand so you can know what will be coming up for the year. Also, currently, Discover will match all your cashback rewards at the end of your first year if you open this card. Basically, you’d get 10% and 2% back for your purchases!
I opened the card in December, and before the end of the month, I bought a few hundred dollars worth of Amazon gift cards. This would cover about a year’s worth of Amazon expenses, essentially all at 10% off!
I was really bummed after I opened the card and realized there is a $50 referral bonus that both a friend and I both could receive. I just had to use their link and make a purchase with 90 days.
If you want to support my site, use my referral link when opening your card! You do not have to though, if you have friends or family that can refer you as well. Both parties can receive $50, so don’t mess up like I did! https://refer.discover.com/s/3dzi5i
Chase Sapphire Preferred
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is well acclaimed credit card. As of this post, they are offering 50,000 points if you spend $4,000 within the first 3 months. This is worth $625 if redeemed for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards! You also get 2x points on travel and dining. There is an annual fee of $95, but is waived for the first year.
Since I learn slowly, I messed up again with this card. I did not realize there is a referral bonus available! If you get referred, the person who referred you gets 10,000 points. Though the referred person gets nothing, I still wish I could have asked my friends and helped them get some free points! Again, if you want to support my site, feel free to use my referral link. https://www.referyourchasecard.com/6/L6SD3RG339
Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard
Finally, my most recent card is the Hawaiian Airlines world Elite Mastercard. I find this to be a mouthful and wish they had a shorter name. I chose this card since they offer 60,000 miles after spending $200 in the first 90 days. As I mentioned, the what cards work for best for you is very personal. To me, this card doesn’t sound particularly great. However, I am going to Hawaii this September with my family. 60,000 miles could potentially be 1.5 roundtrip flights from the continental US to Hawaii. A potential saving of around $600. If you don’t fly fly to Hawaii or other places Hawaiian Airlines services, then this credit card may be a very poor choice. However, if you plan on going to Hawaii in the near future, this could be a great card. There is a $95 annual fee that is not waived though. This is the card I will most likely want to cancel before the 2nd year’s fee hits.
If you are organized and use credit cards wisely, you can easily save hundreds of dollars from all the incentives and bonuses that credit card companies are offering!
Comment on this post! What credit cards have you opened recently or which cards do you want to open in the near future?