I am currently in the process of buying a house, and in prep for that I have not rocked the boat on my credit for well over a year. No new apps, no disputes, nothing that chould keep an underwriter (and therefore me) up at night.
We close on May 16 and I'd like to start working on getting my FICO score up in more aggressive ways in an aim to get it in better shape down the road (and maybe refi at a lower rate). My FICO here is 667/683/672. My FICO provided with my Discover card is 689. My trimerge FICO from my lender came out with a mid-score of 700 (Yay!).
To improve my FICO score, I plan to dispute the two slow pays I have on my CR from a year and a half ago (student loan), but cannot do so until I am out of underwriting. I would also like to improve my total utilization etc by adding a few new cards.
I currently have a Bank of America MC with a $21K limit, an AmEX BlueCash with a $10K limit, a Discover card with a $9K limit, and a Citi Thankyou Preferred MC with a $9K limit. I have had all of these cards for at least 15 years. Then I have a few merchant cards here and there (Kohls is the only one I know is still open). My total util is about 51%. Once I can use my savings freely again (after the Closing), I do have money earmarked to pay that down to less than 30% by June and then 10% within the year. My income is 170K.
I have never gone out and really thought about what I want in my wallet, but I want to apply for all at the same time so that the hit of the HPs comes at once. My husband and I both got offers for the Southwest card that gives you 50,000 free miles points if you spend more than $2K in the first few months. Since we will be spending a lot on the new home, we plan to use it and pay it off to get the miles as we travel Southwest a ton and this will defray that cost a lot.
What other cards do you suggest? I'm looking for ones that either offer great starting limits or that have really good rewards. I am not so concerned about interest rate as I have a lot saved in the bank and plan to use the card and pay it off immediately. For the balances I have been carrying on my other cards, I may be interested in balance transfer, but usually the fee to transfer makes that unappealing anyway. Obviously, I'd love to find cards for which my app will be successful given my credit score and income etc. - I don't want a wasted HP.
Would love to hear what you think are the best cards to app! Thanks in advance!
Starting Score: 644 (EQ) 646 (EX) 670 (TU) as of 11/2013
Thanks so much for the reply! I re-read my post and realized I was not clear - yes, I will not submit any applications or dispute anything on my CR until we have the keys to the new place. I am already so freaked out that something bad will pop up I am trying not to *breathe* for the next few weeks! 
Appreciate the suggestion for the card! Do you think with my low-ish FICO scores I still have a shot at the card? My high credit limits come from years of CLIs (mostly auto-CLIs) and I think I have strong income, but I know my FICO score and current util could be a hinderance.
Congrats on the home! One way to help your utilization would be to get a CLI on the AMEX Blue Cash card. Not sure how your overall CR looks, but the possibility exists to do a 3x CLI (or some counteroffer) which would definitely help out any utilization. It would be just an SP and not adversely affect any of your other possible apps.
@Alberio wrote:Thanks so much for the reply! I re-read my post and realized I was not clear - yes, I will not submit any applications or dispute anything on my CR until we have the keys to the new place. I am already so freaked out that something bad will pop up I am trying not to *breathe* for the next few weeks!
I believe your score is good enough. It would be as hard to get as the Chase SW card. As long as you don't hae too many inquiries your income is good and so are your accounts. For the Visa Sig it's a $5k minimum and Chase likes to see if you have other accounts that have those kind of CLs. You should be good, depending on your inquiries,
