i’d rather not be that privileged

so, it’s official…

…today we put in our home refinance application, which will also allow us to pull equity to fix some shit. big shit. expensive shit. part of why we waited six months was admittedly pure procrastination, and part of it was waiting to get my credit score to a happier place so we could get a better rate.

time will tell if that worked.

in doing so i monitored my score across all three major credit reporting agencies through multiple apps which means i saw multiple ads. lots of em. and one they kept pushing on me was a platinum american express card. as i expressed to the ufc when i started rebuilding my credit, things go in five steps…

1. nobody offers you credit

2. you get offered “secured” lines of credit, which means you give a bank $500, and then you get a visa with a $500 limit because they loan your money back to you…with interest.

3. you get offered cards, still from banks you don’t know, now they’re semi-secured…so they might give you a $300 limit, but you have to pay $100 annual fee, and a $100 account set up fee, and a $50 card printing fee, so you get a card in the mail whereby you already owe $250, and you only have $50 available.

4. credit one begets capital one begets discover

5. everyone offers you credit…often.

i’ve been with american express for quite a bit (see “MEMBER SINCE” on card)

and i’ve had multiple incarnations of the card. but i’ve never gone gold or platinum. why? the annual fee. on the platinum “special offer” i got it was $500. half a stack. a year. for what? the only thing that maybe made sense is you get five to times points for every dollar you spend. for those of you who have never had a card with ” rewards points” because…

a. you’ve made poor life choices and your credit score won’t let you

or…

b. you’ve made good enough life choices to see this rabbit hole for what it is and your common sense won’t let you

let me explain how it works – ever played skee ball? or some other game of chance for tickets to trade in for prizes, whereby a hundred tickets gets you a troll pencil topper or some shit?

same concept, except you spend more money to get better shit. i guess if i was more corporate, and running up my amex bill on the reg, it would be a different conversation. but i don’t, so there’s no point to that shit. hell, as it is i’m trying to get the credit union to pull my credit before the xmas bills hit.

so while i still haven’t figured out what he privilege of this membership thing is, i at least have a card with okay rewards and zero annual fee. and switching to this a couple years ago let me work my shit to get $500 off my rims and pay em off over a year interest free, so there’s that. but ain’t none of it worth a $500 annual fee to me!