Approved for Discover Card!

[sayswho]

Greetings all!

I have been trying to continually rebuild my credit....have not pulled my score in a long time so not sure what it is but I was recently approved for a Discover Card with $1000 limit.  I applied for this card because I wanted to transfer a balance that had a higher interest rate to it so I did almost utilize the max $1k but have paid some already and will probably have half paid off in a few weeks here.  Of course its good news to get approved by any creditor especially during these tough times but I was quite surprised to finally been approved (probably tried 3-4 other times in 10 yrs)....  My question is, typically how hard is it to get approved and should I assume I have decent credit?  Trying to get a car soon and would like to take advantage of 0% apr for 72 months.....

[MarineVietVet]

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@sayswho wrote:

Greetings all!

I have been trying to continually rebuild my credit....have not pulled my score in a long time so not sure what it is but I was recently approved for a Discover Card with $1000 limit.  I applied for this card because I wanted to transfer a balance that had a higher interest rate to it so I did almost utilize the max $1k but have paid some already and will probably have half paid off in a few weeks here.  Of course its good news to get approved by any creditor especially during these tough times but I was quite surprised to finally been approved (probably tried 3-4 other times in 10 yrs)....  My question is, typically how hard is it to get approved and should I assume I have decent credit?  Trying to get a car soon and would like to take advantage of 0% apr for 72 months.....

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Welcome to the forums.

Congrats on the approval. I'm not sure what scores are generally needed for a Discover card. Others will have to chime in about that. I have a Discover but I got it about 9 years ago so I have no idea what my score was then. I know it was not anywhere near excellent.

I'm not one to advise pulling your credit score very often but you might want to do this just to get a baseline. Remember though that the inquiry needed to apply for the card and the new credit showing on your report will lessen your score a bit compared to what it would have been before the application.

You can buy your Equifax and/or Transunion scores here at myfico. I suggest you do an internet search first for "myfico discount codes" to save a little money. You can also purchase your Equifax score at www.equifax.com and your Transunion score at www.transunioncs.com.

Be careful where you purchase credit scores. Look carefully at the fine print. If you don't see the words "FICO score" anywhere but only offers for "credit scores" then they are not selling a true FICO score. I've learned the hard way about this as have others.

Good luck to you.

From a BK years ago to:
7/09 TU-742 EQ- 779
8/09 TU-765 EQ- 783
9/09 EX pulled by lender 802

You can do the same thing with hard work.

[-RED]

^ Great advice!

[Uborrow-Upay]

Welcome, sayswho!

+1 to marinevietvet's advice above. You don't have to guess at your credit worthiness, just pull your reports here and you'll know for sure.

Regarding Discover...if they issued you a new account, your credit is at least decent or better. They are a conservative lender, and their starting CL's are usually lower than what other lender's would start you off with. But they increase your CL's after some good history on the account over time.

[Anonymous]

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@sayswho wrote:

Greetings all!

I have been trying to continually rebuild my credit....have not pulled my score in a long time so not sure what it is but I was recently approved for a Discover Card with $1000 limit.  I applied for this card because I wanted to transfer a balance that had a higher interest rate to it so I did almost utilize the max $1k but have paid some already and will probably have half paid off in a few weeks here.  Of course its good news to get approved by any creditor especially during these tough times but I was quite surprised to finally been approved (probably tried 3-4 other times in 10 yrs)....  My question is, typically how hard is it to get approved and should I assume I have decent credit?  Trying to get a car soon and would like to take advantage of 0% apr for 72 months.....

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Discover is a prime, conservative lender.  Being approved by them does indicate that you have good to excellent credit.

If you don't want to spend the money, then I suggest the following, which is sufficient for those who are just trying to build their credit.

1.  Pull your annual free credit reports from www.annualcreditreport.com

2.  Go to the FICO Score Estimator (link in my sig line)

3.  Input the information from your credit reports into the Estimator

4.  Use the score range the estimator provides as general score analysis

With the information from your free reports, you can continue to repair your credit if you have any inaccuracies (dispute), derogs (DV, GW, PFD, dispute inaccuracies as appropriate).

All efforts you put in to improving your credit will only improve your score.  If you maintain the credit basics, you can rest assured your score is fine and you can use the Estimator to know what your "probable" minimum score is.

With this strategy, you know what your credit contains and what your likely score range is, all for FREE.  Once you decide you want to know what your actual score is, search Google for discount or promo codes so that you can get a discount off the price from MyFico.com.

IMO  IME 

Message Edited by txjohn on 01-29-2010 05:28 AM