Guess I'm cancelling the Ford visa

[eharri3]

Shame. Auto charging my auto insurance and using it for a couple other things was basically paying for my 6 month dealer services. Now it's of no use to me, basically just another visa.

I guess Ford wasn't finding the partnership lucrative enough.

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[UGADawg96]

Get the Fidelity 2% cash back card, let it flow into a brokerage account, invest it, forget about it, and let it grow.

 

[{tpc}]

Looks like they aren’t letting you hold already accrued reward points forever either? Not sure if that’s for just the card points or for all points?

 

[JExpedition07]

I’ve never done the cobranded cards, my Chase Sapphire Reserve and Amex Blue Preferred have served me well for years with no BS

 

[Ronin1973]

Don't cancel it...that will hurt your credit score. Keep it and put gas on it every 6 months and then pay it.

 

[johnmo61]

How long will the point last?

 

[Ken_DBA]

Don't cancel it...that will hurt your credit score. Keep it and put gas on it every 6 months and then pay it.

You need to be careful here. I had three credit cards that I pay off in full every month. Over the years each company offered to increase my credit limit and I accept in the belief that it's better to have that credit when you don't need it because if you do need it, an increase may not be available.
At one point I checked my credit score and was shocked to see it go down a bit. The note on my file said something along the lines of "High unsecured loan available" (or something to that effect).
I got my wife to get a credit card under her name (as building her independent credit score is a good idea) and cancelled one of my credit cards.

 

[lrb_35128]

Can't cite the source (but a Googly-search should find it), but saw an article headline recently about how pending Fed law will adversely affect the reward-card environment. - Was heading into a company meeting, so didn't have time to dig deeper.

If fact, not fiction, Ford may simply be an early adopter.

 

[eharri3]

I have a miles Mastercard and a cash back discover as my Go to's. I only took this one on because the up front cash bonus for spending x amount in the first few months plus charging a few other things covered a good amount of my extended warranty. I was only keeping it for the points. It'll be gone after May and I'll just go back to keeping my eye open for zero percent deals to open and cancel as needed

 

[roadPilot]

At one point I checked my credit score and was shocked to see it go down a bit. The note on my file said something along the lines of "High unsecured loan available" (or something to that effect).

I've been involved in credit risk scoring and debt restoration (not professionally) for over 25 years and I've never seen that on a credit report nor have I seen it negatively affect anyone risk score.

Without looking, I probably have at least a dozen or more active credit cards (all MC, Visa, or AmEx) with a cumulative total of over $250,000 in available credit. I use four or five my card regularly but have not carried a balance in well over 10 years ... probably closer to 15 years. My risk scores at Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian (the "big three" credit reporting agencies) have been anywhere from 820-ish to 845-ish for many years.

 

[roadPilot]

Can't cite the source (but a Googly-search should find it), but saw an article headline recently about how pending Fed law will adversely affect the reward-card environment. - Was heading into a company meeting, so didn't have time to dig deeper.

If fact, not fiction, Ford may simply be an early adopter.

You're referring to the Durbin-Marshall Credit Card Competition Act.

New Study Finds Durbin-Marshall Credit Card Bill Could Cost U.S. Economy $227 Billion, 156K Jobs - Electronic Payments Coalition

 

[roadPilot]

I have a miles Mastercard and a cash back discover as my Go to's. I only took this one on because the up front cash bonus for spending x amount in the first few months plus charging a few other things covered a good amount of my extended warranty. I was only keeping it for the points. It'll be gone after May and I'll just go back to keeping my eye open for zero percent deals to open and cancel as needed

In addition to occasionally opening a card every so often to take advantage of the "use your card to purchase $xxx in the first nn days/months and earn $xxx" type of offers, we predominately use four cards for almost everything I purchase:

• PNC Rewards Visa: 4% cash back on all gas, including places like Costco (also have a Costco Visa that earns 5% cash back on their gas, but they only pay out once per year)
• PenFed Cash Rewards Visa: 5% cash back on all groceries. The best part is: All of the big superstores in our town that have a grocery section - Walmart, Meijer, Kroger, etc. - code the entire purchase as groceries. So every single nickel we spend at any of these stores earns us 5% cash back.
• Bank of America Rewards Visa: 3% cash back on selected type of purchases (we use this for restaurants and dining out)
• Citi Double Cash: 2% cash back on EVERYTHING. We use this for anything that does not fit into one of the categories above.

We literally earn four figures of cash back rewards every year, simply by using the right credit card based on what the purchase is.

We never carry a balance on any card. I often pay cards off more than once a month and occasionally pay a card off even before the pre-authorization(s) for a purchase(s) turns into actual charge(s).

You see the Leer 100XQ topper on the truck in my avatar? I used three different cards when I purchased that topper. I earned $800 in cash back on it.

If you are disciplined enough to pay off your cards every month, you can make a substantial amount of money in cash back.

 

[JohnMcClane]

What did Discover do not earn a spot in your wallet?

 

[dochawk]

If fact, not fiction, Ford may simply be an early adopter.

A bill to that effect is proposed pretty much every Congress. AFAIK, none have ever passed either chamber.

I think the current proposal would limit the fees to merchants to not much (which would end cash back; that comes from giving the customer a large cut out of the fee), and interest to 10%.

There is the deluded notion that banks will consider letting people with marginal to average creditworthiness borrow at 10%; that simply won't happen. Instead, they'll cancel cards.

What did Discover do not earn a spot in your wallet?

Discover actually answers the phone, with some that actually speaks English, but it's 1% just isn't competitive.

Yeah, they double the first year. They also have a 5% category for each quarter, but the cap on it is laughably low.

There are enough 2% and 1.5% uncapped cards that there's no point in discover.

An interesting one is the Shop Your Way card, formerly the Sears Visa. It has, every month or so, a temporary cash back for 1-3 months. You have to click to activate from your mail, but sometimes it's 10%, even 15%, on utilities, online purchases, or what have you.

I tend to prepay my water or cable when there's nothing else to do with those.

They also have pants, but they're too much of a pain to use.

 

[roadPilot]

What did Discover do not earn a spot in your wallet?

Actually, I do have a Discover card. I think I may have only used it once (to get a cash back promo, most likely) and never again. Odd that they haven't cancelled it for inactivity ... heck, it's probably been at least 10 years.

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