Best NFCU card?

[SoulMaster]

Hey all,

After jumping through hoops (Uncle-->Mother-->Me) I will finally become a member of Navy Federal later this month, and I can't wait!  I've been waiting for this since I started my post-CH7 research, and I'm I'm happy I finally found a way in.

So that brings me to my Q's about their CCs:

1. Which card is the best?  Obviously assuming I'm approved w/ a decent limit it will become my daily card which means I'll run between $1000 and $2000 though it per month (PIF monthly).  I don't mind AF's as long as the rewards are worth it.  Also I am out of the country 2-5 times / year so no ForEX fees is a huge plus (and why I love my Cap1, no forex covers the AF easily).
2. The above noted, the NFCU "Which card is right" thingy says the Visa Signature Flagship card.  Is there ANY WAY AT ALL to get that with a Bankruptcy reporting?
3. If #2 is impossible, which card do you all recommend?
4. Despite opening my Barclays in Jan, and planning on waiting until July to app for NFCU, I think I'm going to app 1st week of March, right after my 2nd Barclays statement cuts.  Barclays may cancel me, but if they do who really cares?  I'll be in w/NFCU! (is there a conflicting opinion on this?)  My other option is to wait until June, then the C1 will be a year old and my Federal Tax Lien should be vanished (IRS Fresh-Start program).  Any thoughts about my timing of things?

In my wallet:

CARDLIMIT/AFBalanceOpened

Cap1 - No Hassle CR$1250/$39$005/14/11

Discover More$1000/$0$25011/10/11

Barclays Apple$1300/$0$001/05/12

Closed my $300 unsecured Orchard Card after a year of it to avoid the AF.

I have a $2000/2 year Credit Builder (secured) loan from OneNevada CU that was opened 01/08/2012 - payment $84/mo

My AAoA is longer than my wallet would suggest... I have some good accounts from before the BK that factor in.  I'm somewhere between 3 and 4 years.

I also have a federal tax lien ($21K) that I'm paying $2850/month on (will be PIF in Oct, my total IRS debt was $30K).  (Oh how I'd LOVE to get a loan to pay them off!)

Finally, I have a CA State tax lien ($1700) that should report as PIF any day now.

Most recent scores are in my Sig.

Thanks for any help/insight you might have!

-SM

[chromonso1]

i don't think you would get in with the signature card (but you never know). I just (this morning) applied for the nrewards card over the phone. I wanted to apply to get the 0% balance transfer however I didn't want to wait for a recent payment to post, so I called them up and told them my situation. The CSR took a note of my decreased utilization and put me in the 3-5 day wait period. I'm expecting them to come back asking for some stubs and statement cuts from my cards (or , i'm hoping that they do atleast, so I can prove my income and get a higher limit). I've been itching to app for a while and just got sick of waiting so...

[Anonymous]

The Flagship rewards card is your best option if you travel overseas. It has NO FOREIGN EXCHANGE fees.

As to yourself getting approved for it, you might take a chance by applying for it.

I dont think its eligibily is any different from any of their other cards, except for it is a visa signature card so the minimum limit for which you have to qualify is  5K, and it does have a $49 annual fee. 

NFCU is really easy to work with and BK friendly ( need other members to weigh in on this) and they are very generous.

good luck.

[Allenbak123]

I also have a state and fed tax lien on reports and nfcu was very difficult to get credit with bc of them. They are also almost paid. I had to get a co app to get approved and haven't been able to get an increase on a 5 k limit in over a year. The reason is always derogatory pr. Good luck

[bostonte]

If you spend enough, the annual fee on the Flagship basically doesn't matter. Figure roughly around $30,000 a year and it's a wash cash back wise.

The Cash Rewards is 1% up to $10,000 a year, and then goes to 1.5%. 

.5% of $10,000 (the amount you "lose" while working up to the $10,000 tier) is $50.

The Flagship Annual fee is $49.

As long as you redeem your Flagship points in 30,000 or higher increments for cash back (or far less if you redeem for travel rewards where you can get in excess of 1.5%) - you'll get 1.5% on everything, minus the $49 annual fee, and it will be the same as the Cash Rewards.

If you aren't going to hit 30,000 points in a year or so (and have no use for the other Signature benefits) then the Cash Rewards is probably better.

If you get the ticket price right, you can get some very good redepemtion percentages towards air fare that beat the 1.5%.

[SoulMaster]

For me, the $49 AF is a wash because of the 0% foreign transaction fees.  I figure they're about 3% on the other cards, which means a spend of $1500/year international makes up for $45 of the fee, plus the 1500pts I'd get.  $1500 in europe is pretty easy to get to.

I guess my question should have been more along the lines of: Are there any other NFCU cards that have no foreign transaction fees?  If not, is there anything preventing me from getting the Signature card.

Reading the other replies, it looks like the BK isn't going to hurt, but the IRS lein is.  So, it looks like I may have to garden a bit longer and set up auto-withdrawls to pay my taxes (they'll remove the lein after 3 auto-payments).  That puts me at May/June if I start the auto-pay in March and figure 30ish days to ge the lien removed after the 3rd payment.

<shrugs> Oh, well.  That's not to long I suppose.  I guess I'm just anxious to get my NFCU card because as soon as I have it I go into the garden for years (other than buying a house) waiting for the BK to drop (August 2020) or at least age to 7+ (August 2017).

In the meantime, I might just hit the luv button on Barclays to see what happens.  It'd be a TU HP (from the looks of it), which I can handle (only 2 in the last 12 mo) and it shouldn't effect the EQ pull that NFCU will do once I finally apply for that card.

Thoughts?

-SM

[bichonmom]

If you want a NFCU CC, you might want to start banking with them, if you haven't already. They'll be more confident in extending you credit when they see you have a history with them. You may have more luck getting approved in 6 mos if you have the banking history with them than if you don't.

[bichonmom]

How long have you had your Barclay's? I believe they require at least 6 mos history before a CLI. And it will definitely be a HP. The CLI won't help your FICO, except with your util.

[SoulMaster]

I've had my Barclays a little more than a month... but hey, they're the ones who put that Luv button there!  Also, I didn't request a CLI via Recon.  I don't mind the HP at all,, regardless of the outcome.

And yeah, if I decide to wait for the IRS lein to go away before apping for a CC, I'll be banking with them the whole time.  I'm opening checking/savings the instant my mom finishes opening her account (hopefully this weekend).

Finally, I have little faith in the importance of a FICO score for anything other than an instant approval / interest rates.  Nearly everything can be explained away if you talk to an actual underwriter (and have proof). And, despite some people having 700+ scores after BK, the BK will still prevent them from doing alot if things.  More to the point of your point about the CL not helping with my FICOs, creditors often relate new account limits to the ones that are currently reporting, and handling a larger line correctly does show additional responsibility, especially @ companies which use an "internal scoring model", which seems to be all of them lately.

The worst version of this is "Secured Card Hell".  If you have an open secured card, some banks won't touch you for an unsecured CC, regardless of your score. (The forums here are riddled with this problem).  

Wow!  I'm so off topic with the last half of this post I should slap myself for thread-jacking!

P.S. Congrats on your double-AMEX win yesterday!

-SM

[bichonmom]

Just so you know, the Barclay's button is there frequently. It doesn't mean that they're saying you're going to get a CLI. I posted this question recently when I saw it on my account. (I opened my Barclay's in November.) I, like you, got all excited, thinking that they were offering me a CLI. Then people posted back that it's just there and isn't like when it pops up when they think you're prime for a CLI.