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Hi all, I have recently begun my journey to rebuild my credit. A bit about my background: I hit a rough poatch starting in 2007 and ended up going 120 days delinquent on some of my student loans in 2009. At the time I had no idea how credit ratings worked and I closed out the few credit cards I had. Since 2009 I have made constant payments on my student loans. Recently at the age of 38 I decided it may be a good idea to have a credit card in order to generate rewards points/ rent cars etc. Without any real knowledge I applied for a Chase Sapphire card and the bonus points and was denied. This was my wakeup call and I began to read these forums. I obtained my EQ score and it is 714 with an AAA of 12 years and 6 months (student loans). I called the chase reconsideration line and was told the reason for the denial was the fact that I did not have any other open lines of revolving credit! My next step was to apply for a capital one venture rewards card and I was instantly approved for 5k. I felt like it would be best if I had two credit cards at least, so I went back and applied for a Chase Freedom card (thinking maybe I could get my foot in the door with Chase and start building a long term relationship with them) and after I did not receieve an instant approval I called the reconsideration line and they approved my for 3k.
At this point with 3 hard pulls my feeling is that it may be best to wait a year and build up a positive account history with these two new cards. Would this be the best option? I would love to eventually gain a chase sapphire preffered card and also an Amex and was thinking with both they may want to see a year of positive revolving credit history. I am not sure how to properly use my cards. Would it be smarter to use the Freedom or the Venture more if my goal is travel rewards? What is the best way to obtain a CLI increase down the line? For example, would running large amounts through the Freedom card (then paying almost the entire balance prior to the statement reporting date to keep utilization down to 5% and paying the remained by the due date) help with my chances of obtaining a higher credit line or is not relevant how much I use the card? Sorry for all the novice questions and thank you for your time!
Thank you both for the welcome and the advice. Its hard to be patient sometimes!