I’m going to retire at the end of the year. My current daily card is a Fidelity Rewards 2% card, but there is a fairly good chance I’ll move my remaining Fidelity accounts to Schwab when I retire and without an account to deposit into I won’t get the 2%. I’m trying to decide it I want to apply for a new card to replace it while I am still employed.
I currently have the Fidelity card, Amazon Prime which I really only use on Amazon, Citi Costco Visa which I use there, for gas, restaurants, and travel, an Apple card which I don’t really use much and my oldest card is a Wells Fargo Visa Signature card which I currently don’t use at all.
I could stick with the Fidelity card and keep an account open there just for depositing the cashback. I could swap my Wells Fargo card for their 2% cashwise (direct swap, no bonus from what I understand) or I could apply for something like the Citi double cash. My wife currently only has a Capitol One 1.5% card, so an alternative is for her to get a new card – she probably should according to Clark.
We don’t carry balances, have excellent credit and don’t currently travel much. We’ll probably travel more after I retire, but I’m not sure we’ll do enough for a premium travel card to make sense.
Alliant Credit Union. 2.5% cash back on everything (1.5% automatic, plus another 1% once you qualify, which isn’t hard–see the section on “Earning Tier One Rewards”)
I’ve been debating getting a new card – not because I really need it, but I would like one that has virtual credit card numbers you can use for certain purchases, to keep your CC number secure. Not all banks offer this (none of mine do).
But right now my credit is frozen, so I’d have to unfreeze it…
I hope to see more cards offer virtual credit cards for safer transactions.
As for the % cashback, I’m fine with what I have – I don’t want to change cards just to get another 0.2% cashback…
But regardless… retirement is a time to simplify some things.
I am retired but revcently thawed all 3 credit bureaus and applied for an Amazon card and a Lowes card. I have a golden credit score (all above 830) and had to state an income. I hear that they really don’t check your income as long as your score is high and carry no balance. However, if you have income now, it is probably betetr to get those cards now. When I unfroze the cards, I left it that way for 1 week just to ensure that I was all in and all done and approved. One credit bureau had me at my home address which was missing a digit so I had them correct that before I unfroze the accounts. I think that is why Amazon denied me twice before.
The Amazon card gave me $200 credit and Lowes gives me a discount. I pay the balance in full every month, but until January I may carry a small balance on one card because of a side issue.