topic Re: USAA curiosity in Credit Cards

USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Sun, 02 May 2010 01:51:04 GMT

Got a USAA World card offer in the mail today. It's been so long since I opted out that I'd forgotten that companies still send these things out. Currently I only have a checking, savings and IRA with USAA.

I have just two CC's. Both for $5000, with $0 balance and always PIF . One from a local CU, and another from BECU. Both Visas. Both are only a 18 months old. I have no debt, income at $55k. No bad marks on my reports and 4 paid off loans, and a mortgage in good standing on my reports.

Anyway, when they send these things out, do they actually have a minimum requirement to trigger them sending an offer? Score and income etc? Is there a typical $$ starting offer with these guys? What about automatic CLI? I

I had been planning on applying to PenFed for a 3rd and final credit card at the two year point, but I haven't been all that impressed with the changes to their products in the past year. Is USAA still one of the top CC company choices around here?

It's not one of those preapproved for $XXXX offers, just a pull the trigger and see what happens offer. It would really annoy me to waste a hard pull just to be declined for "too much available credit to income ratio" sort of thing. Or qualify for a less than $5k card.

So....please share your opinions and experiences with USAA. Especially those that have applied to them since the credit mess happened.

Thanks!

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Sun, 02 May 2010 02:39:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Got a USAA World card offer in the mail today. It's been so long since I opted out that I'd forgotten that companies still send these things out. Currently I only have a checking, savings and IRA with USAA.

I have just two CC's. Both for $5000, with $0 balance and always PIF . One from a local CU, and another from BECU. Both Visas. Both are only a 18 months old. I have no debt, income at $55k. No bad marks on my reports and 4 paid off loans, and a mortgage in good standing on my reports.

Anyway, when they send these things out, do they actually have a minimum requirement to trigger them sending an offer? Score and income etc? Is there a typical $$ starting offer with these guys? What about automatic CLI? I

I had been planning on applying to PenFed for a 3rd and final credit card at the two year point, but I haven't been all that impressed with the changes to their products in the past year. Is USAA still one of the top CC company choices around here?

It's not one of those preapproved for $XXXX offers, just a pull the trigger and see what happens offer. It would really annoy me to waste a hard pull just to be declined for "too much available credit to income ratio" sort of thing. Or qualify for a less than $5k card.

So....please share your opinions and experiences with USAA. Especially those that have applied to them since the credit mess happened.

Thanks!

You might want to check your USAA online account and click on the tab on the top right that says "My Offers" to see if it is a real pre-approval.

In my experience when USAA says you are pre-approved that means you will not waste a hard pull barring some real screw up between now and the time they softed you for the pre-approval.

Also, I have found USAA is a bit slower with automatic CLIs than I have found, say, Chase to be, but YMMV. If you have a need for a higher limit, I have found a phone request to be painless if not downright pleasant. I have read about a great variance in starting CLs. It seems that if you are a full member with a long history, they are exceptionally generous. The minimum CL with their World MC is $5000 so don't expect lower than that. Also, in my experience, it seems USAA will give you a CL higher than your other bank cards. So if you have $5k on all your others, probably USAA would give you something like $10k

For me, USAA is #1. YMMV

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Sun, 02 May 2010 02:50:04 GMT

Been awhile since I looked in the "my offers" tab since I haven't been in the market for anything lately. Guess I should have looked first. My first thought on seeing this is that it's just a "hey, give it a try and see what happens" not an actuall preapproval. That's how I've taken this sort of offer from them in the past. I think I've become too jaded.

This is what I see in the online "my offers"

You're invited to apply for a USAA Rewards™ World MasterCard®

Enjoy a low APR on purchases and cash advances — plus 2,500 bonus points after your first purchase.1

Hurry — this offer expires May 31, 2010.

Re: USAA curiosity

smallfry — Sun, 02 May 2010 02:49:32 GMT

Slower than Chase with automatic CLI?

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Sun, 02 May 2010 04:58:29 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Been awhile since I looked in the "my offers" tab since I haven't been in the market for anything lately. Guess I should have looked first. My first thought on seeing this is that it's just a "hey, give it a try and see what happens" not an actuall preapproval. That's how I've taken this sort of offer from them in the past. I think I've become too jaded.

This is what I see in the online "my offers"

You're invited to apply for a USAA Rewards™ World MasterCard®
Enjoy a low APR on purchases and cash advances — plus 2,500 bonus points after your first purchase.1
Hurry — this offer expires May 31, 2010.

I'm not sure that really sounds like "pre-approval," but who knows?

I never used to use USAA for anything but insurance and would almost never log in to my USAA account. One day I get an e-mail and / or a letter saying my pre-approved AmEx offer would expire soon so I should take advantage of it now. I logged on and saw it clearly state I was pre-approved in the "My Offers" section so I clicked on accept and ... Bingo! Instant $25k -- I almost SAB.

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Sun, 02 May 2010 04:59:37 GMT

@smallfry wrote:
Slower than Chase with automatic CLI?

What can I say? Chase has been good to me. With USAA the only CLI I have seen was when I called them ... and they were very nice about it.

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Sun, 02 May 2010 05:16:56 GMT

The wording doesn't say anything about being preapproved for anything. I'm going to say that it's just the usual, "Hey, take a gamble and pull the trigger to see if you get anything and you may or may not be declined" offer.

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Sun, 02 May 2010 05:46:35 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The wording doesn't say anything about being preapproved for anything. I'm going to say that it's just the usual, "Hey, take a gamble and pull the trigger to see if you get anything and you may or may not be declined" offer.

Hmmm ... as much as I like USAA, I'd have to think about it if it were a gamble.

Re: USAA curiosity

haulingthescoreup — Mon, 03 May 2010 14:10:35 GMT

Why not call them and ask?

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:01:29 GMT

I sent them an email. It was a generic reply that didn't say much of anything other than I can apply for a card. Made me laugh to get the response. I don't think I'm going to apply for it. I'm still in gardening mode until the other two cards turn two years old. At that point I'll revisit USAA, Navy and PenFed CC programs again.

I'm not a full member because my father, for some reason he won't share with me, refuses to use their insurance products even though they've been his bank as long as I can remember. Stubborn man. I would LOVE to have my car and homeowners insurance through them! My guess is that preapprovals only go to full members.

I am curious what their criteria is for the card though? Minimum score specifically. And who do they pull?

Has anyone applied for their card(s) since the credit reform changes in February?

Re: USAA curiosity

Anonymous — Mon, 03 May 2010 23:18:29 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I sent them an email. It was a generic reply that didn't say much of anything other than I can apply for a card. Made me laugh to get the response. I don't think I'm going to apply for it. I'm still in gardening mode until the other two cards turn two years old. At that point I'll revisit USAA, Navy and PenFed CC programs again.

I'm not a full member because my father, for some reason he won't share with me, refuses to use their insurance products even though they've been his bank as long as I can remember. Stubborn man. I would LOVE to have my car and homeowners insurance through them! My guess is that preapprovals only go to full members.

I am curious what their criteria is for the card though? Minimum score specifically. And who do they pull?

Has anyone applied for their card(s) since the credit reform changes in February?

Hard pulls are always EQ, but for some reason they love to soft EX. The pre-approvals are based on EX softs and then when you accept / apply they do a hard on EQ.

@I am not sure what their FICO requirements are and I believe it even depends on your membership status. Coming up on a year ago I accepted their AmEx on a pre-approval @ $25k with a FICO of 730ish and then two minutes later I thought the MasterCard would probably be better so I did a direct apply and got another $25k.

Just two months ago I called to ask about s supplemental card for my son and wanted to see if they, like one of my other banks, could issue a supplemental, but let me assign only a portion of the CL to the supplemental cardholder. They said they didn't have that ability, but suggested I apply for another card and specifically request a low limit. I did, asked for $3k and got it. FICO was 716, no baddies, 2 recent INQs out of 8 over the past year.

YMMV