Need advice on new applications

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

This is my first time posting here, and I was wondering if you kind folks might be able to give me some advice re: what cards I ought to apply for (and when). I'm a relatively recent college grad with no credit history of my own, but with the good fortune to have a very well paying job and a credit score of around ~740, based on the fact that I'm an authorized user on two cards (Citi going back more than a decade, Amex going back four years).

Not knowing much about how banks assess credit history, I applied out of the blue for a Chase Sapphire in December and was rejected (in retrospect unsurprisingly).This January, I decided to start at the other end of the spectrum and applied (and was approved) for a Discover It Secured card with a $2,500 CL.

I'm wondering what to do now. I have three hard pulls since July 2017, (one from Chase, one from a rental application, and one from Discover), though I'm not sure which bureaus they show up on (I think Discover only pulled TU). Should I stop here and wait for a while, or are there any other cards worth applying to now? I'd like a higher total CL now if possible, but would also like to be able to apply for a good rewards card in a year or so. And I'm not sure how much damage new cards would do to my average age of credit (which is unreasonably high at the moment).

It's all a little frustrating because I often pre-qualify for cards based on my score / my being an authorized user, but my experience (with Chase at least) is that being an AU doesn't get you very far when you have such a thin personal history.

Anyway, I'm considering either applying for one more card (options include an Amex charge card, the Uber card, or a PayPal cash rewards card) or just waiting a year and trying again.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Anonymous]

With your profile you could probably be approved for any non premium level rewards card you'd want except from chase due to thin personal history. I even bank at chase and the banker told me without a year of history don't bother applying. Imo getting a secured discover was a waste since you could have easily gotten the unsecured probably with bigger SL since discover likes thin files according to this forum. If i were you i'd open 2 or at most 3 accounts and garden for a year to let them grow to then apply for a premium card. But in order to decide what cards to apply for, you have to consider what cards give you the most rewards according to your spending. 

I believe you literaly knocked on the wrong door and got spooked 

Also where did you got that score from? Is that FICO because many sites don't give FICO scores.

[Anonymous]

Hey -- really appreciate your help. Definitely have a lot to learn, clearly, given my Discover oops! Hopefully the Discover card will be upgraded in 8 months. In the meantime, I think I'll apply for the new Uber BarclayCard (unless you think that's too much of a reach) since a big fraction of my spending is on dining and that card gives you 4% back.

One unfortunate thing is that the Citi card I'm an AU on often has ~40% utilization (although it's always paid in full) because the limit's never been increased.

But thanks so much for the help!

[Anonymous]

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wrote:

With your profile you could probably be approved for any non premium level rewards card you'd want except from chase due to thin personal history. I even bank at chase and the banker told me without a year of history don't bother applying. Imo getting a secured discover was a waste since you could have easily gotten the unsecured probably with bigger SL since discover likes thin files according to this forum. If i were you i'd open 2 or at most 3 accounts and garden for a year to let them grow to then apply for a premium card. But in order to decide what cards to apply for, you have to consider what cards give you the most rewards according to your spending. 

I believe you literaly knocked on the wrong door and got spooked 

Also where did you got that score from? Is that FICO because many sites don't give FICO scores.

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