I love credit cards so much! v3.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[wendow]

DD turns 15 this month, and I'm trying to figure out the best strategy to start building her credit. What are the minimum ages to add her as AU or open her own cards (realistically do they approve 18 yo for SW cards)? Should we add her as and AU to our oldest cards--no AF Hilton AmEx since 2001, Disney Signature Chase since 2003, Carnival Barclays 10+ years. Or put her on a card that gets higher spend (always paid off each month). I'd like to be able to start her on her own cards at 18 so she can start 'paying' her own travel expenses. Any good cards likely to approve first-timers and what are they looking for on the credit history?

Definitely go ahead and add your teen as an AU. AFAIK, there is no min age. My boys were added at 7yo. My dd19 Was added at 15yo and got a discover card right at 18yo and then a CFU 6 mos later. She got a CIP a couple months after that. Then a SW plus at about the time she turned 19yo. It’s very possible for teens to begin getting cards at 18 yo. Chase did ask for paystubs once so regular employment that your child can prove is helpful.

 

[Haley R]

Try this link:
https://www.experian.com/consumer-products/free-credit-report.html
I have their higher end monitoring for free, I think through DH's work, but this looks like the one I originally signed up with.

I ended up finding it. Thanks for the link though! I like my score on there much more than what capital one shows lol

 

[miztressuz]

Oh wow really? Crap. I didn’t put my social in when I did the AU. Does that make a difference? All I had to put in was my name and phone number

If they can reasonably match it up they can report it. I'd guess they take your name and the address from the app and check that. If they get a hit, they'd probably report it.

Chase doesn't ask for social either, but they will ask for the AU address and DOB now. Even before they starting asking they reported one of my cards on hubby's report. Since at that time they didn't ask for anything other than a name, I imagine they found him because we shared the same address. My cards that I added him to before he moved in don't show up (also in the era of name only AUs).

Although with some more recent rules if they didn't ask for DOB they may not actually report it. Probably better to just err on the side of caution and not ask for new AU cards. Employee cards for Biz cards should be fine.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

If they can reasonably match it up they can report it. I'd guess they take your name and the address from the app and check that. If they get a hit, they'd probably report it.

Chase doesn't ask for social either, but they will ask for the AU address and DOB now. Even before they starting asking they reported one of my cards on hubby's report. Since at that time they didn't ask for anything other than a name, I imagine they found him because we shared the same address. My cards that I added him to before he moved in don't show up (also in the era of name only AUs).

Although with some more recent rules if they didn't ask for DOB they may not actually report it. Probably better to just err on the side of caution and not ask for new AU cards. Employee cards for Biz cards should be fine.

What a thorough explanation

 

[disneybirds]

@becauseimnew -

As an update to my post, if you’re hoping for RotR, leave your hotel and get there earlier than I suggested. Here’s what DLR looked like this morning (granted, it’s a holiday weekend):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Disneyland/comments/f4a1w7

(This is the entrance near the Disneyland Hotel. Offsite hotel guests typically enter at the Eastern gateway on Harbor.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Disneyland/comments/f4cx3s

Wow! This is making me rethink our plans for Spring Break. We are headed there April 8/9 and staying at the Grand Californian. Is this where we will enter??

 

[mmmears]

All this no new MSR and just doing category spend is really getting to me. DH wants both the Aspire and the Chase Hyatt card. If he gets the Aspire first he will be at 5/24 and won't be able to get the Hyatt until August. But we worry about the pop-up with the Aspire (as in, waiting until we really need it then getting the pop-up and not being able to get it at all). He's been putting significant spend on his Amex cards lately.

Anyone have any thoughts they would like to share?

Anything we should know before applying for the Aspire?

 

[wanderlust7]

All this no new MSR and just doing category spend is really getting to me. DH wants both the Aspire and the Chase Hyatt card. If he gets the Aspire first he will be at 5/24 and won't be able to get the Hyatt until August. But we worry about the pop-up with the Aspire (as in, waiting until we really need it then getting the pop-up and not being able to get it at all). He's been putting significant spend on his Amex cards lately.

Anyone have any thoughts they would like to share?

Anything we should know before applying for the Aspire?

Amex cards take about 2 months to show up on your credit report. How's his Chase spacing? Could he get the Hyatt before the Aspire reports? Then he'll be 6/24, back to 5/24 in August, or are other cards dropping off?

 

[smmco]

Wow! This is making me rethink our plans for Spring Break. We are headed there April 8/9 and staying at the Grand Californian. Is this where we will enter??

I debated For a month between DL and WDW for our May mother son Mother’s Day trip. I finally booked the Costco deal at Swan and Dolphin. These pictures confirm that I made the right choice.

My dh and older son rode ROTR last month before our cruise. Their annual passes just expired. Mine and my youngest expired back in September. They got to DHS at 7am got called back to board around 330. The ride broke down they waited and waited. The finally shut the ride down. In order to prevent a riot. They gave every one a fast pass for next and a one day ticket good for two years....yay Disney.

My dh has been bit by the Disney bug and would really like to renew their annual passes. My oldest is meh. He’s a homeschooled senior next year and wants to take classes at the community college.

Ill be faced with the do I upgrade to AP’s or not. It’s such commitment these days you need to make three trips to come ahead. My baby turns 16 this Summer....so little time left.

 

[mmmears]

I've been pretty quiet too (except the last few days with random commentary). Work has been kinda crazy and I was also having browser problems and got locked out of the Dis because of course I couldn't remember my password. Back in now though.

I feel like I've made it nowhere on my theoretical London/Paris trip as DH keeps making requests that make the dates hard to figure out. I'm going to revoke his trip request rights First he had a themepark. Then he realized that there are these Victorian steam engines in London that he's been watching videos of on the internet for years... could we maybe go if it would work? Sure. Well of course we look and they are only scheduled to run them seven weekends this year. And none of them work with Labor Day timing. So we drop the plan of LD being an extra 'free' day off. Technically we could work one with LD, but then we would have to skip our HHN trip with Disfriends… Soooo we could go to HHN, come back for a few days, go to Europe starting with the steam engines. Or we could hit the October days, the only thing here being we would be better off to start in Paris and end in London and pay the extra to fly out of London. If we started with London that would put our Paris time for sure in the last half of the month which is when most UK/France schools have fall break, which I've been trying to avoid. Then there's the weekend before Thanksgiving, which I immediately thought, let's use Thanksgiving and Black Friday! But DH has elderly grandparents who aren't well so he doesn't want to do something like that while they are around still, which I am fine with. But we did talk about flying back that Wed, we'd be fine with being jet lagged for Thanksgiving lol. But wait... November dates mean the other theme parks (bc he added another request, of course) are closed for the season.

So the dates are hard enough, and then we are working with DHs already limited PTO. He should be fine to take part of it unpaid, honestly I think there is a good chance his boss would just make him use up his PTO but not take unpaid time... but we can work with either. But I need an idea of how many days I can play with to pick flights, and DH just keeps going well it depends on what we want to do! Well if you want to use that mentality that I'm quitting my job and living off savings for as long as possible while I travel There are a million things to do so we will just have to do what we want in our time limits! Go back again to do more things... etc. I think I've messed DH up now because we've had quite a few minute spontaneous trips and he's not getting that I don't want to be booking these flights 3 weeks out

I've been faced with similar planning issues with my family. At some point I just need to choose the dates, get the hotels and flights I want, and then fit in what works with the idea that we may have to go back some day. In other words, once you know you have x number of days in Paris, then it's easier to prioritize things and figure it out. Of course that means you won't likely see it all, so it's not a perfect system, but at least it helps me move forward. Good luck!

A bit of a sad commentary on how Disney World has reduced hours despite growing crowd levels:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1228713806169284608

In all honesty, this has been happening for a long time now (as in 2016 was worse than 2000) and it's really helped me let go of planning another trip to WDW. I think it's awful, especially with the rising prices, but I guess the silver lining is that we have seen more of the world because of it.

 

[amalone1013]

I've been faced with similar planning issues with my family. At some point I just need to choose the dates, get the hotels and flights I want, and then fit in what works with the idea that we may have to go back some day. In other words, once you know you have x number of days in Paris, then it's easier to prioritize things and figure it out. Of course that means you won't likely see it all, so it's not a perfect system, but at least it helps me move forward. Good luck!

Don't get me started on DHs family Really my ILs are pretty good overall, it's his siblings and then a cousin who are a pain. No plans to travel with them anytime soon though! I just need DH to give me a maximum number of days and if it works for him being off work since those are the limiting factors. I can't seem to get across to him that we need to know X number of days and then prioritize as you said, he seems to think we need to pick things first

 

[mmmears]

Amex cards take about 2 months to show up on your credit report. How's his Chase spacing? Could he get the Hyatt before the Aspire reports? Then he'll be 6/24, back to 5/24 in August, or are other cards dropping off?

Thanks for your response. He got 2 Chase cards on 7/18, so they will both drop off. He could get the Hyatt first, but then that will make the Amex spend go down (can you tell I'm worried about the pop-up? It seems to be really common with the Aspire). Also I have the Hyatt, so he doesn't really need it, but those points would be very nice. Good point about how the Amex cards don't show up right away, so he could potentially get both.

 

[amalone1013]

For my Delta people... Anyone have any thoughts/opinions on Premium Select?

 

[amalone1013]

Oh gosh guys, I think I just made progress on dates with DH!!

 

[ten6mom]

Anyone had any luck with getting an additional reservation/walk-in day if for Droid Depot? I was telling my coworker about it the other day and he thought it was amazing and wanted me to get one for him if I can. I have a reservation but obviously that’s to build my own droid. Didn’t know if I would be lucky enough to be able to get to DH to build one too for my coworker when I do it.

I realize I'm late to the game here (that's what working nights does to me) so I'm not sure whether you're talking about WDW or DL but at DL there did not appear to be any trouble walking in for Droid Depot.

Definitely go ahead and add your teen as an AU. AFAIK, there is no min age. My boys were added at 7yo. My dd19 Was added at 15yo and got a discover card right at 18yo and then a CFU 6 mos later. She got a CIP a couple months after that. Then a SW plus at about the time she turned 19yo. She’s gotten two more CIPs since then. It’s very possible for teens to begin getting cards at 18 yo. Chase did ask for paystubs once so regular employment that your child can prove is helpful.

I've been wanting to add my 15 yo also but I believe it has to be a personal card (if I'm not mistaken) and the only personal card I have at the moment is the Chase Freedom... and due to other MSR stuff I'm not spending on it at all. Will that help him even if I'm not using it?

 

[bernina]

I've been wanting to add my 15 yo also but I believe it has to be a personal card (if I'm not mistaken) and the only personal card I have at the moment is the Chase Freedom... and due to other MSR stuff I'm not spending on it at all. Will that help him even if I'm not using it?

I can't answer on if it will help with no spend, however I did just add DD 8 as an AU on my freedom. I might occasionally let her spend on it, for example if I owe her $20 for a good report card I might have her use it at Target or wherever instead of giving her the cash. She loves the idea of a credit card but we've already spelled it out how it's not free money and how debt can quickly snowball. She was sad when she found out her AU Gold card no longer worked (I cancelled my Plat) but is happy to be able to carry it in her purse now.

 

[Lain]

Wow! This is making me rethink our plans for Spring Break. We are headed there April 8/9 and staying at the Grand Californian. Is this where we will enter??

No, the Grand Californian is centrally located within DTD and connected to DCA.

However, you’ll still have to go through (a much shorter) bag check to enter DTD, after which it’s a short walk to the Starbucks I mentioned and then the Esplanade where you line up at the turnstiles; as well as to scan into DCA from the entrance/exit connecting DCA with the GC by the Napa Rose restaurant.

To be clear, you’d need to enter into DTD from the bag check past the ballrooms, then take a short walk to the Esplanade to line up for Disneyland Park. To enter into DCA, there’s a small connected entrance near Napa Rose that’s reserved for GCH guests for the first hour, where you can scan in and enter right near Grizzly River Rapids.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Alright experts, I'd like some opinions on advice for my DS26. He's about to do some frequent travel for work that he can charge and get reimbursed for. He has a CSP ( will be 48 mos later this year). His hotel stays will be Hilton. Probably will fly SW from MDW to STL.
He and his GF do a lot of travel (international and within the US). She has a SW CP for 20/21. He signed up for Hilton Honors and asked my advice about a new card. I looked at the Aspire but I'm not sure he'd use the resort credit this year, and maybe not use the airline incidentals. Weaker Priority pass than the CSR and weaker travel insurance.

My recommendation was going to be get the Surpass card for his Hilton stays. That would give him Gold with some nice Hilton points bonus and earnings for $95 AF. Then, upgrade his CSP to a CSR. The travel credit charges would offset his $550 AF, and he'll get reimbursed by his company for the $300 travel charges. He'd have the CSR travel protection for his flights, Priority pass and car rental insurance. He'll use the doordash credit and lyft but doesn't need the GE (already has it).

I guess my biggest question is, will this reset his Sapphire product calendar or not? What do you all think?

Not sure which I’d choose but just an FYI there is a Hilton Resort in IL he can use the resort credit at. The airline credit is harder, at least for me. We’ve enjoyed the Diamond status which gets us breakfast & preferred parking some places. Plus the card will earn him a lot of Hilton points.

 

[wendow]

I've been wanting to add my 15 yo also but I believe it has to be a personal card (if I'm not mistaken) and the only personal card I have at the moment is the Chase Freedom... and due to other MSR stuff I'm not spending on it at all. Will that help him even if I'm not using it?

I don't think it would hurt to go ahead and add your 15yo to your CF. Just put a small bit of spend on it ever so often, like @bernina suggested. If it's an older card, even better to put your kiddo on that card.

 

[bernina]

I don't think it would hurt to go ahead and add your 15yo to your CF. Just put a small bit of spend on it ever so often, like @bernina suggested. If it's an older card, even better to put your kiddo on that card.

I agree, I picked the freedom for that reason. It's older and I'm not planning on cancelling it. Usually with the 5% categories it sees some spend each year.

 

[ten6mom]

I can't answer on if it will help with no spend, however I did just add DD 8 as an AU on my freedom. I might occasionally let her spend on it, for example if I owe her $20 for a good report card I might have her use it at Target or wherever instead of giving her the cash. She loves the idea of a credit card but we've already spelled it out how it's not free money and how debt can quickly snowball. She was sad when she found out her AU Gold card no longer worked (I cancelled my Plat) but is happy to be able to carry it in her purse now.

I don't think it would hurt to go ahead and add your 15yo to your CF. Just put a small bit of spend on it ever so often, like @bernina suggested. If it's an older card, even better to put your kiddo on that card.

I agree, I picked the freedom for that reason. It's older and I'm not planning on cancelling it. Usually with the 5% categories it sees some spend each year.

OK - I went ahead and added him to the Freedom just now. And I can do it online which just makes it that much better!

I had honestly forgotten that gas stations were one of the bonus categories this month (trying to take care of that BBP) but if I remember for the remainder of the quarter, that will put some spend on it that I haven't been doing.

Thanks everyone!

Oh... here's a question for those of you who do have your minor kids as AUs. When they make a purchase (if they do, with their own card), how do you get around the photo ID requirement (if said merchant requires it)? Both my kids have school IDs but they don't normally carry them around...