Best second credit card?

[gkinter]

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a good second credit card. I just got approved for a chase sapphire a couple of month ago with a $9000 starting limit. I am still building my credit and looking to keep improving my credit limit and score of course. Any ideas? I was looking for a good cash back card, but I got pre-approved for a couple of other travel cards as well like capital one venture or BOA travel rewards card. I was looking at the AMEX Blue Cash every day card. I am still fairly new to this, and I would love to hear everyone's suggestion for another credit card. Should I go with Citi? Capital One? BOA? AMEX? 

Thanks for the help in advance! Some info about me;

Income : $60,000

Credit cards:

$1300/$9000 Chase Sapphire 

0/$521 Capital One Platinum

Best buy credit card $2300/$3500

Bealls 0/300

MY scores are : 

745 Equifax

742 Transunion

738 Experian. 

Thank you again for the help!!

[austinguy907]

You're on the right track with some prime lenders instead of store cards as tempting as they are for an easy approval.  

Personally I have the BCE from AMEX and Discover in my lineup.  BCE opens the door to exponential growth with the 3X CLI guidelines and should start you off in the $10K neighborhood with your scores and recent approvals.  Discover might start off lower in the $5K range but will grow nicely with time and use.  Both of these options in comparison to your other thoughts grow with SP CLI's instead of a HP like the others.

Cap1 might be a wash considering you already have one listed.

Citi is a mess to deal with sometimes.

BOA is always a HP for a CLI

If you have some time and $ to wait it out I would pay down the BB card to under 20% to increase your chances of a good starting limit with any of these choices though.  When you pick up something new I would take a hard look at closing out Bealls / Cap1 and sticking with more prime cards.  BB is back by Citi but doesn't carry any weight on additional approvals since it's co-branded and managed by a different branch of the company known as DSNB.

[gkinter]

Thank you for your answer!

Wouldn't closing the smaller cards would hurt my credit score? 

[newhis]

BCE and Discover were the 2 cards I told a friend to go as first cards in USA. He got both @ 1K, I can wait to see the limits on both in a year.

+1 to austinguy907 wrote.

[newhis]

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@gkinter wrote:

Thank you for your answer!

Wouldn't closing the smaller cards would hurt my credit score? 

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Your score will  not suffer if you UTIL is kept low. If you open another card with good limit, then you don't need the limit from smaller cards.

Check BCE prequal, there are some extra bonus sometimes. Good luck.

[austinguy907]

They key to the credit game is to move forward.  Get the new 1 or 2 cards first and then close out the other ones in their place.  The good history you have already built with them will carry on for 10 years on your report.  

Ideally 3-5 cards reporting usage is prime territory for scoring and prepping for bigger things down the road like a mortgage.  Anything more than 5 is just bonus territory and helps keep your numbers padded for utilization purposes mostly or bonus/points/miles if you're looking to make some money or travel off of the whole deal.

[gkinter]

Wow. 

"We could not find Pre-Qualified Offers for you at this time. Based on your interests, we recommend the following Cards for you."

I guess I shouldn't try this time...It's shocking because I never missed a payment or had any problems ever. I am pre approved for multiple BOA cards but not for this. I would rather get an AMEX for some reason. I guess I just have to wait in this case. 

[gkinter]

Thank you for your help! 

Once I get a second "normal" credit card in this case I will close the bealls and the small capital one . I hope it won't hurt or affect my score a lot. 

Any other suggestions?

[austinguy907]

AMEX - their pre-qual seems broken to me... I never got a response from them online and ended up cold apping the BCE and instant approval for $10K

Discover - they're good with your profile and will likely approve in the $5K range 

 BOA - their online system never spits anything back for me but, they do mail me the basic beige card they have for 18 mo's 0% all the time

Sometimes taking the chance of a denial is worthwhile is the key to success.  If we could see the future most of us would make different choices

[SunriseEarth]

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@gkinter wrote:

Wow. 

"We could not find Pre-Qualified Offers for you at this time. Based on your interests, we recommend the following Cards for you."

I guess I shouldn't try this time...It's shocking because I never missed a payment or had any problems ever. I am pre approved for multiple BOA cards but not for this. I would rather get an AMEX for some reason. I guess I just have to wait in this case. 

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You don't need a pre-approval to get an approval.  If you want something in the AMEX line, apply for it.