topic Re: General advice in Credit Cards

General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:04:37 GMT

I have a very low AAoA (9 months) with an Orchard Bank Secured with CL of $1k and a Capital One with CL of $750. I just applied for an AMEX SPG (Denied) and a Discover More (approved $750 CL) which I was pre-approved for.

I am not really happy with either of the above decisions. Is it worth reconning the AMEX? From what I've read (after the fact), they generally require at the very least 2 yrs AAoA.

Also, can I recon that Discover $750 CL? I honestly don't even want to open an account with them with that paltry limit. How good is Discover with CLIs?

In general, I'm probably just going to have to let my credit lines age, but just wondering if I should recon either one.

One more final question: should I attempt to unsecure the Orchard Bank/HSBC card?

Re: General advice

bbb3601 — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:15:42 GMT

Withou knowing your scores and past history too hard for the experts to say. I know you dislike the Discover offer, but I would kill to get in with them. In a year from now I doubt you will have any issues getting what you need!!

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:23:17 GMT

For scores:

716 fako (Credit Karma)

721 Experian (prior to applying for the cards in the OP)

No history past the Orchard/HBSC approval a year ago, except for some failed applications.

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:26:19 GMT

Sorry can you give us more details on credit file. Negatives. What other accounts in files? Aaoa etc.

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:41:33 GMT

My Experian report is pretty simple:

9 months AAoA

Accounts:

HSBC/Orchard Bank card opened on 08/2011, 1k limit

Capital One card opened on 02/2012, $750 limit

Negatives:

Low AAoA

5 hard inquiries

721 FICO

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:47:20 GMT

Ahh okay. Where you getting ex fico score from? Also what is income like? In school?

Re: General advice

DaveSignal — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:47:49 GMT

You don't have enough credit history. You already took the inq and new account hit by getting the Discover, so there is no point in closing it now. Just use the cards you have until you get 2 years of reported history and then you should be able to do much better.... although you should try for CLIs after your current cards reach 1 year to get bigger limits on future cards.

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:51:10 GMT

Actually, you should not plan on cli or unsecuring your current cards with exception of discover. Other cards won't grow with you. No reason for hp to get 200 cli or something junky like that.

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:58:08 GMT

Thanks guys.

Crashem: so you are saying it is worth reconning the Discover to see if I can get a bump?

Re: General advice

gettnthere — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:03:42 GMT

CRASHEM is right, the cards you had before the DISCOVER WILL NOT grow, TRUST ME i have them both for well over a year. I absolutely refuse to call ORCHARD for a cli bc its mostly a hp and you'll be lucky to get $100cli. And CAP1......well we all know they just dont do cli. Just focus on your DISCOVER card for now

Re: General advice

gettnthere — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:05:54 GMT

You can call and talk to DISCOVER about reconning the limit, ive read many success stories with Discover, they are a great cc company to be with. Worst that could happen is they say no. GO FOR IT and good luck

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:27:02 GMT

Didn't hear your answer about whether you were student or not and income. In any case, love the user name so going to give you a bunch of advice. This advice is assuming you aren't a student and income is decent. Also assuming you are paying in full your balances every month. Let me know if assumptions are incorrect.

You are basically in the early phases of your credit history. Even though your credit scores may look good, you will get rejected for a lot of cards from not enough history or thin file. Your credit goals should be to get cards that will grow with you from either rewards or credit perspective. From a credit perspective, that means getting cards that you can actively grow your CL with.

1) Until your cards hit 1 year, you are basically restricted to a lot of okay to bad cards. So your plan should be to get bunch of cards in 3 months or so and close the cap one and orchard after you get new cards. At one year, a whole realm of cards open up to you.

2) The key thing in determining what a new card CL will be, is the size of your current credit lines. So if you have 500 CL cards, someone may give you 1k. If you have 10k CLs, then might get 15k. Depending on things like credit profile (score, util, etc.), income, when you last got a card, and card issuer, will depend on how aggressive or not aggressive they will be. Given this fact, how much money can you spare to increase your security deposit on your orchard secured card? If it is significant, then might be worthwhile to show higher CL. Plan on this money being tied up for 6 months. 3 months before you can apply for new cards and up to a couple of months to get money back after your cancel orchard.

3) Two best CLI friendly card issuers are AMEX and GEMB. Amex because CLI requests, of up to 3X, can come at 61 days, then every 6 months and none of the requests harm your credit (soft pull based). GEMB allows CLI requests every 4 months (maybe 3) and are also soft based.

a) Amex strategy: Zync might approve you right now. Your scores are fine. The issue is going to be around length of credit history, but I know people with 6 months history getting Zync. Every other Amex is going to be hard/impossible to get before at least 1 year history. Zync has small annual fee. However Zync will give you chance to build history with AMEX which Amex counts highly in their internal scoring. App for Zync (need to wait 30 days from rejection) and assuming you get it, you app for the revolver from Amex you want in Jan 2013. This strategy is good as your member date is set to 2012 and gives you best chance to get what you want. 2nd option would be to just wait for 1 year to end and go for revolver you want. However 1 year will take you near the end of year and rejection then will mean no Amex in 2012 and therefore no member date in 2012.

b) GEMB strategy: Look around for GEMB issued card for store you use often. Walmart is great as you get free TU08 FICO score from having card. Lots of other options. You can probably app for one right now. Then every 4 months, ask for CLI.

4) When one year hits, you should come back here and ask for suggestions. You want a card issuer who is good with auto CLI. Citibank comes to mind but lots of others. Between now and the 1 year, think about what kind of rewards you want etc. Then we can give you better suggestions.

Re: General advice

nicholasyud — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:34:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Didn't hear your answer about whether you were student or not and income. In any case, love the user name so going to give you a bunch of advice. This advice is assuming you aren't a student and income is decent. Also assuming you are paying in full your balances every month. Let me know if assumptions are incorrect.

Look like you an super expert ? Would you mind to help me with my case ?

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:41:48 GMT

@nicholasyud wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Didn't hear your answer about whether you were student or not and income. In any case, love the user name so going to give you a bunch of advice. This advice is assuming you aren't a student and income is decent. Also assuming you are paying in full your balances every month. Let me know if assumptions are incorrect.

Look like you an super expert ? Would you mind to help me with my case ?

Sure. Start your own thread. Give details on your credit file and what your goals are. Happy to help and bored right now (ie have time to answer).

Re: General advice

nicholasyud — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:07:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

here my thread

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Midland-Funding/m-p/1541322#M202176

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:19:39 GMT

@nicholasyud wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

here my thread
http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Midland-Funding/m-p/1541322#M202176

I see it but a little mixed up where you are looking for advice. You looking for advice with how to handle Midland or are you looking for advice on what credit cards etc to apply for to help your credit. In any case, start a thread in this forum if looking for advice for credit cards. Otherwise, I had questions on your existing thread in Rebuilding and we can continue the conversation there.

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:02:42 GMT

Chrashem,

Income is currently 93k/yr.

Unfortunately, RE: AAoA of 1 year - I just got approved for the Discover, which brings my AAoA down to 6 months. This then foils the AMEX 2012 account holder plan, because in December 2012, my AAoA will only be 10 months. However, I am pre-selected (I know this does not mean much) for AMEX Green/Gold Charge: is that a good way to get a foot in the door with AMEX? I could apply for that in December 2012.

Great idea on the adding to my secured card. For some reason I did not think you could add to it after you sent the initial check. I can comfortably add enough to get me a 10k CL on that card, although I would rather invest the money. A price I am willing to pay to build my credit.

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:40:24 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Chrashem,

Income is currently 93k/yr.

Unfortunately, RE: AAoA of 1 year - I just got approved for the Discover, which brings my AAoA down to 6 months. This then foils the AMEX 2012 account holder plan, because in December 2012, my AAoA will only be 10 months. However, I am pre-selected (I know this does not mean much) for AMEX Green/Gold Charge: is that a good way to get a foot in the door with AMEX? I could apply for that in December 2012.

Great idea on the adding to my secured card. For some reason I did not think you could add to it after you sent the initial check. I can comfortably add enough to get me a 10k CL on that card, although I would rather invest the money. A price I am willing to pay to build my credit.

Aaoa matters. But issue isn't aaoa. It oldest credit line. You could go for green/gold now or be safe with zync. If Amex charge card not that appealing, then go for zync as lowest af. Otherwise pick the charge card most appealing to you given the af. Shows up on credit report as same. I would go for it now (after the 30daysfrom last amex rejection is up). Use Amex in meantime until jan2013 and go for Amex revolver then. As for secured card, I highly recommend getting cl up to 10k. don't do it yet. But do it a couple of months before you are ready to app for other cards. Need time for bank to update credit line with credit bureaus. Once you get unsecured cards of similarcredit lines, you can cancel secured card and get your money back. So money shouldn't be tied up that long. Basically will shortcut your credit journey. 5k limits are a big hurdle and a lot of high end cards grant min 5k. Mind making list of your dream cards and ill give you a path there.

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:18:01 GMT

Crashem,

Thanks again for the advice. My goal is to get a credit card that is made out of metal

Haha, honestly, my goal is to get a good amount of credit cards that I like with very high CLs in order to obtain excellent credit. In the next 3-4 years, I intend on buying a house. I want to increase my credit enough so that banks feel comfortable giving me a low interest rate.

I am fine with an AMEX charge to get me in the door. Which do you think will be easier, once the 30 days are up? Zync or Green/Gold? I would think a charge card, given that I would not be as large of a risk (would not be carrying a balance). However, the increase in the overall credit pool from the Zync would be better right?

Re: General advice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:38:44 GMT

Not sure what you meant by your last sentence.

In any case, Zync/Green/Gold/Platinum are all Amex charge cards. Zync is easier to get, but rest are basically same credit standard. Safest for approval therefore is Zync. Assuming you get NPSL (no preset spending limit), basically same standard is applied to all charge cards. All Amex charge cards show up same on credit report. Therefore, someone with a Zync could charge more in a month than someone with platinum or even centurion. Great thing about Amex charge cards is that balances are not used in revolving utilization calculations since you have to pay in full every month. Amex values your payment history with them so responsible use of Amex Charge card will lower the standards for approval for Amex revolver. Also, NPSL limits can grow very quickly. With my platinum, I moved my NPSL limit from 3.5k or so TO over 70k within 3 months. Showing a high balance on charge card gives you ammo during recon to get higher limits. Do you see how much I am charging on my Amex? I pretty much use it for most of my purchases. Of course I can handle a high limit like 10k.