Approval Odds and Pre Qualifying

[Anonymous]

How much faith have you put, from your experience, into the approval odds seen on various credit sites? What about pre qualifying on the lenders' sites? Creditkarma has me fair odds for a Citi Simplicity, Wallethub has me at very good odds for the double cash. I don't want to waste a HP without confidence in it, and I know they're not the most lenient of lenders. I've been able to Pre Qualify on both BofA and Discover, each of which has been showing me at least a couple of offers. Again, don't want to waste a HP over nothing. I'm leaning towards BofA for preference, the Cash Rewards card is extremely enticing and has the introductory APR I'm seeking. The Simplicity also has the best intro APR period, so I'm extremely interested, but I was not pre qualified on their site. Another Discover may be more likely to get approved as I already have an It. Do you put much faith in either the "approval odds" or the pre qualification?

[randomguy1]

To be succinct, I would put more faith in knowing your actual profile and looking at data points on approvals. You also need to find out what each creditor is sensitive to. You need to pull up your FICO score, credit report, and look at what your data points are. I wouldn’t put much faith in those sites you mentioned as they are most likely paid by creditors.

That being said, they do have a prequalification tool.

https://www.citicards.com/cards/credit/application/flow.action?isInvitation=N#

[Anonymous]

Wouldn’t put much stock into approval odds. Go by each lender’s prequal page. If Discover says you’re prequalified or pre approved. Those are more solid than any approval odds.

[Anonymous]

BoA’s prequal site is a joke. Everyone gets a Yes. You can put in your dog’s name and he will get a prequal (I’m not joking).

Ignore card recommendations from CK, WalletHub, and the others. They get paid referral fees when you app a card through them, so telling you that your odds are good is financially in their best interests. They use VantageScore 3.0 instead of FICO, and for many, those scores are significantly higher. Look at those sites - they’ll tell you that the cure for all your ills is more credit. Scores are low? Get another card. Can’t get a loan? Apply for another card to make yourself more appealing. Proper number of accounts? At least 21. It’s a disservice - people rack up HPs with denials and hurt themselves while the sites make money from it.

As stated, use the prequal tools on the banks’ sites (again, except for BoA), and read on here for other people’s successes and data points to figure out how you would fit with the necessary criteria for approval. Don’t waste your time going by what a site tells you when that site’s reason is to make money on your application.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
How much faith have you put, from your experience, into the approval odds seen on various credit sites? What about pre qualifying on the lenders' sites? Creditkarma has me fair odds for a Citi Simplicity, Wallethub has me at very good odds for the double cash. I don't want to waste a HP without confidence in it, and I know they're not the most lenient of lenders. I've been able to Pre Qualify on both BofA and Discover, each of which has been showing me at least a couple of offers. Again, don't want to waste a HP over nothing. I'm leaning towards BofA for preference, the Cash Rewards card is extremely enticing and has the introductory APR I'm seeking. The Simplicity also has the best intro APR period, so I'm extremely interested, but I was not pre qualified on their site. Another Discover may be more likely to get approved as I already have an It. Do you put much faith in either the "approval odds" or the pre qualification?

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I do not put any faith in the "approval odds" of any third-party credit websites like Credit Karma, WalletHub and the like.  They are useful for monitoring your credit reports and that's about it.  The business model of those "free" sites is that they receive referral fees from lenders when you sign up for a credit card through their affiliate links so they have every incentive to encourage you to apply for cards; even those you may not be qualified for.

If you're interested in a credit card go directly to the card issuer's website and use their pre-qualification tool; they would be much more reliable that the suggestions from third-party websites.  Almost every major card issuer except U.S. Bank has a pre-qualification tool.  Its also worth noting that Bank of America offers "recommended cards" and not an actual pre-qualification so you should adjust your expectations when dealing with them.

[GApeachy]

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@Anonymous wrote:
 Look at those sites - they’ll tell you that the cure for all your ills is more credit. Scores are low? Get another card. Can’t get a loan? Apply for another card to make yourself more appealing. Proper number of accounts? At least 21. It’s a disservice - people rack up HPs with denials and hurt themselves while the sites make money from it.

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Yeah, they almost had me app my butt off

[Anonymous]

Appreciate all the wisdom! Think I'll go ahead and shoot for the Discover in the next couple of days, and it's good to know not to put much faith in the third party app's recommendations.

[randomguy1]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Appreciate all the wisdom! Think I'll go ahead and shoot for the Discover in the next couple of days, and it's good to know not to put much faith in the third party app's recommendations.

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What's your overall utilization look like? If you post your card limits and utilization on each one, it would be helpful if you want additional guidance. 

[Anonymous]

Utilization is pretty high on a few cards, vantage scores are 660/662/671 eq/tu/ex at the moment. 5 recent inquiries, two were the same day when i bought a car, other two are real estate for renting an apt, final is responding to a pre qual offer for Petal Visa last week

CapOne QS - 2100/3500
CapOne Plat - 200/500
PNC Cashbuilder - 200/500
Discover It - 60/1200
CFNA Firestone - 150/2200
Synchrony Home - 400/5000

Petal hasn't reported yet. $1000 SL

[Anonymous]

My question now would be, what resources do you have to pay off some balances? $210 would give you two cards reporting zero, which includes your existing Disco and Firestone. That would be a good look to start with.

Next, your CapOne Plat and PNC are at 40%. Paying $65 on each would get them both to 27%, which would mean that even when their next statements generate, they’d still be below the known 28.9% breakpoint.

Synch Home is fine at 8%.

QS is currently at 60%, which is the big one. $1100 would get that below 28.9% which would be great, but even paying it down to $1645 would get you to 47%, and that would look a lot better. It’d cost you $455 to do that.

If you could do all of that, it’d cost you $795 to do it, but you’d have two cards at zero, two at 27%, one under 8%, and one at 47%. Overall utilization would be 17.9%. You’d be sitting pretty with much better odds. I’d find a way to come up with $800 to do this and THEN app for much more favorable terms. If you can pay $1100 on the QS rather than $445 and get it below 28.9% you’d be better still but even with it at 47%, your overall snapshot would look much better than now.