Hi Everyone.. I'm looking for some advice here.
I recently improved my FICO score (from approx. 670-690 for the past 5 years) by paying off a large outstanding amount (approx. $4000) and now have less than 20% utilization across 2 cards. My FICO scores have dramatically improved over the last 2 months with Experian - 718, Equifax - 721 and Transunion - 772. However, I had a combined pretty low credit limit - BOA ($2,100) and USBank ($3,100), even though my income was $175K-$200K. I have historically just used my debit card for all purchases and not really taken my credit issues into control till this past month. Anyways - now that I am on the mend, I have been making great progress.
So I went ahead and applied for a new card yesterday - the Citi AAdvantage Platinum MasterCard (given the rewards program & 50,000 miles) and I was immediately approved with a $19,200 credit limit!! This is obviously very exciting!!
So I have always wanted an Amex Platinum card and I'm curious as to how long I should wait before applying given a couple of (not so good) factors:
1) I used to have an Amex Gold card many years ago when I was just out of college, approx. 2005 and that card was charged off and closed by Amex in or around 2006. I know that Amex keeps a long history, so I'm not sure how this charge off would affect me today, i.e. 8 years later.
2) I have had an Amex Corporate Card (Green and then most recently Platinum) for the past 8 years (with my previous employer who I am no longer with as of September) and always carried a balance and had late payments and paid interest and fees etc. No excuses here - I was just really bad at managing my outstanding balance and making regular payments since I was responsible getting reimbursed from my employer and then paying off the balance.
My real question here is - would my poor corporate card management preclude me from ever getting a personal amex card going forward? How does Amex manage / segregate corporate card usage for the same individual when applying for personal amex card? Or do they look at everything for the same person?
3) From a credit history perspective, the only negative checkmark that I currently have are a few past due payments: 30 days past due (Jun 2014 & Jun 2012) and a 60 days past due (Dec 2011). I presume these will take a while to get taken off my history - so it's something I am going to have to manage. However, it obviously didn't play a role in my Citi AAdvantage approval with $19,200 CL.
4) My credit limit was prety low - $5200 (up until yesterday) when I got approved for the Citi AAdvantage $19,200 limit
I'd really appreciate your insight here.
Thanks so much!
