Just starting my credit journey - should I get the Petal card?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the insight! I didn’t have a great gut feeling about Petal, so I’m not gonna go forward with that.

I’ve actually heard from people like Graham Stephen that leaving a small balance for the statement to raise your credit score is considered a rumor, and a utilization rate of 0% is fine. I hear all sorts of different things from different people. I thought it was all about account age, number of accounts, and not having derogatory marks (and the lower the utilization rate, including 0%, the better).

[Anonymous]

0 balance shows no usage on your current card.  Good rule of thumb is 10% or less even though most blogs and people say under 30%.  8.9% is the specific number to stay under when reporting a balance for the most points.  With 1 card it's easy to manage but, also a catch-22 because there's another issue where some scoring models don't like to see a percentage of your total cards with a balance.  This catch-22 is why we usually recommend 3-5 cards so you don't get dinged for having a balance on the majority of your cards each month.

If you want to do it the easy way then pick a recurring bill that's $5-$20/mo and setup autopay for the statement balance and just throw it in a drawer until it graduates and you pick up additional cards.  You generate activity (good thing), you generate a balance (good thing), you generate payment activity (good thing), and you keep your UTIL % down (good thing).

[Anonymous]

One more thing to add about Petal. I’m not sure how far you got in the process but before they approve you, you have to agree to link your bank account. Then they download all your bank data and analyze it. Yup. They claim this is how they are able to extend credit to people new to credit even if they don’t have a score. They claim that their software will analyze how you pay your bills and determine if to give you a card. That is in addition to the hard pull.

No credit card is worth that to me.