@Anonymous wrote:
@CreditDunce wrote:
If you refi your autoloan with Coastal, you might want to check to see if they will offer you one of their CC's on the same HP. Their Cash back CC is decent (it has the same reward structure as the BoA 321 Cash Rewards card).
So during my lunch break I drove a mile down to the Coastal24 branch location nearby. I went to ask about the possibility of an auto refinance. I wasn't going to actually do a HP, but I was curious & was just there to talk. The guy pulled up my name, address, etc. and said that I still had an unresolved balance. I told him that the $800.00 credit card was charged off in like 2005. I told him that their collections dept. offered me a settlement of 50%, so I took it & paid it back in 2010 or so. He said that I was basically blacklisted for life & he didn't want me to waste an HP. Seemed like a really nice guy. I wasn't planning on HP anyway but he was pretty solid for giving me a headsup.
Sorry, I didn't realize Coastal had been burned. I have heard they are a conservative lender, I am not sure how long it will take to get back in their good graces if ever.
In any case, if you are able to pay off the 12%+ car loan quickly, you are correct, you won't save much by re-fi. 3-6 months before you finish paying it off, you might think about a shared secure loan. With FICO 08, you may take a small hit to your CS once you pay off your last installment loan. It probably will not be a very big hit, but every point counts when you are sub-700.
FICO doesn't care about your CL's. It only looks at %util. Therefore, your %500 CL is not hurting your credit score. However, it does make it difficult to manage utilization with a low limit. You are being hurt by only having one CC. Since you want a CC with your primary bank, I think it makes sense to get a secured CC with BoA. Hopefully, it will graduate this time after 1 year. At that point your derog's should be gone. If you are still upset about them not graduating your CC last time, you could wait until the derog's are off your CR, then check the pre-qual site (you can check now, but no promises).
If you do decide to app for the BoA card, I would accept the Chase offer at the same time. I am a little concerned about toy limits, too. But having 3 CC's is good for your CS. On the other hand, waiting until all of the derog's are gone would give you more options and better CLs.
Tough decision. Good luck on what ever you decide.
