Will establishing a relationship with a bank help my chances for a CC down the road??

[mt2va]

I'm still cleaning up my credit report and have gotten 3 secured CC to help me re-build.  My score is slowly creeping up.  My goal in the future is to try with Chase and/or Barclays.  Mainly because I've never had/burned a card with them.  I wonder if establishing a relationship with them will help me towards this goal?  I have an auto lease with Chase.  (going on 4 months now all on time payments)  And I just opened a savings account with Barclays Bank.  (they are paying much more interest than any of the other savings accounts I have) 

I realize there are a lot of factors that go into making a CC decision besides just my score such as income, etc but if it came down to say a recon and I'm talking to someone personally would me having a good track record with the bank in question help me in my favor? 

[randeman]

I'm ambivalent about the idea.  It didn't help me with Citi and I have four accounts with them and they turned me down for two cards.  OTH, I have never done business with Chase and they gave me two signature cards.  I would recommend Chase if you do.  One, because of your auto loan; two, from what I have read, they can be really good guys when it comes to recon if needed.  My only suggestion is to wait until your auto loan is six months old and then try for one of their non-signature cards.

[mt2va]

Thanks for the info about Chase.  I'm probably going to be waiting longer than 6 months because my score still needs to increase significantly.  I was shooting for about next spring.  Which card would be good for someone who isn't going to have the greatest score (probably mid 600) then?  I think Freedom is pretty easy to get.  I was also looking at the Chase BP card to use for gas.  I'll have almost a year on my car lease then. 

[randeman]

A year is better, I agree.  I can tell you that a Chase credit analyst told me that their approval criteria is the same for all their cards.  Personally, I think it would be a YMMV thing.  I would go with the Freedom card myself if I were you.  There is no annual fee and the 5% cashback bonus varies from quarter to quarter.  When you do finally apply, be sure to post your success (or otherwise) here for the benefit of others.  Good luck, hope you get what you want!

[lajntx]

General Rule of Thumb: The bigger the bank, the less authority any front line employee has in making lending decisions be it on a credit card, auto loan, mortgage, line of credit, etc. The mean old lady thats been there since 1964, at that small single branch of The First State Bank of Nowhere, Wyoming that takes and reviews the loan ap has more authorty to approve or deny that loan than the well polished attractive 26 y/o college graduate at your local Chase, BoA, Cap-1, etc branch in your hometown whom is nothing more than a "paper pusher" sending it somewhere 4 statess away to someone in a cubicle that must follow strict guidelines.

[lithium78]

I was able to get a BoA 123 Cash Rewards a couple of years while I still had a bunch of baddies on my report (defaulted student loans) and I'm pretty sure it was because I had established a multi-year banking relationship with them.  It probably didn't hurt that I had a lot of money in savings with them too, though.

[mikka1]

Anecdotically, largest issues I had so far with getting approved for cards, getting CLIs etc. were with those 2 banks I had banking relationship with since my student years in 2008. At times I had a strange feeling that knowing that much about my income / spending patterns did not help, but even made things worse with those banks.

Contrary to that Chase (that I never had any other banking relationship with) easily approved me for 3 cards one after another 2 of which are Siggies with respective limits.

LOL In order to check this hypothesis I closed my Citi checking account a week ago. Let's see if they start throwing me lots of nice CC offers anytime soon :-)

[enharu]

Having a banking relationship will help, but as to how much it will help is directly dependent upon your daily balance in the banking account. Most banks use average daily balance as a metric to prevent customers from dumping huge amounts of money, get what they want, and then withdraw it instantly. If you have a private client relationship or even a JPM relationship, it will help you out more. Otherwise, an unofficial minimum amount of deposit required is about 10k at least. It really depends on how much your branch manager is willing to help you as well.

However, your best and safest recourse is to work on whatever is in your CR. As much as relationship can help, it can only help so much regardless of how much you deposit in. They are still not going to overlook major recent derogs or approve someone with a recent BK or charge off, for example. Neither is someone going to get approved for the CSP with a 600 score.

Banking relationships are generally more helpful for people with thin files (such as people who just migrated over), and not so much for bad files.

[mt2va]

Even if it doesn't help if nothing else I found a bank that is paying significantly higher for savings accounts and has decent CD rates compared to all the other banks/credit unions I do business with.  And not I didn't expect me having a relationship for them to overlook my score/credit report.  I just wondered if maybe I was borderline and able to recon if the banking relationship would help me out in any way.  I know with other places it seems to. 

[lhcole77]

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@mt2va wrote:

I'm still cleaning up my credit report and have gotten 3 secured CC to help me re-build.  My score is slowly creeping up.  My goal in the future is to try with Chase and/or Barclays.  Mainly because I've never had/burned a card with them.  I wonder if establishing a relationship with them will help me towards this goal?  I have an auto lease with Chase.  (going on 4 months now all on time payments)  And I just opened a savings account with Barclays Bank.  (they are paying much more interest than any of the other savings accounts I have) 

I realize there are a lot of factors that go into making a CC decision besides just my score such as income, etc but if it came down to say a recon and I'm talking to someone personally would me having a good track record with the bank in question help me in my favor? 

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I come from the school of thought that having an established relationship can't hurt and it sometimes can help. I too have an auto loan though Chase. My final payment is in October and I was wanting to continue my relationship with them IN THE HOPES of getting a CC.

So I opened a checking account with them last month AND I got a $200 cash sign up bonus too! Planning on apping for a CC in a year with them.

Good luck! And thanks for this post. It is thought provoking.