Looking for card recommendations for thin file

[barsandrhyme]

Hi, I wanted to try for one more credit card before I give things a break and see if my current cards graduate/grow.

So far I just have: Self Credit Builder secured loan, Self Secured Card: $250, Discover Secured Card: $200, and PayPal World MasterCard: $1800.

My FICO 8 scores from Experian are: EXP: 721 INQ: 2 |   EQ: 735   INQ: 0  |  TU: 708   INQ: 3

I've been trying some various pre-approval tools. For CareCredit, it says I am pre-qualified for $8000, but then I tried Lowes and they say $637. I'm a bit confused by American Express seemingly have two different pre-qual pages, but some cards do seem to pop up on both while Capital One only pre-qualifies me for secured cards. My oldest account is the Self Credit Builder loan at 8 months, so my file is still pretty thin. I was wondering if there are any okay cards that I might be able to get.  I am in California if that might factor into any of the credit pulls. 

[GZG]

apple card? HP if you accept the approval offer

you can apply for Amex under "apply with confidence" and not incur a HP if you are rejected or don't accept the approval, BCE or BCP depending on your grocery spend comes to mind

otherwise, if you can't get something you can take advantage of, feel free to garden for a bit and start up again with Chase in 6-12 months 

[CYBERSAM]

@barsandrhyme  Try AMEX! Most of their core cards can be product change to others in the future and you can get CLI with SP to help your card limit grow!

[JoeRockhead]

With you current scores, I'm going to jump on the Amex train here too. As stated up thread, new customers can use their prequal and see if they'll get an approval with no hard pull unless you accept an offer. Plus, most (not all) future applications for new cards are SP only which is phenomenal. 

[barsandrhyme]

Is the pre-qual on the main AmEx page? I tried searching some old threads here and one link returned only travel cards and the other did show the Blue Cash card. Would that be the one to try for? Also does the pre-qual give any indication to the credit limit or is that only after the hard pull?

Thanks for the advice. I did have AmEx on my mind, but wasn't sure if it was too soon to try.

[GZG]

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@barsandrhyme wrote:

Is the pre-qual on the main AmEx page? I tried searching some old threads here and one link returned only travel cards and the other did show the Blue Cash card. Would that be the one to try for? Also does the pre-qual give any indication to the credit limit or is that only after the hard pull?

Thanks for the advice. I did have AmEx on my mind, but wasn't sure if it was too soon to try.

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there's a prequal page, and there's the page where you can directly apply with 'apply with confidence' 

If you don't see 'apply with confidence', you might be rejected with a HP:

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/card/blue-cash-everyday/ 

and if you have significant grocery spend: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/card/blue-cash-preferred/ 

You won't find out SL, only after you accept the card and take the HP, if approved, I imagine you would get a 1k SL, but can grow quickly 

[SweetCreditObsession]

I'd take @GZG's advice and try the Amex "Apply with Confidence" option. Once you're in with them, your limits can grow and quite quickly too.

[SouthJamaica]

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@barsandrhyme wrote:

Hi, I wanted to try for one more credit card before I give things a break and see if my current cards graduate/grow.

So far I just have: Self Credit Builder secured loan, Self Secured Card: $250, Discover Secured Card: $200, and PayPal World MasterCard: $1800.

My FICO 8 scores from Experian are: EXP: 721 INQ: 2 |   EQ: 735   INQ: 0  |  TU: 708   INQ: 3

I've been trying some various pre-approval tools. For CareCredit, it says I am pre-qualified for $8000, but then I tried Lowes and they say $637. I'm a bit confused by American Express seemingly have two different pre-qual pages, but some cards do seem to pop up on both while Capital One only pre-qualifies me for secured cards. My oldest account is the Self Credit Builder loan at 8 months, so my file is still pretty thin. I was wondering if there are any okay cards that I might be able to get.  I am in California if that might factor into any of the credit pulls. 

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I wouldn't worry about prequalifications.

Amex Blue Cash Everyday is a nice cash back card.

There are lots of good credit union cards.

[Beefy1212]

I would possibly try Penfed, or another that pulls EQ. It is your highest score least number of inquiries and if they say no, you can still try AMEX who pulls Experian, hell you could do PenFed and Amex.

[barsandrhyme]

I tried for the Apple card first and wasn't pre-qualified. The three reasons they gave were high loan balance, too many inquiries, and not enough payment history. 

The Self Credit Builder loan should be 9 months old in about two weeks, so I'll wait until then before trying for AmEx and see if the apply with confidence thing works out.