Okay, so been doing a lot of reading the last few months and trying to setup a game plan for the next year or so. After several years of working to recover from some old debts, etc. and income fluctuations I'm finally at the point that I have increased my income and other factors to stabilize things and am in a position to start using credit to my advantage not be taken advantage of. My current scores are in my signature and have finally crested the 700 mark after hovering in the mid 600s for several years.
I recently took out a loan from Lending Club that allowed me to zero my credit card balances (most have posted the change, still waiting on a couple in the next few days, so scores will likely change again slightly). I'm also now at the point that I have enough cash flow to pay off balances in full every month (yay!) so I can finally start working on improving my CL and what cards/accounts I have.
Also bought a house about 2 years ago so I've currently got about 10-12 inquiries according to the different agencies. A good portion of those should roll off around September/October of this year.
So this is what I currently have unfortunately a lot of it is store cards which are relatively unhelpful for me. I recently did a PC from the NFCU Platinum to the Flagship Rewards and have started using that as my daily driver.
NFCU Flagship Rewards - $10,000 (also bank here and have their LOC at 15k)
Amex Costco - $2000
Barclay Apple - $1800
Capital One Guitar Center - $3000
Comenity Bank Express - $300
Military Star Card - $5875
Lowes - $1500
Men's Wearhouse - $680
Target - $700
Total: $25,855
I'd really like to start getting my overall CL up and adding some useful cards to the mix. One big thing for me is I travel/spend internationally a lot! I live overseas a good portion of the year so travel rewards + no foreign transaction fees are a huge win! A few cards on my wishlist would include CSP, Barclay Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard, and possibly a Amex or two in the mix (SPG Amex is a real consider since they are dropping FTF in August). I've also considered the Discover It (seems like a good card overall and the bonus right now are great) and Chase Freedom (partnered with the CSP seems nice) although their regular usability for me would be lower due to international acceptance rates for Discover and the FTF on the Freedom.
So I'm trying to figure out a game plan, would the best thing to do be start by trying to get some CLIs on the NFCU card (tried a bit ago but hard pull I cancelled it and figured I'd wait till all the balance paydowns registered and such, my last SP with NFCU was March 3rd so I expect a new one soon from comments here)? What are my chances now of being approved for any of the cards I really want? Should I garden till the CI roll off till September/October? I've got an annual income ballpark of about 200,000 (give or take, that's what I report). There are a couple of lates on my reports (the last one being in December 2014 and the other one a few months earlier unfortunately) one 60 day and one 30 day. They are both from my mortgage, I had to make a calculated decision not to pay them when I did a position change that drastically changed my pay cycle and required an international move, everything is back to normal now, but was refused a "payment plan" so didn't have many options.
EDIT: Also looks like TU is still reporting (doesn't look like the other two still have it, but I could have missed it) a really old 30 day late from almost 7 years ago (7 years in September as well) the account is closed (has been for years) it was a Kohls Store card. So that should roll off in September/October as well. Is it worth the time to try to get it removed earlier?
Sorry, long first post! Thanks for any help.
