Credit Card Options

[cmac]

I need a credit card.
I know very little about what I want.
It's important that it will collect airline miles and I'd like for it to have some sort of reward points too.
I obviously would like a low interest rate.
I don't mind a small annual fee.
I bank at Wells Fargo if it helps.
Any suggestions?

[Hartmann]

Just a quick note, if you have a couple of credit cards and don't use one, it's good for your credit as it's seen as capital on your credit report.

Like impala said, carrying a small balance at times is not a bad thing, though you want to show that you can pay a nice amount every month toward your balance.

If you are looking for an airline card, I would look at something like the AMEX Platinum or the AMEX Starwood. The Platinum has a hefty yearly fee on it but the points can be turned into just about anything you want (cash back, airline miles on a lot of different airlines, hotel stays, etc.).

One thing to note on airline miles, the way that these work is that per flight there is a set number of seats available as "Reward" seats or "Points" seats, meaning that you may not get the flight you want for the lowest amount of miles. A lot of airlines have seats available at all times for a higher amount of miles (30,000 instead of 15,000). It's just something to be aware of. If you are continually flying the same airline then you may want to look at that airline's card. Some of the cards accrue double miles and give you a discount on tickets purchased. Continental's MasterCard gives you 5% off purchases at Continental.com for a year.

One other way to accrue miles is to look at the mileage programs through your airline. They usually have a portal to things like BestBuy, Wal-Mart, etc. that allow you to use your Frequent Flier number and accrue miles by buying things at the allotted stores.