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First time posting. I just wanted to tell you all thank you for providing so much insight. I have been reading the forums for a few years here and there whenever I had a question. The last week I have probably spent over 10 hours on here searching and reading. I haven't had a new credit card in years and my dw (I guess darling wife) has never had any other than being an authorized user on mine.
After much research I really wanted to get the Venture, but I decided to wait a few months since the few inquiries I had from a car loan are set to fall off Jan. 18. However, after so much research I was going crazy not trying for it. My wife and I decided to try for Venture on her since she had no inquiries. Also had no cards of her own just Care Credit and Ashley Furniture. She is a stay at home mom, but I didnt think that would matter since it is household income. She was instantly approved with an SL of $20k. I was shocked and a little jealous! I mean this is her first real credit card, I think mine with Cap One was started at $300.
After the exciement last night, I really wanted to try my own luck. From everyones input I saw that AMEX usually only HPs on Experian and I had no inquiries on Experian. I also noticed people seem to love their AMEX cards. After 4 hours of reading tonight I finally went for it with the Blue Cash Preferred and was approved for $16,300 which I never expected to be that high. The weird number was unlike anything I have seen on these forums.
Stats:
EX 778 (No Inq at time of app with AMEX, now 1 and well worth it)
TU 730 (3 Inq all from Dec. 2015)
EQ 731 (3 Inq all from Dec. 2015)
Highest limit prior to these cards was Cap One Quicksilver at $11k which originally started many years ago at $300 or $500 and not Quicksilver at the time.
Cap One Pre Qual - DW and I both were shown Venture
Amex Pre Qual - I was shown Everyday, Everyday Preferred and BCE (Not BCP which is what I applied for)
Mainly posting this because I felt guilty taking so much info from the forums and not giving back at all. Hopefully this can help someone else considering one of these cards.
Congrats to both of you!
Thanks for the datapoints and many congratulations to the both of you!
Congrats! Also, for any lenders that can be inquiry sensitive it's due to "recent" inquiries. That can be anywhere from 6-12 months. You should be OK for Cap One as yours are older than that.Also, just because one lender is inq sensitive to Joe Blow doesn't mean they will be to you. It can vary by profile and card product. Good luck!
@Anonymous wrote:
That’s good to know, thank you. I was thinking I should wait and get the 50k bonus points on my wife’s new Venture then apply for mine in 3 months to do the rewards all over again. Any reason to apply for it now? I notice people talk about sprees but I haven’t really read too much on it yet.
Only if you care about lumping all your inquiries and account ages around the same time period. Also, don't do it if you can't meet the spending requirements of all the cards cards. Most sign up bonuses (SUBs) only give 3 months to meet that target. You might lose out on those bonuses if you can't meet that. Your plan to meet the first Venture bonus and then do it again on your profile in 3 months sounds solid.
My point was that you were giving your old inqs to much power.
I wouldn't necessarily say, "Don't worry about inquiries." Navy Federal has turned me down 4 times this year, and "number of inquiries" was one of the biggest reasons. So they definitely DO matter sometimes. (I had between 4 and 9 in the last year when they gave that as a reason). They also cited utilization and number of new accounts as well, so inquiries was only one factor, but my util on TU this most recent rejection was 9% and only a handful of accounts in the last 6 months, so I have to believe inquiries were fairly significant.