Advice after a 30D late but my credit.

[Anonymous]

Hey folks, hoping to get some advice here.
I recently had a 30D late hit by credit. Dropped my Experian to 703, Transunion to 701 and Equifax to 745. It really sucks, but I was able to get the Apple Card and my AMEX platinum before the late payment hit my credit last month.

Currently my credit history is 2-1/2 years. About 2-3 hard inquiries in each bureau in the last year. Gross income is around $265K which excludes bonuses.

I had my eye on the Citicard Prestige for February application. But now with this 30D late I got last month and credit drop. What’s the advice? Forget about it? Wait a year or two? How long do you think for my scores to riseS to the mid 700’s. They were in the high 700’s pre 30D late. I also have a lot of mixed credit and stellar on time payments for the last 15 years excluding this car loan late payment I got.

I def. want to upgrade my preferred card to the reserve card next year in July when I’m eligible. Should I just not apply for the Citicard and concentrate in the reserve card for July 2020?

[CreditCuriosity]

If the 30 day is recent I would certainly hold off on applying for new credit for about a year especially with citi as they are a conservative lender.  You income is high, what was the reason for late care payment?  Set that stuff up to autopay so you hopefully will never find yourself in this situation again.  30 day lates happen to some people and certainly worse things are out there in the credit world, but lenders do see this certainly as a risk and they will wonder if it was a mistake or a situation of financial distress or similiar and opt on the side of caution.

[Anonymous]

It was a mistake. They didn’t care. I was ready to refinance my car from a lease with them. The day they reported the late I called them and told them I won’t be financing my BMW with them. I guess 10 years of perfect car payments with them through several cars means nothing.

Anyways. I was thinking forget the Citicard and concentrate on the reserve. Which would be next July.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Lenders rarely care about your history with them, only what's happening currently. I would push for a goodwill adjustment hard.

[Anonymous]

Yea I know. Goodwill adjustment as in a letter to them?

[zerofire]

Yes and make it one hell of a good letter with lots of pleading. They are legally required to report the 30 day late after you are late by that much from the due date. You could easily have sent the amount 29 days late and only had to deal with the fees. The 30day will be most painful now but as time goes by it will hurt your score less. I recommends that you refrain from applying for anything credit related for some time(6--12mo).

[Anonymous]

Agreed. I have another question. Is paying a balance on credit cards each month better then not using a card and having a 0 balance on it for months on end?

[Anonymous]

How much effort do you want to put into thinking about it?

I just setup PIF for statement balance and let the systems pay each other each month.  Scores and CL's have went up and maintained between apps/new accounts over the last couple of years.  Showing activity is part of credit management and if the computers don't see activity you start getting letters / offers to get you to start using them again.  I got one from BOA yesterday with a double cashback offer for the next 3-6 months or whatever it was because I had not used the account in 3 months.  I got converted by Disco from IT to Miles after not using it for 6 months.  Banks sitting back on "dormant / passive" accounts seems to be changing lately.  And god forbid you carry a small balance and your mailbox gets flooded with BT checks daily with each bank clammering to make their 3-5% cut on the fee.

Not using a card at all doesn't allow it to grow when you go to hit the button to ask for more.  Though having backups that don't get used can be a good option if your active accounts get compromised.  

[zerofire]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Agreed. I have another question. Is paying a balance on credit cards each month better then not using a card and having a 0 balance on it for months on end?

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Define paying a balance. If you mean you charge something every month and pay if off when the statement comes in then that is what banks prefer. If you mean you charge something and let it go month to month paying the minimum then some banks will get squeamish(Barclays) and others will look for a little more to do AA. Banks generally tolerate 0 balances for quite some time. If they close it then you really left them hanging. I have one CU that I have never charged a single thing to their card and they let it stay open(approaching 4yr). I have also had banks quite happy to let a 0 balance account sit for a bit because it means that the relationship actually has a chance. Of course there are other banks like Citi that will close accounts after 21-24mo of inactivity because they are the biggest issuer in the world. It depends on what they care about.

[Anonymous]

Paying off the balance in full every month. I’ve had cards I didn’t use for months on end. But now I’ve made it a point to use the cards and pay the balances off in full every month.