Credit Cards

[MontegoMack]

My credit has gotten better with time and effort, so I'm hoping to put my toe in the pool of prime cards. I've come across all kinds of wiggling and jiggling of the "system" to best avoid too many hard pulls and for getting creditors to see one's best scores at the right time.

What are some of the "rules of thumb" that have actually worked?

Apping all cards in one 24 hour period? Waiting until what time in the cycle of reporting? 

I live in CT, my income is about $90k, my utilization is less than 10% on my RZMC and BofA Gold card (an upgrade from a prepaid card from about 8 years ago). No collections or BKs. 

I have an interest in BofA's 1-2-3, in Amex (while I don't know my definitive EX score, I do know that my EX report looks better than my EQ report and perhaps that'll be reflected in the score calculation) and maybe Citi or Chase because my interest in Discover is fairly low. The good thing is that I'm not in a rush. I do know that prime cards and high CLIs influence creditors and I'd like to finally be seen as a responsible adult and be rewarded as such.

[Crashem]

App spree time.  Good chance at bofa.  Amex blue is decent chance! But good chance at Amex co brand revolvers.  Shoe in for Amex charge card.  Good chance at most issuers.  Not sure if okay for high cl as more related to existing cl.  I would pick issuers with cli friendly policies like Amex.  Citibank can be generous.  I would stay away for chase unless you are happy with your existing cl size as chase is good about kind of beating existing cl's but their cli policies aren't that good for building cl.

[MontegoMack]

Do I do this "spree" all in the same 24 hour period? Does that even matter?

I've seen this tactic mentioned before, but I'm not sure if it works or what is the actual intent.

*edited for grammar.

[CreditChampion]

All that matters is that you do it before the cards start reporting.

[Crashem]

Credit score gets lowered from new accounts for a few reasons.  One, hard inquiry from app.  Two, reduced aaoa.  Three, ding from having new account.  The idea behind app spree is to app at around same time before new accounts hit credit report.  This way hard inquiries age together.  New account ding is taken once for several accounts.  Not much you can do about aaoa reduction.  Not always a good thing but techique results in fastest recovery in score given the number of new cards.  

[youngandcreditwrthy]

App sprees are good as you can get approved for accounts without having to worry about inquiries or new accounts affecting approval, and they age/grow all together, which is great for your credit history.

Your AAoA and current limits will affect the issuers approval decision; Barclay's would prob be a good bet imho.

[Jlu]

My last spree that netted me 4/4 Chase Freedom, GE Amazon, GE Walmart, WFNBB Express was done the following way: Open multiple windows/tabs and entered all the information in all the apps and hit submit button on all the apps within a 5-second window I was approved for 3/4 and reconned the Chase app. Not sure this is necessary or that it helps but I figured it might prevent an inquiry from hitting so it looks like a fresh app and not an app spree.

[iMacDrew]

App sprees IMO are good because when accepted those accounts will age together and the inquiries will fall off together.. on top of those new accounts not being reported on your CR yet.

[youngandcreditwrthy]

Assuming you get approved for several accounts on an app spree, you can also significantly reduce your util. too., which increases your score substantially! In January, I knew that my util was going up, so I opened like $10-20k in credit lines, which increased my overall score... even though I opened like four accounts at that time. Went from like 650-680 ish FICO.