Thin credit file. Which cards to apply for?

[jamie123]

Congratulations!

Good job!

You rushed things a bit though. You should have waited a month before applying for new credit after the AMEX 3X CLI. All the new creditors you applied at didn't see the new AMEX CL! It takes a month before the new CL shows up on the reports. They would have started you out with higher CLs! (They won't take your word for it.)

All in all you did a great job and you will now have a much wider and deeper credit file in the years to come. The problem with only having a few cards is that every time you apply for new credit, like say for a car as an example, your AAoA takes a severe hit and reduces your score for quite a while. Having more cards reduces that AAoA hit substantially and as these cards age your AAoA won't drop much when applying for new credit.