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Welp.. I'm still on the market for a 3rd card. My goal is to find a suitable card so I can cancel my First Premier "starter." I currently bank with Citi and have been thinking about going for one of their CCs. Was curious to see if anyone has any experience with their requirements, what they flag for, etc.
I applied for a Paypal/GEMB MC last month but was only approved for a $500 Smart Connect account. Aside from that, I only have 3-4 INQs on all 3 CBs the past year. (Although I do have about 15 INQs on Experian in 2 years.. Due to a dealership shotgunning my report.)
As of yesterday, my TU FICO is 649. Current UTIL is around 22% across three accounts. AAoA roughly 11 months, oldest account is 16 months. Only one paid off baddy reporting. From what I've heard, Citi is one of the most anal card issuers out there. Should I wait until I'm ~670 or so? Anyone know what CBs they pull? Any other card suggestions?
@Anonymous wrote:Welp.. I'm still on the market for a 3rd card. My goal is to find a suitable card so I can cancel my First Premier "starter." I currently bank with Citi and have been thinking about going for one of their CCs. Was curious to see if anyone has any experience with their requirements, what they flag for, etc.
I applied for a Paypal/GEMB MC last month but was only approved for a $500 Smart Connect account. Aside from that, I only have 3-4 INQs on all 3 CBs the past year. (Although I do have about 15 INQs on Experian in 2 years.. Due to a dealership shotgunning my report.)
As of yesterday, my TU FICO is 649. Current UTIL is around 22% across three accounts. AAoA roughly 11 months, oldest account is 16 months. Only one paid off baddy reporting. From what I've heard, Citi is one of the most anal card issuers out there. Should I wait until I'm ~670 or so? Anyone know what CBs they pull? Any other card suggestions?
With 1 baddie in just 16 months of history + 22% usage + no prime card + really low credit limits, I wont apply for citi.
I will rather check amex pre selector and with a local CU.
You need more available CL so that your util can drop and you need some time for your baddie to age (or fall off).
You should be able to request CLI on GEMB in abt 3-4 months. They are generally good upto 1.5 - 2k point.
I think you need to get in the 660-670 threshold. Citi is Extremely INQ sensitive. I was denied back in Sept '10 because of inquiries and the CSR told me they don't like to see more than 2 INQ on reports now since the credit crunch. The CSR is could have been exaggerating about the 2 but pretty much anything double digits is the kiss of death. You might have luck though since INQ are older so you could get the benefit of the doubt with them.
For now focus on getting your utilization to about 10%, and waiting a few months to improve AAoA. Any baddies on your CR? I once you get into the 660-670 range I would apply in the the following order Discover More, Citi Forward, AMEX Zync.
I was playing with UTIL again and didn't manage to pay off the balances in time.. Hence the 22%. They should be PIF this week and hopefully reported. myfico.com simulation says it should bump me to 660-670 if it's reported at 0. I guess I'll take a look into Amex later this month.
Discover More will likely need 700+ FICOs.
I would say let the inquiries fall off, get the util down, and you should be good to go with Citi Forward.
I don't think citi is INQ sensitive at all. Just got a citi card with a decent amount of INQ on EX.
"Decent amount of inquiries?" That would be zero, right?
I got approved for a Citi Forward last month with 10 inquiries on my EX report. 3 from 2009 and 7 from 2010
Citi mostly considers how many inquires there are in the last 6 months. Some, like Discover, will separately consider the 12 month inquiries in addition to the 6 month amount.
I have 3 in the last months and they gave a ok CL.