topic Re: Finally! Approved in Credit Card Approvals

Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 04:36:30 GMT

Looooong time lurker first time poster. I have not used much credit since my divorce in 2001. Did not want to fall into debt being a single mom at the time.
I've has car loans and a small $2k CC from my CU and a LOC.
Kids are nearly all grown I'm looking to buy a small house in the spring. Credit Scores never seem to go above 720.

So, today, I braved up. And went a Lil crazy. But I can't wait to watch this garden grow.

Barclay apple rewards $2k instant
Banana Republic $300 instant
Amazon $600 instant
American Eagle $300 instant
Dillard's $900 instant, how do I know I'd this is store or amex? Said my temp was $360, weird.
LL bean visa $500 instant...which I put my son on as AU, because he is 16 and I want him to learn about the importance of credit
Walmart $150 (lol) instant. This happens to be about the amount I spend on groceries for myself, and 2 young college kids still at home. I will use it for that and PIF at the money center.

Question is...is it OK not to use those store cards? And still get decent CLI as they grow?
Or do I need to *gasp* go shopping?

And is this enough for now to get some differences showing. I was planning on the garden until after I find a house in the spring.

Thank you for all the fantastic advice . I've been reading a LOT 😀

Re: Finally! Approved

creditguy — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 05:05:08 GMT

Congrats!! In order to grow the cards, some usage is to be expected, otherwise why give an increase to someone who obviously shows no use for it. the Walmart card for sure needs to be used to grow and it can grow. The Dillard's card I have no idea, their website is vague. If it's like Macy's, I know you can't apply online for their Amex, so good luck, you'll find out shortly.

Re: Finally! Approved

OmarGB9 — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 05:05:46 GMT

Gratz

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 05:25:15 GMT

Thank you! I will do that.
Watch out world, momma's buying a new sweater 😨

Re: Finally! Approved

Pway — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 05:26:59 GMT

Congrats on the new approvals.

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 05:52:34 GMT

Two Barclays in one day (Apple and LL Bean)! Congrats

Re: Finally! Approved

KSK1912 — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 06:28:29 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Looooong time lurker first time poster. I have not used much credit since my divorce in 2001. Did not want to fall into debt being a single mom at the time.
I've has car loans and a small $2k CC from my CU and a LOC.
Kids are nearly all grown I'm looking to buy a small house in the spring. Credit Scores never seem to go above 720.

So, today, I braved up. And went a Lil crazy. But I can't wait to watch this garden grow.

Barclay apple rewards $2k instant
Banana Republic $300 instant
Amazon $600 instant
American Eagle $300 instant
Dillard's $900 instant, how do I know I'd this is store or amex? Said my temp was $360, weird.
LL bean visa $500 instant...which I put my son on as AU, because he is 16 and I want him to learn about the importance of credit
Walmart $150 (lol) instant. This happens to be about the amount I spend on groceries for myself, and 2 young college kids still at home. I will use it for that and PIF at the money center.

Question is...is it OK not to use those store cards? And still get decent CLI as they grow?
Or do I need to *gasp* go shopping?

And is this enough for now to get some differences showing. I was planning on the garden until after I find a house in the spring.

Thank you for all the fantastic advice . I've been reading a LOT 😀

First of all Congrats.

Dillard's card, yes you can apply for amex on their website. It should tell you on the approval page which you card you were approved for. Looking at your approved credit limit and your temp Credit limit, i can almost guarantee you that you got approved for the AmEx. Once your get the card and call in to activate, they will lift that temp limit, but it will take you sometime to see that limit removed i your account when you set it up online. So don't freak about it

Walmart, use it once for about $100 / $125 and pay it in full, wait until about 2 weeks after your first statement, call in or better do an online chat and request for credit limit increase. I got approved with the same amount, and right after my second statement, which was not even 2 months yet, i got CLI for $3500. You will get a pretty good credit limit increase very soon. When they ask how much you want, dont be shy to ask high, ask for $5K and they will probably counter offer you $3500. Even if you dont use it much, it is good for your overall utilization.

If you will not use the cards, then close them. An inactive reporting card on your credit report may not help you much, but bring down your avarage account age.

If you use them, you will benefit more. You do grocery shopping anyway right? Then why not put it on your walmart card. Or you can even rotate the cards every month. One First use walmart, pay it off, because you need a cli on that card for sure. Next month use your Barclays card, for groceries and stuff. $2K is a good starting limit, that's what i started with too and on that card i am not in a rush to get a cli.

And most important one, you stated your scores are not going up above 720. I may know why you are stuck there. Even though there are different levels of credit such as poor fair, good, excellent, there are also different groups of people based on their credit scores. This is called bucketing. You may have never had one single late payment in your life, but have only one credit card, and lets assume your credit score is 680. If you feel like you are stuck at that score and you are not moving up anymore, that's because the bucket you have reached the max score that the bucket you are in allows you to. You can make on time payments for another 10 years but you will have a very hard time reaching 700. So what you need to do is move up one bucket. That bucket is for the people with more revolving accounts, bigger credit limits, and such. This is done by fico scoring system. So someone with 3 revolving accounts, one or more installment accounts, but with only a few years of credit history will reach a higher score a lot faster than you will. So this is where those new accounts come in to play. You want to use them, but use them wisely, and get CLI's to move up a bucket so that you can be revised along with the bigger boys and reach higher scores. If not, you can be the samrtest student in the class, but if you are not able to move up to next grade at the end of the year, you will stay in let's say 4th grade forever. You did a good job getting new trade lines, so now all you need to do is manage them wisely, and in no time, you will see your scores going up. There are some nice blogs here about rebucketing. I just read them recently and it made a lot of sense and completely changed the way i look at my credit report and credit socres. Hope this helps you.

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 06:29:33 GMT

Thank you! And as soon as my Apple said approved, my phone rang 888# and it was CSR welcoming me to Barclay and telling me how I can use the instant credit feature if I was at the apple store . Kinda freaked me out!

Re: Finally! Approved

KSK1912 — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 06:32:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you! And as soon as my Apple said approved, my phone rang 888# and it was CSR welcoming me to Barclay and telling me how I can use the instant credit feature if I was at the apple store . Kinda freaked me out!

I did the same thing with them. Got the Rewards MC in the morning and applied for Apple in the evening. It always benefits to apply for 2 cards from the same creditor on the same day.

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 06:34:01 GMT

Very very helpful! I'll refer to this post for awhile.thank you for all of that!

Re: Finally! Approved

KSK1912 — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 06:49:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Very very helpful! I'll refer to this post for awhile.thank you for all of that!

I learned a lot here within the past few months, so i am just trying to share what i learned with others. Barclay likes people that use the card and pay it off. I have talked to them a few times in defferent occasions and that's kinda what they told me, if i would be looking at CLI in the future. Synchrony bank gives good cli's as well. with them never be shy to ask high. It is one bank you aim for the stars and shoot the moon

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 10:21:16 GMT

congrats

Re: Finally! Approved

alextercero — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 22:35:59 GMT

Congrats

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 00:54:38 GMT

Congrats! Garden and let them grow!

Re: Finally! Approved

schsa210 — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 14:05:15 GMT

Congrats on your approvals!

And if you have not done so, you should check Capital One's pre-qualifier, many times they show approvals for 2 cards at a time and you should be able to get both cards when applying back to back. With Cap One's credit steps program, your cards get some pretty nice increases every 6 months or earlier.

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 14:38:42 GMT

Do not open anymore new accounts. You have enough for now. You need to let them grow and age. Personally I would wait 6 or more months to get a new card. Now to correct some misinformation that was given to you. If you do not use a card it will not lower your AAOA. If it is closed for any reason it will not affect your AAOA. Fico 8 includes closed accounts in AAOA. I would suggest you keep your accounts open for at least year. If you close them so soon it will not look good to other creditors when they look at your credit report. There are others on here who can chime in on how to rotate to keep accounts active. Looking at your cards and the fact that you have a teenager in the house I don't think you will have a problem keeping them active.

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 14:39:08 GMT

Congrats!

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 15:58:31 GMT

Congrats!!! Enjoy your new cards.

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 16:06:09 GMT

Congratulations on your new cards! For Walmart (Synchrony Bank), if you show regular usage on the card, you will be able to call Credit Solutions and request a CLI every 4 months. The Wal-mart card also has a convenient cash over feature as well (cash back).

For your American Eagle Card, use it regularly and make payments that are 3x-4x the minimum, and you may get the popup when you log into your account after some time inviting you to upgrade to the AEO Visa. It's a nice Visa card to have.

Re: Finally! Approved

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 16:14:37 GMT

Congrats.