Your mission should you choose to accept it....

[youdontkillmoney]

Your mission should you choose to accept it.... is to help me get a Penfed personal line of credit. The mission execution date is November 2014 or December 2014.

Mission preparation starts now, 6 months prior to the mission execution date Nov - Dec 2014

Mission background:

Applied for Penfed Checking, savings, Promise credit card and Personal Line of credit early April 2014 all at the same time.

Results:

Checking: Approved (currently $700 balance and I plan to keep it at $500 to avoid fees)

Savings: Approved (currently $105 with $5 needed to maintain the account)

Promise credit card: Approved with $5,000 limit

Personal line of credit: turned down. Submitted Reconsideration, turned down again.

My background:

approx. 21 credit card accounts

4 personal lines of credits (yes, i want to make Penfed the 5th line of credit)

23 years of credit experience since 1991, never late, never missed a payment, oldest CC is 23 years (AMEX)

Credit utilization: no more than 5%, pretty much a zero balance on all cc (I use AMEX and one visa and the rest I use twice a year to keep them active). I pay in full the AMEX and VISA.

No negatives on my cedit report.

FICO is 819.

About half a dozen inquireis in the past month since I did an app spree and was approved for all credit card accounts and line of crefits (except PenFed personal line of credit, approx. 4 cc's and 2 line of credits approved)

no other outsstanding loans on my credit report.

Mission planning:

This is where I need the guidance of members here, esp. those who have a PenFed Personal Line of credit account

During the next six months I plan to pretty much continue to pay in full, so by November my credit report should show low or zero balances for all credit accounts, though will still have the half a dozen inquires

Should I swicth out my standard visa I use and use PenFed's promise visa (and pay in full as usual) to show them I am responsible with their credit accounts or should i just use it once or twice like I was planning and storing it away since I don;t plan on using their cards as my primary (which strategy will help me out to get approved for the PenFed PLOC in six months?

Should I wait more than 6 months to apply for the PLOC?

Anything else I should do to prepare for my mission in November 2014?

[gdale6]

I dont deal with Penfed but I will tell you this about them that I have gleaned from multi credit boards. You dont do anything with them unless your EQ is clean, they dont like inquiries and new accounts, they are quick to nail your for "pyramiding debt" if they see exponential lines appearing with little owed. If you want the LOC I suggest no more apps, you wait one year and make them the first one on your list to apply for. Using their card would help your cause as well. Good luck

[youdontkillmoney]

---

@gdale6 wrote:

I dont deal with Penfed but I will tell you this about them that I have gleaned from multi credit boards. You dont do anything with them unless your EQ is clean, they dont like inquiries and new accounts, they are quick to nail your for "pyramiding debt" if they see exponential lines appearing with little owed. If you want the LOC I suggest no more apps, you wait one year and make them the first one on your list to apply for. Using their card would help your cause as well. Good luck

---

^^^

Sound advice, thanks. They nailed me for "pyramiding debt" though I have zero balances. Too many lines of open credit for them I guess even though I have 23 years of perfect credit, it was not good enough for them. I am hoping with my relationship building tactic with them, I can accomplish my mission. I might have to make their Visa CC my primary for non Amex transaction to help build this relationship.

Ok, first action: I put away my usual visa and replaced it with PenFed visa. I will use it to show I can pay on time with them etc to build my relationship with them. I will use it until I apply for a PLOC with them, I put my other visa card (non Penfed) away.

[longtimelurker]

---

@youdontkillmoney wrote:

---

Sound advice, thanks. They nailed me for "pyramiding debt" though I have zero balances. 

---

Don't think balances matter.   This is just Penfed-speak for "you have been chasing credit recently [from inqs if not new accounts].   We don't know or care why, we just don't like it"!   So basically need to let the inqs age off.

[Jlu]

I got this thing called Thrifty-something-rather that has reported to my CR's as a LOC. I didn't apply for it nor did I really want it but not to go OT here but **bleep** is this?

[takeshi74]

---

@longtimelurker wrote:

This is just Penfed-speak for "you have been chasing credit recently [from inqs if not new accounts].

---

^ This.  Pretty typical from looking at other Penfed threads.  I'm surprised that they approved me.  In the 4 months prior to getting the PPCR I added 4 new accounts.

OP just needs to wait for the inquiries to age and/or fall off.

---

@youdontkillmoney wrote:

23 years of credit experience since 1991,

---

Oldest doesn't really mean much.  What's your AAoA?