My husbands credit is usually around a 730, though currently it's a 706 here because he let his utilization go too high on one card. He only moved to the US in 2007, and only opened one account then, a paypal smart connect which still only has a $100 credit limit. His next oldest account would be a Walmart card, but it was closed due to inactivity a year ago. It would only be a three year old account.His three active accounts are all from June-September 2010
His active accounts include a Capital One, no annual fee, but bad interest rate and only $300 credit limit. (Balance $10)
He also has a Sears Citi Card with a $2000 limit. (This one utilization has gotten out of hand, currently at $1500, but plan to pay it off in full after house closes)
He also has a GE Care Credit with a $2100 limit. This one has had a $0 balance for over a year now, but just ordered a replacement card and plan to use it for flea medicine at the vets or some other small purchase to keep it from being closed due to inactivity.
No lates, no charge offs, no collections, pretty much a squeaky clean record.
He has a used car loan which we hope to refinance after closing on the house in a couple weeks. Of course, we hope to have a mortgage reporting soon.
Obviously AAoA's is a problem. Also the continued low credit limit on his oldest account is something that probably raises eyebrows. Utility is at 36% overall, but way too high on that card, though not for much longer.
What would be a good card to aim for after the dust settles on the mortgage? I don't see too much point in adding store cards like I've been doing with mine. Is there a good Citi rewards card which would be an easy step up from the one he has? Plan is to find a good rewards type card to run monthly expenses through and generally PIF. I'd like to aim for CLI's on the Capital One and the Smart Connect too just because the really low limits make using them at all very uncomfortable.
My husband really didn't understand how credit worked, I've been making him read over my shoulder a bit on these forums to push him in the right direction. Basically, he has really scary habits from a CCC point of view. He doesn't use any of his cards for 9 months, then runs them all to the limit in a months time and then pays them off gradually.. lol
That Capital One card hadn't been used at all in almost a year, they were probably getting it ready to close for inactivity, then a couple months ago my husband paid for a $265 car repair to 'keep the card active.' Of course, same time he put $1800 on an otherwise nearly inactive Sears Card. So, had two card go from no use at all to 80% + utilization in a months time. Credit score went from 730 down to 676. Captial One finally reported paid off and score bounced back up, but not quite all the way as Sears hasn't reported being paid down to 50% utilization yet.
So, yeah, I would venture that the reason for no credit limit increase from Cap one is his previously scary utilization habits. He'd heard that it was best to make a large purchase on a card and then gradually pay it off over 6 months and I only recently made him understand that it isn't true at all. I would guess that to CCC it looks like he keeps losing his job and living on credit. I'm hoping that after a couple months of using it appropriately that he will just get an automatic increase on that capital one card.
He's been getting preapprovals in the mail for Amex gold premier, but, the annual fee is awfully steep on that one. Our bank just did our last credit pull for the mortgage yesterday, so went ahead and had him apply for that Zync card everyone here likes to go on about. It seemed like a good start with Amex since I guess they backdate? Added me as an authorized user so that hopefully 7 years from now when my bankruptcy is gone I can get my own Amex backdated.
Next will be Discover More, but, probably wait on that one until after dust settles on the house closing.
I'd be looking at either Discover More or AMEX Zync.
@marty56 wrote:None. I don't see a need for any more credit. Let the new stuff age for at least a year.
I do agree with this.
It looks like he got the Amex Zync with no preset spending limit. So, probably just stop here then for now? I'm tempted by the Disney Premeir card through Chase as we have a one year old and do frequent all things Disney.
American Express made sense for the backdating, might as well get it now and maybe go to a revolver eventually without affecting AAoA's in the future.
It looks like Zync does triple points for a lot of the stores we frequent, so, no reason to get store cards.
We decided a few years ago to never make a large purchase we didn't need on a credit card. 0% financing is great and all, but, that's how things get out of hand quickly. Which pretty much means that for us store cards are largely valueless since the 0% financing is the attractive part? The only thing I see us financing anytime in the future is a new roof for the house we're buying because we may not quite have it all saved yet when it fails.
Are there any other major card companies that offer backdating?