Opening a second revolving account doesn't have the same impact as opening your first.
FICO looks at whether or not your have a revolving account (one Reason Code) and whether or not you have a bank/national CC revolving account (another Reason Code). If your secured card is from a bank/national cc company, you've already met both reason codes and will likely see a significant score impact. The second card would not satisfy those Reason Codes - because they're already satisfied (it only takes one).
DH saw a FICO score impact of +29 points when his first open revolving account reported; I saw an impact of 20 points (however, mine reported with a high 21% utilization - which certainly impacted the point increase).
I lost 5 points when I opened my second card (a merchant's or store card) and DH saw 0 point impact when opening his second card (a CU card) or his third card (another bank card).
Some folks have higher FICO scores with a small utilization (less than 9%) reporting on the card than they would if the card reported a zero utilization or a high utilization.
Remember FICO also watches to see if you are using your revolving accounts. That's part of the reason that most folks do best FICO-wise if they follow the advice to let one revolving account report a balance - with that reported balance being less than 9%. All other revolving accounts (if there are any) should report a zero balance.
And always watch your AAofA when deciding whether or not to app for a new card. It takes a few minutes to do the math, but it can take a few years to rebuild AAofA if you decimate it.
Just a note on Vantage Scores which are the scores offered through TrueCredit. FICO uses a different algorithm or set of algorithms than Vantage. They are complex little beasties. As John Ulzheimer, who has worked with both Fair Isaac and Equifax puts it, rockets scientists have nothing on the guys that put your credit scores together.
Unfortunately, it's not like translating celsius to fahrenheit. Vantage varies from FICO in it's very first "step" - Vantage first groups consumers into one of 12 homogeneous segments and then calculates the consumer’s VantageScore within the segment . FICO's scoring "buckets" and all the intricacies within the "buckets" are different. That is why your Vantage score can go down, while your FICO score goes up - and vice versa.
The most predictable way of determining your FICO score is to pull it, or check it out when a creditor pulls it for you. Your FICO score pull tomorrow will be most meaningful, and I'm sure you'll see some FICO point growth based on the addition of a revolving account.
I'd also recommend pulling a FICO score from this site because it comes with some very helpful tools, including an Estimator that is specific to your report. Plugging a second revolving account into the estimator will tell you what your FICO score impact likely will be; and it will be useful for you to understand how various actions will impact your FICO score as you move forward.
Best wishes to you!
