I have excellent credit. We have two cards that we use for various purposes, and I have a business credit card. We pay every card’s balance in full each month and never carry a balance.
I saw a commercial for an Alaska Airlines Visa with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 air miles–enough for a free domestic round-trip ticket. It happens that I need to buy a plane ticket for later this summer, so even with the $75 annual fee it’s a good savings.
Any reason I shouldn’t take the offer? I don’t need another credit card, but I wouldn’t be using it anyway. I didn’t see anything in the fine print to suggest it’s a bad idea, but what say the Dope?
As long as they’re not locking you into some outrageous annual fee, or imposing a minimum usage/balance transfer to qualify for the bonus – both of which I’d check for – then you’re golden.
Offers like this are, IME as a credit card banker, generally predicated on the idea that even if people sign up while thinking “I’ll never use it, I’ll just take the bonus and run”, the card will sit in their wallets until harder (or more frivolous) times, at which point they’ll remember “hey, I have $10k in untouched credit”. Voila, the bank’s investment has paid off. You can profit (or reduce your debt) from credit card offers, but you have to be temptation-resistant in the long term as well as in the present.
Beyond that, just be mindful of the effects of adding more available credit (and the corresponding inquiry) to your credit report, and you’ll be all set.
So, say I sign up for it, chop up the card, and close the account in eleven months before incurring another annual fee… is there a minimum amount of time I should keep the account open as far as my credit history goes?
[Obligatory disclaimer] Keeping in mind that IANA financial advisor [/OD], if you’ve maintained a solid credit history thus far, opening and closing one card within a year’s time isn’t going to do anything to you. The only way it’d even be noted by creditors is if you plan on seeking major credit (mortgage, car loan, etc.) in the very near future, and even then it’s not terribly suspect.
I wouldn’t recommend getting into a habit of doing it regularly, though. If I were an underwriter looking at your credit report and saw numerous inquiries and a history of RLOCs opened and closed in short periods, it’d look a bit strange (“What’s this person up to? Are they going to try to get one over on us?”), and would likely cause me to consider you more of a risk than your credit score and payment history would otherwise indicate.
Just once, though? Hell, a few years ago, I signed up for a credit card more or less by accident, and cancelled it within a week. Didn’t affect my credit in the least. YMMV, but I see no reason to suspect that it would.
You should probably make sure that Alaskan Airlines flies to wherever it is you need to go…
I’ve got excellent credit and have done it for discounts on initial purchases and then cutup/canceled the card. I bought a $3000 mattress from Macy’s and purposely asked if there was any type of discount for opening a card with them. 20% off that days purchases. $600 off. I paid it in full once I got the bill and then called to close the account.
And that I’d be able to use the miles on that particular range of dates!
Thanks, guys. My husband was totally freaked out by the idea, though I couldn’t find anything in the small print to worry about.
And no worries that I’ll be getting too frisky with opening credit lines, for our age we’ve got an excellent credit record and I don’t want to do anything to damage it. It’s at least one area of my life where I try to act like a responsible adult. 
A coworker told me once that you should really close any accounts that you aren’t using. Besides eliminating potential fraud on such accounts, she said, credit services actually track how much of a credit line you have already begun. That is, according to what she said, suppose you carried this to the nth degree and got every single card you could (but never used them). When you need a big loan, like a mortgage, the lenders might get nervous seeing how much debt you could run up on all those cards, if you so chose.
Another consideration: I’ve heard that people are falling into traps with the fine print on rebates, sweepstakes, etc. because they often have you signing away your private information (address, phone, etc.). Supposedly that is how they can circumvent some of the “don’t call” lists etc. Credit card offers may be the same.
I have this card and love it. Alaska Airlines is possibly the only company besides USAA that I can honestly say I enjoy doing business with. Their rep spent an hour on the phone with me yesterday trying to route what I’ll admit was a rediculous itenerary for cashing in some miles (3 city multi-stop…ended up with a mix of first class and coach, direct flights for 50k miles…) I think you have to use the card at least once to pick up the bonus miles, but they also give you a $50 companion fare once per year, so I’d definitely say its worth it, with the usual caveats about responsible use of credit…