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?
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?