I have an everyday card with a $15K limit over a year old that I hardly used. Wanted to swap it for a BCP to get more benefits but didn't want the credit ding. Well, I called AMEX and got a nice lady in the Phillipines. You never know where your call will take you. She spoke good English and we had a chat about my situation. I also have a senior gold card with a pay over time option but at high interest. She said there was an offer for a Blue Cash Everday: 13.24% interest after 15 months 0% with $150 statement credit after $1000 spend within three months. No annual fee but I was hoping for a higher cash back on the preferred. So I applied for the BCE and only got a $2K line. I just took out a 0% interest car loan last week and had several pulls for my new house, so another ding probably would matter much. My last card app was a year ago (Discover). Also, I had a lot of available credit with AMEX with my $57K income and a big home equity debt, so that was all taken into consideration with the low limit. However, I'm not disappointed. Discover gave me 1K last year and now it is 7K and it is my main card. However, the double cash back is about to expire and the rest of the year is mostly Amazon 5% offers though there might be more. So I will probably get a lot of use out of the BCE except for the 5% offers (discover and freedom), 2%+ travel (CSP), non-bonus purchases (NFCU cash rewards @1.5% return) and keep my 25 year old senior gold card open, paying the $65AF to do so. I closed my 2 year-old low-limit Chase Amazon card. I don't want more cards than I need. The AMEX CSR said I could move my limit from the everyday to the blue cash card. If this is so, I will move as much of the $15K as I can and close the everday card. I have little use for MR points and the everday card served its purpose for a big purchase last year and the 10K points I got. Now it just sits. So this will bring to six usable cards: 2 chase (CSP/Old Freedom), 2 amex, 1 nfcu cash rewards and 1 discover. I also have the option to upgrade to the preferred if I so desire after a year-or maybe sooner. My current available credit is over 40K plus the senior gold and my utilization is 0% but my AAoA on the new accounts is low (5 cards in two years). No chase until February but I really don't plan anymore apps for awhile. I'm pretty happy with my lineup and now have a car payment and higher living expenses. I'm 55 years old.
My scores will take a hit after the new car loan and the new AMEX but should still be around 690-700. 719EQ, 708EX, 711TU before the new accounts. Now I will tend to the garden until I figure out what to do with the big old Home Equity Line of Credit. Payments balloon in April but I have a $17K savings cushion to prepare for the situation. Off to my new house in Arizona next week.
