New to credit after rebuilding - advice appreciated from "pros"

[Anonymous]

Sorry in advance for the terrible headline.

Last November (2015) several bad/old things fell off my credit reports and my score improved enough that I was approved for Discover It secured - at the time I didn't want to overextend myself so I only opened it for $200. 

This past fall (2016) the last of the ancient collections fell off, raising my score to 670. and since my husband and I were buying a house - wisely or unwisely I was approved for three other cards. All three were opened in October-November 2016. My scores are all currently hovering aorund 660-670.

Discover It (Unsecured January 2016): $0/$200

Barclaycard Rewards: $930/$2000

Chase Slate: $2400/$4200 (Intrestingly enough, I was approved at $3200 and they gave me a unasked for increase a few weeks ago)

Citi DC: $400/$1000

The Slate and DC have some sort of 0% offer until March of next year. I pay all on time and all significantly over what the minimum ask is. 

Can anyone give me advice on these banks? I was considering closing the discover since it has served its purpose, and since I have no real incentive to use it. 
I am considering paying down one or more cards and closing them - any advice would be appreciated on this front. 

Also, any advice pertaining to which card(s)/bank(s) are most amenable to growing with time/responsible use would be appreciated. Or, in general, what you guys think of these banks. 

Thanks,

Leezzy.

[austinguy907]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I was considering closing the discover since it has served its purpose, and since I have no real incentive to use it. 
I am considering paying down one or more cards and closing them - any advice would be appreciated on this front. 

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Congrats on pulling yourself up the score ladder.  It's a journey for sure.  Now it's time to read up where to head next though.  Closing things out at this point isn't  the best idea for scoring and growing.  Keeping a reporting balance on one or two under 10% though is best.

Barclay's can be good to some and others not so much.  It depends on what you do with them and besides them.  

Chase is just another piece of plastic though some have a good experience if they're after amassing UR's.  Slate is good for BT's and a free score each month.

Citi is known for starting low but, can sometimes grow with some patience.

Disco - you have it, it's not the easiest to get into even with a pristine profile.  If you're not using it that's why it hasn't converted yet.  They need to see activity to assess whether or not it's a good account to switchover.  They made a change last year to start reviewing them after 7 months and many have converted at month 7 or shortly thereafter.  Disco has tons of growth potential if you play well together.  Put a monthly bill on there and setup autopay for the balance.  It will convert and start growing.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Approvals/My-first-year-with-Discover-Data-Points/m-p/4705523

While I haven't had the secured version myself I have seen plenty of them around here to say it's beneficial to keep and at least try  The reason I say this is that in a little over a year and half now I've managed to grow a $4500 starting limit with them to $48K as of this month in SP CLI's.  18K+ of which was Oct-Feb in CLI's.  

You're starting to ramp up with the recent approvals and even with the drop from the new accounts you've managed to keep your scores decent.  Give yourself some more time to age things during 2017 and hit up creditors for CLI's as time passes.  I can't recall all the specific time periods for each but, generally every 6 months is a good rule of thumb.  If you do the Disco dance it should blossom nicely!  When they convert they usually come with a decent CLI as well.  About a week or so after they convert you're usually able to hit the CLI button as well and get more money out of them to boost you even further.  Some conversions + CLI's add about $3K to their CL right off the bat and then you can hit the button every other month to push it even further.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thanks for your advice.

The discover actually already unsecured - I feel like I asked for one and they said no already. But when I went on last, it said to consider one they would have to do a hp, which really doesn't interest me at the moment. I used the discover faithfully for the first 11 of having the account open - paying in full every month, sometimes multiple times a month.

I did forget to mention that I have two small public records filed (I want to say one is for $900 and another $750), to my knowledge both of these were dealt with in the fashion they get dealt with - always an unpleasant surprise. They will come off in 2019 and 2021. If this is the reason they will never give me an increase, so be it, need to put on your big boy panties and deal with your mistakes.

The barclaycard is the only one that I was not lucky enough to be offered a 0% intro on, but I do appreciate the points on it. I have read on this forum that Barclay is somewhat hard to deal with. LIke I alluded to before, I'm not really interested at the moment wasting pulls for increases. They happen, they happen. I would be more comfortable paying things down over worrying about my next increase (at the moment).

I think my 6 months is up with Citi sometime in August or September. I will try again then. Stupid me asked for a increase when it made no sense to and was denied. Part of it was my own idiocy, I didn't realize (yes, apparently I am illeterate) that it even was the credit increase page. I thought it was just asking me to re-enter my income. Oops.

I was also pre-approved at the time for freedom and sapphire something. My gut said to go with slate - I figured that was my best chance at an in with Chase. I somewhat regret that now, but it seems like in the future I could easily change it to a freedom.

[austinguy907]

Hmmm.... 

Disco is the odd duck as I've said for awhile now.  They don't act like anyone else people have dealt with in comparison.  Unsecured is a good step in the right direction which leads me back to picking a monthly bill that's moderate like netflix or hulu or something small to generate activity.  Since you're at a $200 limit and they want to HP for a CLI I think the low and slow method might work well for generating those points with them to work with you.  They're very pro-customer when it comes to doing the right thing and not just push you to do something you don't need to do.  They've flat out told people calling to do a HP CLI that it's not something credit related or something along those lines.  Usually this response is more of a timing thing in my opinion. 

Now, when you say public records are you talking about judgements, liens, or something else?  Were they paid or are they still lingering unpaid?

Not getting a 0% isn't a bad thing if you really just need to get your foot in the door to start building positive history and diversify a little bit from a single lender situation.

CLI's can be a tricky situation depending on where your scores are and whether or not to take that HP chance for a few hundred or a couple of thousand in an increase.  The forms can be a bit confusing with the changes lenders have been making in the past year where they want to update income at least annually and then they want you to put in the amount you want your CL to be instead of telling you what it will be upon the pull hard or soft.  It's a somewhat common issue since they changed it to more of a request what you want it to be instead of letting them determine it.

PC's are usually a simple thing to do with most lenders these days.  Usually just an e-mail to them and specifying what you want to change to.  Sometimes even asking if there's offers on your account can produce things like a change bonus, APR reduction, a pending CLI, or something along those lines.

Just take your time when dealing with each lender and figure out the nuances.  There's plenty of info here and asking is a surefire way to not shoot yourself in the foot if it's tmiing or scores for moving up or anything else.  

[Anonymous]

Discover is fantastic and has the most potential for growth individually through SP CLI's.  Chase and Citi are both excellent banks and worth keeping relationships with as you can grow with them internally and they have many great products.  Barclay IMHO isn't worth the effort.  They are least likely to be there for you when/if you need them as AA with them for any reason they can come up with is common.

[Anonymous]

Two small judgements - one is a phone bill from forever ago - the second is a charge off from a old target store card. Live and learn, I suppose. Just be mad with my younger self. Like I said, bot have been "seized" from my bank acocunt, or however you wish to word it. Embarassing, but the lady at the bank when I called about it was just happy I wasn't screaming at her. 

Reading through the forums, it seems that Discover is the pandora's box of credit - you never know what mood they seem to be in. I accept it. Right now, I'm not using it, but I'm thinking about moving my cable internet bill to it and doing an auto pay. 

I think I will wait a bit before asking chase for a PC...I'm not making any new purchases to the card, and I don't want to risk losing the intro offer. 

Thanks again for your responses - I really appreciate it!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

"Barclay IMHO isn't worth the effort.  They are least likely to be there for you when/if you need them as AA with them for any reason they can come up with is common."

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Excuse my newness, but what is AA? Or can you point me to a myFICO dictionary? Trying to learn all these new terms can get confusing. Haha.

This card I go back and forth with. Many on the forums seem to dislike Barclay for various reasons. Overall, I do like it, it is one of my highest limit cards, but to be honest, Barclay's web interface is confusing (though not as confusing as Chase's)...and in my experience, Barclay's site is frequently "closed for service."

[newhis]

DW Discover started as student with $500 limit, not a single increase in 2 years, then auto to $3,000, then nothing for a more than 6 months, then 4 SP CLIs to $12,000.