topic Navy Fed Strategy in Personal Finance

Navy Fed Strategy

Anonymous — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:30:47 GMT

Hello, I'm looking for advice for a Navy Fed strategy. I'm new to credit. I opened a savings account following advise here and got a SSL for 3,150 and paid 92 percent of it. I'm hoping to get a decent bump when they report in June. I don't have any credit history because I've always paid cash for cars and property. I have no debt but have only a 675 credit score. I hope the bump from the SSL gets it to 700. I opened a finger hut account to gain revolving credit.
When would be a good time to apply for a card from NFCU? Should I move my direct deposit from Penfed savings to Navy? Or is it alright that I transfer money between the two myself? If I leave 10 to 15 thousand in savings would that be enough for a card without a credit history or would they suggest I go with a secure card? I'd get the most use from their flagship card but understand that you should pick a different one to start Amex? I have banked with Penfed for a year but read they aren't as easygoing with credit as Navy. Any strategy ideas? Thanks

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

Sandman771 — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:37:32 GMT

With no credit history exept the loan and fingerhut I honestly don't know what NFCU would see you as. Have you considered tying the pre-qualifications page at Discover? See what you could get there and then go to the garden for 3-6 months then hop out to NFCU where they may give you a larger SL. Just my two cents.

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

Anonymous — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:42:39 GMT

I will check out Discovers prequalify page. Thanks

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

Sandman771 — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:49:02 GMT

Once you get that next revolver settle down and let them age together for a while then go after another. Then garden for a while concentrating on soft pulls only.

And let us know what Disco says!

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

AverageJoesCredit — Wed, 26 May 2021 18:42:35 GMT

How much you have in your savings/checking bears no weight with credit decisions by Navy. Dont move your funds there only to hope to pursuade them , only if it meets your financial needs.

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

Guyatthebeach — Wed, 26 May 2021 23:28:41 GMT

@Anonymous,

Before you move funds around, I would check the NFCU credit card page for a preapproval. If you don't have a preapproval, check back every 30 days. I would apply for the cash rewards first. After you get approved for that, I would wait for a few months, try to see if you have a preapproval for the Flagship card. If not, wait 6 months after getting the cash rewards card first and then apply for the Flagship.

Guyatthebeach

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

Anonymous — Wed, 26 May 2021 23:45:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello, I'm looking for advice for a Navy Fed strategy. I'm new to credit. I opened a savings account following advise here and got a SSL for 3,150 and paid 92 percent of it. I'm hoping to get a decent bump when they report in June. I don't have any credit history because I've always paid cash for cars and property. I have no debt but have only a 675 credit score. I hope the bump from the SSL gets it to 700. I opened a finger hut account to gain revolving credit.
When would be a good time to apply for a card from NFCU? Should I move my direct deposit from Penfed savings to Navy? Or is it alright that I transfer money between the two myself? If I leave 10 to 15 thousand in savings would that be enough for a card without a credit history or would they suggest I go with a secure card? I'd get the most use from their flagship card but understand that you should pick a different one to start Amex? I have banked with Penfed for a year but read they aren't as easygoing with credit as Navy. Any strategy ideas? Thanks

Personally I don't think moving to direct deposit means much to Navy. I got my first CC from Navy one week after opening the account with no direct deposit or any other relationship. They gave me $24K credit card with a Chpt 13 on my report that was about 5 years old and my scores were in the mid 600's. This was in 2017 when Navy was giving out big CL. Lately they have scaled back on big CL like that.

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

OmarGB9 — Sat, 29 May 2021 16:07:35 GMT

@Guyatthebeach wrote:
@Anonymous,

Before you move funds around, I would check the NFCU credit card page for a preapproval. If you don't have a preapproval, check back every 30 days. I would apply for the cash rewards first. After you get approved for that, I would wait for a few months, try to see if you have a preapproval for the Flagship card. If not, wait 6 months after getting the cash rewards card first and then apply for the Flagship.

Guyatthebeach

The Navy prequal is useless, it prequalifies everyone for all cards like 99% of the time. So it's not reliable at all. But I agree with the rest of your statement.

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

SouthJamaica — Sat, 29 May 2021 20:28:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello, I'm looking for advice for a Navy Fed strategy. I'm new to credit. I opened a savings account following advise here and got a SSL for 3,150 and paid 92 percent of it. I'm hoping to get a decent bump when they report in June. I don't have any credit history because I've always paid cash for cars and property. I have no debt but have only a 675 credit score. I hope the bump from the SSL gets it to 700. I opened a finger hut account to gain revolving credit.
When would be a good time to apply for a card from NFCU? Should I move my direct deposit from Penfed savings to Navy? Or is it alright that I transfer money between the two myself? If I leave 10 to 15 thousand in savings would that be enough for a card without a credit history or would they suggest I go with a secure card? I'd get the most use from their flagship card but understand that you should pick a different one to start Amex? I have banked with Penfed for a year but read they aren't as easygoing with credit as Navy. Any strategy ideas? Thanks

If I were you I would go ahead and apply for an NFCU card, platinum or cash rewards, and see what happens.

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

805orbust — Sun, 30 May 2021 05:45:48 GMT

+1 on what @SouthJamaica said. My only trepidation would be that you already applied for the SSL. 675 is hardly an "only" scenario by Navy standards. If that is a FICO score I'd say you're in good shape. Although when I last checked they used FICO9 from Equifax. If you do a quick 3b, you'll be able to see your FICO9 and if you're anything above 650 I'd pull the trigger. Regardless of your SL, anything Navy will grow.

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

Anonymous — Sun, 30 May 2021 16:00:54 GMT

I did the prequalified credit for Navy, Penfed and Discover. I don't know how accurate they were because it said I qualified for everything except the flagship for Navy. The SSL hasn't posted yet but should in a few days and hopefully that will bump up my score a little. That probably won't help me with Navy though. I have a credit monitoring service at work that gives me Equifax scores. It is still at 675. I don't know if it's FICO 9.

I do have accounts with Penfed that are a year old but I read that they are more conservative than Navy with thin profiles.
I do want to stick the landing on my first application so I don't have a lot of hard pulls. Should I wait to apply until the SSL posts and improves my score?
Which is a better card to start out with the Even more Amex or Cashback rewards? Does the Amex have any advantages over the cash back? I don't know if there is a difference in difficulty in getting them. I'd like to eventually get the flagship travel card. I travel quite a bit and would like to stop using a debit card.
Thanks

Re: Navy Fed Strategy

tcbofade — Sun, 30 May 2021 16:50:34 GMT

Get whichever one you DON'T want first.

Wait 91 days and three FULL statement cycles before you apply for the one that you DO want.

Expect a smallish credit line on the first one, and they'll be more generous on the second.

Good luck!