What is the advantage of one credit card over another?

[Doctor Zoidburg]

I have about 12 credit cards, 3 Visas, 3 Mastercards, and assorted store cards like Home Depot, Bay/Zellers, gas cards, ect, ect. (that I do not use often)
I only have these cars to jog my credit so that it is at the highest rating possible. I was told that with a perfect credit record your home and car insurance goes down. Can someone verify if this is true?
I would also like to know which credit cards offer the most in rewards and points. I do not have an American Express card, is there some advantage to having one?

 

[RTRD]

Store cards are useless...

I have about 12 credit cards, 3 Visas, 3 Mastercards, and assorted store cards like Home Depot, Bay/Zellers, gas cards, ect, ect. (that I do not use often)
I only have these cars to jog my credit so that it is at the highest rating possible. I was told that with a perfect credit record your home and car insurance goes down. Can someone verify if this is true?
I would also like to know which credit cards offer the most in rewards and points. I do not have an American Express card, is there some advantage to having one?

...AND negatively affect your credit rating. I have one because they were offering zero percent financing (you're damn right I'll take somebody else's money for free versus using mine), but now that they are paid off I am going to close that one.

 

[Hard Idle]

Too many cards can also have negative effects on credit depending on how a potential creditor analyzes the data. I've heard of people being offered poor interest or even being denied because they had too much credit available compared to discoverable income, they were seen as a potential risk to creditors if they used it to get into a huge debt.

You probably don't need to cary more than two Visas & one MC, anything else should be just a temporary account for balance transfers to pay off balances if they offer a good initial interest rate.

 

[Vov76]

I like Royal Bank cards. RBC has several no fee cards and for each $2 spent you get one point. RBC Rewards Visa Gold and RBC Rewards Visa Classic are both pretty good. I usually redeem points for Future Shop gift cards, movie tickets and Esso gift cards.

http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/RBC:RON2A471A8UAAJHuoTs/cards/personal-visa-cards.html

 

[daboy]

I use a CITI mastercard--no fee. plat. benefits and best--they pay me 2% of my purchases which I can claim when I buy or lease a car. It does not have to be new.
It can deliver ( up to 3K ) if I remember ...I use my card a lot..and find it pays.
daboy

 

[Dodger]

Having too many cards is a negative on the credit availability that you can access. Every person only has so much credit worthiness and that number will vary depending on your income and assets that you own. If you have 12 cards and each has a limit of say $5,000.00 then you have reduced your available credit by $60,000.00. This will only really affect you if you are starting a business or buying something large like a house or a Ferrari, but none the less it still affects the available credit that you may have available at any one time.

Personally I carry 1 Visa 2 MC (one for all my on line purchases and one for fuel only, the CitiBank / Petro Canada card to get my $0.02 a litre discount for my vaction vehicle which takes about $200.00 - $300.00 a fill), 1 Amex for business expenses. Anything that cannot be bought with those gets paid cash, like my hobby expenses.

 

[LancsLad]

BA Plat Visa with Royal gets you BA points which are good on American as well. BA has one of the best values for redemption rates.

 

[Bella6969]

I kinda like the new Pre Paid Mastercards , this way i can control my spending limits ,, and still be able to reserve or book things

 

[tboy]

I kinda like the new Pre Paid Mastercards , this way i can control my spending limits ,, and still be able to reserve or book things

I could never figure that one out: why have a prepaid credit card when all you have to do is use interact which is basically what you're doing.....So you load up the card with x amount of dollars that you aren't earning any interest on that you can't spend everywhere. Why not just leave it in an interest bearing savings account until you need it?

If you're using it to secure a hotel room or rental car why not just not use it except for that then pay cash or interact when checking out or returning the car?

 

[Never Compromised]

If you're using it to secure a hotel room or rental car why not just not use it except for that then pay cash or interact when checking out or returning the car?

Because most hotels and car rental places want a CC up front. Sure, you can pay via debit (in Canada) at the end, but you still have to have a cc with enough head room for the booking.

And the nice thing about a prepaid card, no paper trail.

 

[Bella6969]

Because most hotels and car rental places want a CC up front. Sure, you can pay via debit (in Canada) at the end, but you still have to have a cc with enough head room for the booking.

And the nice thing about a prepaid card, no paper trail.

LOL Exactly *

 

[tboy]

Because most hotels and car rental places want a CC up front. Sure, you can pay via debit (in Canada) at the end, but you still have to have a cc with enough head room for the booking.

And the nice thing about a prepaid card, no paper trail.

yes, umm, that's why I stated you use it for the deposit and as for no paper trail, you mean you don't sign in? They don't give you a receipt? There isn't a line item on your statement outlining what the charge is?

WOW I have to try that.....next time I want to hide some income I just have to load up a prepaid card and I can buy anything I want and NO one will know? I wonder if the mob knows about this, they'd save billions in fees laundering their ill earned money......

 

[freakshow]

I have used pre-paied credit card for purchasing things on line

 

[freakshow]

I was told that with a perfect credit record your home and car insurance goes down. Can someone verify if this is true?

No!!

 

[goodtime]

WOW I have to try that.....next time I want to hide some income I just have to load up a prepaid card and I can buy anything I want and NO one will know? I wonder if the mob knows about this, they'd save billions in fees laundering their ill earned money......

Off-topic but same hassle to LE as pre-paid cellphones & crooks.

Faster to launder with big ticket items, especially houses with cash. Few greedy real estate & banker are fronts to flip houses at higher than market price. Think grow ops.