CC offer too good to pass up?

[ATC Guy]

to me

My wife and I live near Seattle right now and are planning to get back to our hometown in Ohio for Christmas this year. I haven't been home to see family in about a year and I am likely to deploy around April of next year. I hate credit but I got an offer from Southwest that is hard for me to turn down. Basically if I open their CC and "spend" $1,000 within 3 month,they will give me 50,000 points which after doing some research would pay for 2 roundtrip tickets to Ohio ($800 value).

We currently have 2 credit cards,one we use and pay off the balance,the other is a store card we bought to get a 10% discount off a large furniture purchase we made and no longer use the card.

With the Southwest card I intend to pay a couple regular bills with it or use regular spending on it and just pay it off to avoid any interest in order to accumulate $1,000 worth of "spending" in order to qualify for the bonus.

The card has an annual fee of $69. I figure I will pay the $69 fee,pay off the $1,000 worth of spending and then never use the card again. The problem is that since it has a $69 yearly fee I will want to cancel the account, thus closing this line or credit which I know is not a good thing for your credit score.

I really hate to be the person who just opens a bunch of cards but it is like Southwest is offering me $800 just to pay my regular bills and a onetime $69 annual fee. Is it worth the hit to my credit for closing the account before another annual fee comes around? Should I just watch this deal go by?

 

[ronocnikral]

only you can answer the question of, "is it worth it?"

To me, "credit" is some fabrication of a couple of companies out there. The facts remain that I am an individual who pays their bills ontime and is never late. I "churn" travel cards with the best of them. And I am refinancing my house with no problems from my credit card habits. ymmv. what do you need your "credit" for anyway?

To each their own. I would go for it, but since I have about 15 credit cards, I'm sort of maxed for a couple months now. And I focus mainly on international travel.

Question: Why not get the business card as well and get a companion pass? That's like $3300 worth of free travel! For $140 and a couple "hits" on your credit report...

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f46/so-called-travel-hacking-60419.html

 

[Animorph]

Who knows what the credit hit will really be.

A card you have had for just a short time is not supposed to have a significant impact on your credit. And cancelling it just lowers your total credit available to what you had before you got the new card. So I don't think it will cause any problems to get it and then cancel it.

Sounds good as long as you're up for the hassle. Probably have to keep the card until your flight is complete too, I bet.

 

[wanaberetiree]

Take a look at this thread:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/credit-cards-with-500-bonus-61275.html

And FYI I did close the Chase card after using $500 cash bonus and my credit score decreased -5 points (out of 771). BTW you can see your credit score at creditkarma.com

 

[Sarah in SC]

I got the same offer, and I read about it on one of the mileage blogs a day or so ago. I think I'll do it, but plan on closing the card next year. Don't forget that if you haven't, you can get 750 miles from SW just for signing up for their Frequent Flyer card and agreeing to get a weekly email from them. I'd already done that, guessing you did too, if you got the same offer.
We've only just started with the mileage cards, so it is all new to me at this point.

 

[JohnDoe]

I did a similar SW offer a few months ago except you only had to make a purchase - not spend $1000. I opened 2 cards and got 100,000 points ($1,666 in fares).

The main thing to keep in mind with this offer is you need to use your points for the wanna get away fare. Use any other fare type and the deal is not worth it.

Check your flights, if available, to see if the fare is sold out. Or book your flights shortly after the fares are released.

I booked by flights 1 hour after fares were release. 4 hours later the fare jump $40 and today it's over $120 higher. I got another 8000 points for booking my flights.

I still have 50,000 points to use before I get hit with annual fees again.