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<p>I hope that was a joke.</p>
<p>^I do think oldfort was joking but we’ve actually bought several cars using our credit card in order to get the frequent flyer points. Of course, we were intending to pay cash (have never bought a car on credit in 25 years) and just turned around and paid off the credit card the next month.</p>
<p>Oldfort – perhaps your D’s salary supports the credit limit? And she should definitely use the card and pay off the balance in full every month – to keep her high credit rating.</p>
<p>With the credit cards that my daughters share with us, we had two options (I have two cc’s and one daughter on each). We could make them an account sharer, so that their credit score was linked to ours, or just authorize them to use the account and keep them from being linked). We chose the second option, and the cards do not effect their credit ratings.</p>
<p>Daughter’s fiancee graduated in August and finally has a job interview this week. If he gets the job, she will not get a new card when our new ones are issued in November. Looking forward to closing down the Bank of Mom and Dad.</p>
<p>I may ask her to lower the credit limit, in case she wants to get other credit later on. We are letting her have our card for a little while longer because it offers her a lot of benefits she wouldn’t be able to get on a regular card (airport lounge, waiving of baggage charges, and better protection on electronic purchases). She does pay us in cash when she puts anything on our card now.</p>
<p>I still think it is irresponsible of the bank to give a new graduate that much credit. At some point, you think they would learn. It is one of the reasons I am opposed to college students having credit cards when they are not working. It is just too tempting to put a laptop, phone or trip on a card and then trying to pay back later.</p>
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If her firm allows it, she’s better off charging her business travel and expenses on her personal ‘cash back’ or miles credit card. That $18K limit can come in handy for this.</p>
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<p>I couldn’t agree more. There’s just something really wrong with this. Before they started handing out credit cards on every corner, I use to work for a credit card company and they would base your credit limit on things like job stability, how long you have been employed, how long you have been at your current address, etc, not just your credit score. My first credit card out of college had a $500 limit, so did my husband’s. $18,000!!! It’s hard to imagine the logic behind that. Though I guess with 50% of the country carrying an average balance of $7,000 in credit card debt, the amount they get in interest makes up for whatever losses they sustain from having a loose credit policy. </p>
<p>Son is an authorized user on one of our cards but we have forbidden him from getting his own while he’s in school. Just don’t see the need for it. As you said, way too tempting to spend money they don’t actually have.</p>
<p>My firm requires us to put all business related charges on our corporate card. They want to be able to audit our charges whenever they want. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are keeping all the “perks” now on those corporate cards.</p>
<p>S2, a college senior, just applied for a student credit card & was approved with a $4000 credit limit. We were shocked at the amount given all that’s happened since the financial crisis. Yes, he’s an authorized user on one of our cards, but so was S1 when he applied for his own credit card 4 years ago before the financial crisis happened. Back then, S1 was approved for a credit card with a $500 credit limit.</p>
<p>I called one of my credit card companies several yrs ago to ask that the limit be lowered (it was at some ridiculously high amount). I didn’t want that much available credit (I would never use it anyway) and didnt want to risk it affecting my credit score. And while I know that if my wallet was stolen I’d not be responsible for the charges, the thought of someone having access to that much credit on my card scared me. They could have bought a <em>very nice</em> car.</p>
<p>A bit off topic, but since corporate credit cards were mentioned-My daughter has a corporate card, but her company allows her to keep the perks from her charges! I believe the card she has just get points per dollar, but she can use those to spend on whatever is available with her card.</p>
<p>Every firm is different when it comes to corporate cards. My firm will also pay off balance on my card every month, whether I have submitted the expense or not. They would then go through all my charges to see if they are legit (matching them up with my sumitted expenses), and claw back the money from my pay check if necessary. One thing to make sure your daughter understands is that only company expenses should be put on the corporate card. It is ground for dismissal for putting personal charges on it. Sometimes new employees try to float few charges on it while they are waiting to get paid, and it is against policy at almost every firm. I know someone who was dismissed for that.</p>
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<p>Actually reducing your credit limit decreased your credit score because of your debt to credit ratio.</p>
<p>It was explained to me that having the potential to access large amounts of open/available credit was not good, even if I didn’t use it. No matter, as we have no debt. None. No mortgage, no car payments, no college loans. Pay our credit cards off every month. Sure feels great.</p>
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<p>We recently refinanced our house and our mortgage broker told us the exact same thing. Even though our score was as close to perfect as you can get, he said having accounts open with a lot of credit, even if it’s not being used, isn’t a good idea. Lenders don’t like to see excess credit available, whether it’s ever been used or not.</p>
<p>We added D to 2 of our CC accts. Each sent a card in her name but neither asked for her SS#. I even asked “do you need her SS#” and was told no, since H and I were responsible for her charges. Soooo how does our good credit rating transfer to her, when the CC companies don’t have her SS#?</p>
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<p>That mortgage broker is uninformed. The reason you have great credit scores is due to your great debt to credit ratio.</p>
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<p>I have never heard about that. There is something fishy about that.</p>
<p>^^So in our case – D will NOT reap the benefits of our credit rating.</p>
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<p>If you didn’t have to give them his social security number, then it will not show up on his credit rating.</p>