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You could get an in with them by getting a co branded card. For example, Best Buy, Home Depot. Althrough Costco isn't a City branded card now; you could pre-emptively get one and wait until they change over in April 2016. But there's many other Citi branded cards out there. I tried with Citi with 6 month credit history, 720/730 scores and got denied.. I am sure if I tried now it'd be because of utilization. However, they are very very picky. But yeah inquiries really don't mean much unless you have a very thin file. If you have an aged, thick file; they won't be the reason you get denied although some inquiry sensitive companies do exist but there's not that many.
@ShinBeats wrote:Then I went to recon and was denied for the same reason.
Experian is 660, 32% utilization, 12 inquiries. Is there anything else that can be done?
I wouldn't try to recon again. I would work on reducing your utilization below 15%, 10% percent is even better, but it depends on you. While paying down your credit card debt, the inquiries will age. In the meantime, I would not apply for anything else. Gardening for the next 6 months to a year may not be a bad idea either. Good luck!!!
Sorry for your denial, I'm not sure why but it seems that lately Citi has become more restrictive on accounts lately and like others have mentions the exception to the rule does seem to be the cobranded products.