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?

[Spectatrix]

I have purchased a car before and I got a halfway decent interest rate. It could've been better, but I'd had credit for less than a year at that point. Paying off an installment debt is great for your credit, as I said, but carrying a balance on a credit card does jack. Yes, lenders want to see that you have experience with a variety of account types, but your credit report doesn't show whether you've carried a balance in the past, only your current balance, max balance, and any late payments during the life of the account.

The "closing accounts is bad" advice comes from just about every article I've read on credit card management. Applying for new credit puts a ding in your credit report, but the older your accounts, the better. It doesn't really matter how much credit you have available, so long as you're only using a small percentage of that.