Any advantage to credit cards from Lowes, Home Depot, etc?

[Rich Engelhardt]

Lowes - 5% off.
For large - like whole house redo things - work up a material list, take it to the service desk at Lowes and have them submit it to corporate. Corporate will figure out the discounts. They -discounts- are substantial. The "business" card also has some sort of delivery discount - or at least it did pre-Covid. Then it was a flat $25 for anything. Bill payment is done by online payments, like everyone else we pay.

Home Depot discount comes in the form of a huge discount off an item when you first make a purchase - however- the discount is deferred until payment. If you forget you agreed to make the payment at a specified date, you pay full price and an interest charge that makes "Lou the knee cap breaker" blush. (DAMHIKT).
(The 12V Makita 3.5" trim saw and extra battery I picked up without letting my wife the bill payer know turned out to be very costly. )

Menards 2% off, access to special deals sent by mail, free tool for your birthday. The 2% comes in the form of a rebate - good only at Menards. The best thing about the Menards card is that the 2% credit is applied to sale prices and is good when Menards runs their 11% rebate on everything - even when the rebate makes the item free.
Menards payments are the easiest. They just "bill the bank". They payments are made via automatic bill payment with out bank. We just verify the amount that has been paid.

[Grant Wilkinson]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Several times a year Lowes For Pros has a 10% off promo that lasts for a week. Lowes is the only store card I use. My Menard's 11% rebate funny money keeps piling up. I hope use it for a mini split heat pump for the shop or barn metal for the WoodMizer carport.

[Bill Howatt]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.

I don't think that is correct. They go by "credit utilization" which should always be below 30% and having more than one card with a small amount on each is better than one with over 30% on it. Scotiabank recommends using a higher limit to reduce the credit utilization rating as a good solution. A problem with applying for several cards in a short time-frame is that it causes a hard-check of your rating and this can negatively impact your score.

[Rich Engelhardt]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.

Same here in the USA.
Credit cards and their limits are considered as an unsecured debt - since they have nothing of collateral used to back the loan. Same thing can apply if you have some really high credit lines on a few cards.

The good news is that - if the rest of your credit history is good, unsecured debt counts low against you - if it's reasonable.

[Jerome Stanek]

my home depot uses my cell phone number for my military discount at the register. I had it on my HD app but they changed everything and now it is harder to find. Also I have to log in for the wifi that used to be just go into the store. They do bock Lowes websites so you can't price check

[Rick Potter]

When I was building a new garage/Granny flat addition to the house 5 years ago or so, I got the Lowes commercial business card. I qualified as a business since I have some rentals, but they are pretty loose about it. In addition to the small 6%? discount I bought it for the delivery service.

With the card they will deliver anything for $20. I bought a truckload of drywall, had some appliances delivered, sheets of LP exterior sheeting and Hardi board, and more. $20 a shot. They even forklifted the sheets of 10' 5/8" drywall into the garage.

Since then, I have not used it at all.

[Patty Hann]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.

It's true in the US also.
I don't know what time of month the Credit bureaus take a "snapshot" of one's card usage, but if the real time balance on your card(s) is too high (it's the ratio of current balance to available credit) , you get dinged for a month or so with a lower credit score.
I pay off my 3 cards ( 2 VISAs and one Discover ) every month. but my FICO score still bounces around between 815 and 826.

[Bill Howatt]

That ratio is the credit utilization and it should be below 30%. Apparently it is the second most important factor in setting the score after payment history.
Being this is a big factor probably puts a little rationale into having a larger limit (or spread out over cards) is better than having a lower limit and being over 30% on a card - which is somewhat counter-intuitive.

[Allan Dozier]

Use my Lowes business card all the time. Seems I am in Lowes at least every 2 or 3 days. When building and outfitting a house it saves a bunch. BTW, I use mine at the self service checkout at every Lowes I've been to.