Strange how sometimes things work out. In March/April I had to travel for 2 straight months for work. Having not had any credit cards for 7 years, I had to apply for one. Since I was traveling I tried for AMEX Delta. Of course, I was denied with a score around 540 and I had a hard pull on my CR from having to rent a car. Once I got back I decided it was time to fix my credit as I will have to make this trip again once the Court of Appeals has handled one issue related to it.
In June I start my rebuild with fantastic success. Got each CR score up at least 100 points in 3 months. I was going to wait till September to go for AMEX again but people said I should wait another couple months to get a little more improvement as my scores were borderline (actually this was true as my AMEX approvals came from a tri-pull). Hurricane Isaac hit and damaged my house.
This forced me to have to apply for SBA loan to repair home and I was told it would pull EX. I decided my CR's were as good as I would get them in the next couple months so pull the trigger. I went 5 for 5 in credit card apps. AMEX Zync NPSL (instant approval), AMEX Delta 2k (took about 20 minutes), Walmart Discover 1.8k (instant), Chase Amazon Visa 2k (instant), and Chase Freedom 1.5k (had to recon due to recent Chase app - this was also the infamous drapping incident).
Moreover, back in June I hatched a plan to get a roommate who would be able to help me join NFCU so I could refi with them in June 2013. He moved in right after the storm and the extra funds I get from him helped to cover the costs of some of my repairs. I was also able to join NFCU and get NFCU Flagship siggy with 25k CL!
So the moral of this diatribe, what could had been a horrible event, i.e. my house getting serious damage from a hurricane and my embarrasing denial of cc app for work travel in March, turned into a tremendous gain! I was able to get AMEX Zync before the card was discontinued (if I would had waited to Nov it would had been too late), my successful drapping lead me to getting Freedom card with 10/10 program before that program was discontinued, and having a roommate to help with refi by joining NFCU also gave me some needed cash to help with repairs after storm.
All these events could had ended much differently. By being mindful of my credit and actively taking steps to improve it I was able to handle the curve life threw at me and ended up in a better position. Some may call this luck. I rather borrow an old saying, "Chance favors the prepared mind."
