What Every Credit Card is Saying About You

So, do different types of credit cards say different things about you depending on which one you carry? The question isn’t fair to answer because there are so many different types of credit cards available that it’s almost impossible to classify stereotypes for particular cards. That said, we’ve put together a list of credit card types and what they might say about your personality (or your credit):

Secured/Damaged Credit Credit Card

Sure, they don’t officially label themselves as secure or damaged credit credit cards, but people in the know tend to recognize the type of credit card you have based on the name of the bank (Orchard Bank for example is well known for offering such cards).

Don’t worry though – aside from people who work in the credit card industry or have had problems themselves, your card type probably will go unnoticed by the average person. And of course, these cards do say that you are working to rebuild your credit after having had problems in the past.

Debit Card

While almost everyone uses a debit card sometimes, those who always use one exclusively fall into two categories:

The first kind of person tends to be very wise with his or her money, never wanting to spend more than he/she has (and as such uses a debit card to control spending).

The second kind of person who uses a debit card all the time is actually very lose with money, so much so that he doesn’t have a credit card anymore because he went bankrupt and now has to use debit cards to make payments.

You can usually figure out pretty quickly what type of person your friend is if they use these kinds of “credit” cards all the time (we put “credit” in quotation marks since they’re not really credit cards).

Platinum Cards

There was a time when a platinum card, gold card or some other type of card like this actually meant you had arrived and were able to spend plenty of money on whatever you wanted to spend it on. These days however, the platinum card has become so easily accessible that it has less cache than it once did. Still, it does say that you enjoy a good credit rating and a decent job which pays a good salary. However, those who want real cache these days go for a concierge credit card.

Vanity Card

When people think of a stereotype regarding a type of credit card, they think of vanity cards mostly. These can be cards branded for a particular charity (World Wildlife Federation for example) or for your favorite sports team (e.g.: Atlanta Braves). They may also be branded to stores, though those say less about your personality and more about where you happen to shop. The things that these types of credit cards say about you by the way should be pretty obvious.

Concierge Card

For those in the know, these types of credit cards really do make a statement. If you’ve never heard of a concierge card, don’t worry – it just means you’re not earning enough money for President Obama to want to raise your taxes.

Cards in this category include the MasterCard World Elite Card (you need to be earning at least $250,000 per year to get it) and the fabled American Express Centurion Card (aka The Black Card).

The Centurion Card by the way is even more elusive than the World Elite Card. The card is made of titanium instead of plastic (it’s quite heavy physically) and the fees alone are enough to make it something only the rich and famous could afford — $5,000 to join and $2,500 per year for the annual fee.

And no, you can’t apply for a Centurion card –you have to be invited (invitations only go to those who spend more than $250,000 annually on their regular Amex card – it used to be that you had to spend more than $1,000,000 a year to get invited for these types of credit cards though, so the cache may have gone down slightly).

Charles shares his credit card tips, insights and adventures at CreditDonkey.  Read CreditDonkey’s latest tip to teach kids about money and financial literacy.