Hi all! This is only my second post here, but I've been lurking for well over a year. I just wanted to share a success story and lessons learned from these forums.
My current situation is 4 baddies with 4-18 months before they drop off. I have a FICO EQ of 630 and FAKO's EX 588, TU 628. I've got an Orchard card ($200 limit, 1.4 years) and a First Premier ($300, 8mos). Very much 'training wheel' cards, but they were important for payment history, which I learned here on the forums.
So, having crossed the 1 year AAoA boundary, I decided it was time to try for credit that was a little less 'sub-prime' 
I had relatively low expectations, so first I applied for the Hooters card. Got a 7-10 day message; still waiting on that one. Then decided I could live with one more hard pull (can you live with the decision for two years, I asked myself, having learned that lesson here, on the forums) and decided to apply for the Amazon.com Visa.
I danced around the living room when I got an instant approval ... for $2,000!
And I'd be dancing even more today (if I didn't have the flu) because that was just the temporary limit: The official limit is $3,200!
I know some of you credit jedi would be unhappy with that, but honestly, I didn't expect anything like a ten-fold increase over my next highest card.
So thanks to all the helpful, conscienscious posters here. Sharing your advice and experiences has really made a difference for me, and probably countless other lurkers 
That's the way to get a Friday morning started out right!
BIG congratulations! Your hard work is paying off.
Congrats!!! Those are the steps that count. In the beginning...apping for what you can get, not what you want. What you want can come later.
Those are cards that can grow with you too! So that is also a good, smart move! Congrats again on the new addition to your CC family!!!
* I remember the day I got my first "prime" card....I cried!
@Anonymous wrote:Hi all! This is only my second post here, but I've been lurking for well over a year. I just wanted to share a success story and lessons learned from these forums.
My current situation is 4 baddies with 4-18 months before they drop off. I have a FICO EQ of 630 and FAKO's EX 588, TU 628. I've got an Orchard card ($200 limit, 1.4 years) and a First Premier ($300, 8mos). Very much 'training wheel' cards, but they were important for payment history, which I learned here on the forums.
So, having crossed the 1 year AAoA boundary, I decided it was time to try for credit that was a little less 'sub-prime'
I had relatively low expectations, so first I applied for the Hooters card. Got a 7-10 day message; still waiting on that one. Then decided I could live with one more hard pull (can you live with the decision for two years, I asked myself, having learned that lesson here, on the forums) and decided to apply for the Amazon.com Visa.
I danced around the living room when I got an instant approval ... for $2,000!
And I'd be dancing even more today (if I didn't have the flu) because that was just the temporary limit: The official limit is $3,200!
I know some of you credit jedi would be unhappy with that, but honestly, I didn't expect anything like a ten-fold increase over my next highest card.
So thanks to all the helpful, conscienscious posters here. Sharing your advice and experiences has really made a difference for me, and probably countless other lurkers
Congratulation on a nice approval! Take good care of that card!
Thanks, all!
Chris, for me they pulled TU. I checked on the creditboards database first to see who they might pull; about half the time they pull TU, but it could have been any of the three. So now my TU has three hard pulls total, EX 2, EQ none. I can live with it