Um, so how many inquiries DO you have? Will just 6 months help? If AmEx rejected you, I'd personally say garden for 12 months instead of 6.
Unfortunately, the subprime cards were a bad idea since you already had good cards with good issuers (Chase, US Bank, BofA)... but closing them so quickly was a worse idea. This makes you look sketchy to issuers. Especially since none of your current accounts are over a year old now.
Garden. Breathe in, and out, and don't think about new cards for awhile. You have some solid ones, let them grow (you can request a soft pull CLI from BofA if you haven't already, every 6 months) and get in their good graces. Hopefully with some gardening the appearance of "churning" with the subprime cards will disappear. I think the loan will be a non-issue as long as you are on top of payments, once things age a bit/fall off.
Sorry, I know this is not what you want to hear.
Biz - 
@leo187um wrote:No worries - appreciate the honesty, but 1 year gardening... seems like a very long time....
Also, why would closing three subprime **bleep**ty cards make me look sketchy - I wouldve thought closing these subprime cards would make me look less risky as long I use the premium three cards responsibly with a 1-4% utilization?
In terms of gardening period strategy:
- I opened a Amex Savings and CD recently; is depositting 1000/month going forward effective in building that relationship come application time (the CD has a very good yield so looks sattractive anyways)?
- With Chase, I recently opened a CD and deposited 1000 in it...I've had a checkings/savings/credit card all back in 11/2021..what would be the optimal strategy for me to build a strong relationship so I could get one of their premium cards (Sapphire Reserve and eventually business Ink); I recently applied for a credit limit increase via app but got rejected - when should I ask for another one?
I had 11 inquiries but three (BoA, USBank, Chase) will roll off after November... I heard disputing and getting the hard inquiries removed (for consumer finance companies where I don't have any open accounts or didnt get approvals) is relatively easy and may help, do you advise me do this?
Also, heard that cleaning up my personal profile (my current reports have my old addresses - alot of them) to just include my current address helps; do you recommend this? Is it ok if I put a virtual address as my mailing address I have on credit reports?
Thank you!
Then you are getting bad advice. First, it's not easy at all and also not ethical to Dispute legitimate Hard INQ's. Next, No you don't want to use a "virual" i.e. Fake mailing address "suite" type of deal as those addresses are normally flagged for the Credit Bureaus (and lots of lenders as well) as such and will actually hurt you. You also misunderstand the credit reporting. First Closed Accounts remain on your Credit Reports for up to10 years. So, that still helps and applies to your AAOA's. Then next those Consumer Finance accounts won't "fall off" until the standard 7 years past the last payment/PO/activity has passed. So they are they to stay. While they do hurt some with lenders your biggest issue with AmEx is your very short credit history combined with all of the INQ and new credit. It appears to AmEx (and is even according to your own post) what they refer to as "Credit Seeking Behavior" and that is a nail to the heart when it comes to getting new credit with lenders. Like the advice you were given you need to Garden for a while wih zero new apps for new credit. At least 9-12 months. While you are doing that you need to build your exsisting files by usage and PIF.
You also need to aks yourself "why" you want the Platinum Card? You say you closed cards simply because they had AF's. Well, the Platinum Card has a $695 AF. It's also a "Travel" card is where all of it's perks really are. It's not by any means an every day use card as the returns are not gear toward that. The Gold or even Green card's are. If you travel by air a lot with a lot menaing at least 4 of more times a year then the card is for you. If you don't then it's not the right card. IF you want it for "status symbol" well that's a bad financial move, but you do you.
You'll get GREAT advice on here form lots of good folks that have built the credit the right way. IF you listen to them and do as they say you will too. The biggest thing is to remember that are NO SHORTCUTS in properly building good credit. It's a long 2-3 year process. Think of it as a Marathon and not a Sprint race.
Good luck and welcome to the Forums!
