Thank you for the responses. I have been doing my research. I have excellent credit - in 800's and I have the chase freedom so I was thinking of signing up for the chase ink in branch for 70k bonus points - though the sapphire appears to give rewards in my normal shopping categories.
1. Should I get sapphire at same time in branch or online - since I have to go to branch for ink 70k will they check my credit twice - I want to avoid that (saw post about three cards, 3 browsers)
2. I was also looking at amex starwood card and I saw chase has a comparable card, but I thought I saw starwood points can transfer to el al
3.If I close old accounts please explain what transferring credit means in order to avoid negetive changes in credit score.
4. How many cards can I close - benifit to keeping open or closed
Thank you so much for your help and guidance.
1. You are better off not applying in branch, so that you can avoid the annual fee for the first year.
2. I don't think you will be able to put enough spending on this card (or whatever you saw from Chase) in order to help you get to Israel (your stated goal). SPG is a good card to have, for sure, but I don't think you should look at it as part of your Israel strategy. I do not think it can transfer to El Al, but someone else could weigh in on this to confirm.
3. & 4. Generally, old account benefit you in a number of ways. They make your credit history older, which is good for your credit score, and they generally make your usage ratio lower, since you have credit on them that you probably aren't using all that much. It is a good idea to use older cards every once in a while to keep active spending on them, but assuming there are no onerous fees on the credit cards, there might not be a reason to close them. If there are fees, or you want to close a card for some other reason, it makes sense to transfer the CL to another card with the same bank, to preserve your available credit, which benefits the usage ratio component of your credit score.
Also, if you find that you are running into a lot of declined applications, and the Recon agents are saying things like "you already have xx cards with us" or "we've already extended you xx,xxx credit, that's all we can do" then it makes sense to offer to transfer some credit from another card with the same bank in order to get the new application approved.
