I think my credit is pretty good at the moment but only thing i feel is holding me back a little for this card is perhaps the overall age of my accounts. My oldest card is a little over 2.5yrs old and my FICO scores are in my signature. I recently applied for the Chase Freedom this january but wanted to add a 2% card to round out my spending as a whole. I know with Elan Financial, their underwriting is very strict and tbh the APRs on all my cards are pretty high (22-25%?). I never carry balances so i don't worry about them at all but the apr of 15% makes it seem almost impossible to get this card. At what point would i have the greatest odds of getting this card? I know the Paypal Mastercard is the other option but i really like the perks of extended warranty on this card that I'd wanna have just in case.
@luxlight wrote:I think my credit is pretty good at the moment but only thing i feel is holding me back a little for this card is perhaps the overall age of my accounts. My oldest card is a little over 2.5yrs old and my FICO scores are in my signature. I recently applied for the Chase Freedom this january but wanted to add a 2% card to round out my spending as a whole. I know with Elan Financial, their underwriting is very strict and tbh the APRs on all my cards are pretty high (22-25%?). I never carry balances so i don't worry about them at all but the apr of 15% makes it seem almost impossible to get this card. At what point would i have the greatest odds of getting this card? I know the Paypal Mastercard is the other option but i really like the perks of extended warranty on this card that I'd wanna have just in case.
I have never app'd with Elan or their parent company US Bank but I think you'd be in great shape for the Fidelity Visa. You have applied judiciously for credit and by the end of March will be 2/24 and 1/12, which is great! Your scores are solid and you have several other major bank cards with good limits. Good job!
That said, there are a lot of other 2% cards besides the PayPal Mastercard and Fidelity Visa. I made a posting (see link*) about why I picked the PenFed Power Cash 2% card and I listed all the other major 2% cards that I know about. There are many options. Consider whether any of these might be a better pick for you. Fidelity does require you to deposit the cashback directly to investment account to get the 2% instead of the flexibility of getting 2% cash itself. And there is a $50 minimum redemption. Still, I think this can be a good choice and have considered it myself.
*Link:
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Approvals/Penfed-PCR-Approval/m-p/5901752#M655426
Thank you friend. That's an impressive list of 2% cards you've put together on that post. That signature fcu visa card is looking mighty nice but ill take my time going through the rest of them. I've only really been aware of the cards from the big banks that offered 2% but never heard of some of these from the credit unions.
Keep is updated with whatever you decide!
@luxlight wrote:Thank you friend. That's an impressive list of 2% cards you've put together on that post. That signature fcu visa card is looking mighty nice but ill take my time going through the rest of them. I've only really been aware of the cards from the big banks that offered 2% but never heard of some of these from the credit unions.
You're welcome! The credit union cards usually work best if you want to do some banking with them, but many of them also offer competitive banking products. Some may even require you to meet certain banking requirements (minimum balances, direct deposits, etc.) to earn the full 2% cash back. So read the fine print and do a search on the My Fico forums for approval data points and reviews before you apply. Still, in some ways, as long as you're willing to jump through their hoops, the CU cards may be a better deal than the better known national ones such as Citi DC MC, PPMC and Fidelity Visa.
Let us know what you decide and post on the Card Approvals board with your results! 
@Anonymous wrote:I have a really good credit profile and got a $1000 SL. I was dumbstruck. Needless to say the relationship did not last long and I now avoid Elan and US Bank cards...
They are a conservative bank. Most approvals I've seen don't show anybody ever getting the really high limits with them. It does seem to help if you have a banking relationship. And their limits do grow to the moderate range with some usage and time, like a lot of the conservative banks. You'll find US Bank limits starting to slow down for most people at the $25K to $35K mark, if they even reach that level. Unlike some banks, it seems to be rare to see them get to the $40K-$60K level or above, and most cards start at $12K or below.
I'm finding this is true of a LOT more banks and credit unions than are known as "relationship" banks. For example, I got good SLs on new cards (and new banking relationships) with PenFed and Navy FCU but not as high as other recent My Fico approvals even though I had very high FICOs, high income, low debt. (PenFed: $15K; NFCU: $10K.) The reason for lower limits seemed to point to the new relationship as well as many new accounts. I do expect those limits to grow a lot over time with what I've read about others and I'm willing to put in the effort. If I liked the card with US Bank, I'd be willing to groom it and grow it by building more of a relationship. I've considered doing that since a few of their cards are attractive to me.
I had similar luck with unusually-low SLs on a couple of cards.
One was recently. I had a $50K limit on a very established Discover card, but then they approved me for only a $1K limit on a brand new Discover IT Miles. Dumbstruck is not an adequate adjective. I knew it would grow but I honestly didn't want to fool with it. Even though I had already taken the HP and new account, I closed it immediately. I had planned to put a lot of spend on it and maybe later combine it with my other card, but with only $1K and having to wait for at least three months for an increase was just too much of a hassle. (Probably reasons for the low Disco limit: I had apped for many new cards in recent months and I had not been using a sizable percentage of my $50K limit, so didn't appear to "need" more. Ironically, my DW who has lower scores and income, was approved for a $9K limit on the same card within days, so I'm now an AU on her account during the one-year SUB.)
The other notable case was 11 years ago. I got approved for a $1K limit on a Capital One Platinum card, which was insultingly low and inadequate for me at the time. However, I just finished growing it from $1K to a $25K limit card with some use and a lot of patience. It just depends on what you want to do.
Capital One Approval Link: