Prime VS Sub Prime

[joltdude]

@dragontears Miss Discover wants you to be her main squeeze, if unpredictable ... If i had to guess.... thats why a lack of CLI love... Sees the competition in your wallet and doesn't want to play... And are you locking any reports?

-J

[dragontears]

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@joltdude wrote:

@dragontears Miss Discover wants you to be her main squeeze, if unpredictable ... If i had to guess.... thats why a lack of CLI love... Sees the competition in your wallet and doesn't want to play... And are you locking any reports?

-J

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@joltdude 

Nope my reports are not locked, never have been. 

I have used Discover a lot, is likely why they grew so well, the one with 35k limit is my largest limit across all my cards and I don't see the point in trying to get it higher. 

[calyx]

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@dragontears wrote:

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@designated_knitter wrote:

I think there are really 3 categories:  

1. sub-prime predators -- charges lots of fees, starting limits in the low hundreds, low to little growth, usually no rewards
   • first premier 
   • Surge
   • milestone
   • Indigo
   • credit one
2. rebuilders -- fees but reasonable, credit limits grow into low thousands but not much beyond that, offers some rewards
   • capital one
   • Discover
   • Merrick Bank
   • Secured cards with the big boy banks that graduate like Citi, USBank, Disco, BoA
3. prime - low fee, larger rewards, SLs starting around 5k with growth up to 25-50k
   • Amex
   • Chase
   • UsBank/Elan
   • FNBO
   • CUs like Navy and Penfed

This is just my personal list.  Not all exhaustive by any stretch... fuzzy line between the various categories... especially Capital One.

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Haha at the Discover card ranking in the "doesn't grow" category. I have 2 Discover cards, SL were 4k and 3k they now sit at 35k and 20.5k because I quit asking for CLI 

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My "hah" was knowing that a millionaire friend of mine exclusively uses Disco.

It just proves that the verbiage around "subprime/prime" and "tiers" is very subjective.   I mean, one of my (re)builders was Chase, soooo... 

[Luxeedee]

I tell you what, I'd like to have a Walmart credit card for the ridiculous amount of stuff I get from there!  I got cash back for my Macy's purchases on my Amex but I did not for Walmart.  Not sure why when I bought clothes at both but I guess they see Walmart as someother category?  IDK.  Discover gives me cash back on markets but only 2-3 months a year.  They're giving cash back for gas stations now but I don't drive so this 2-3 months is wasted.  It's confusing.

[Luxeedee]

Thanks for the suggestion.  I put PenFed on my to do list!   I already have 5 hard pulls for this year.  So I guess I'll wait until some fall off in 2 months before applying again.  I'd love an NFCU card. People on the board have said good things.  But I'd have to get paperwork to try to join.  My Dad was in the Army.  Ironically, I was born at the Naval Hospital!   But I don't have his paperwork.  So I'd need that to proceed.

[Luxeedee]

Started Over Again after Cap1 Death Penalty:

@designated_knitter What's the Cap One Death Penalty!!?

[Horseshoez]

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@Luxeedee wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion.  I put PenFed on my to do list!   I already have 5 hard pulls for this year.  So I guess I'll wait until some fall off in 2 months before applying again.  I'd love an NFCU card. People on the board have said good things.  But I'd have to get paperwork to try to join.  My Dad was in the Army.  Ironically, I was born at the Naval Hospital!   But I don't have his paperwork.  So I'd need that to proceed.

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I had over a dozen hard pulls in the year prior to being approved for a PenFed Platinum Rewards card.  Honestly, five doesn't sound like a show-stopper at all.

[Luxeedee]

IKR, it's so arbitrary.

I'm going to try an Apple Card application with no hard pull today.  I need a new laptop so, I'm giving it a go.

[designated_knitter]

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@Luxeedee wrote:

Started Over Again after Cap1 Death Penalty:

@designated_knitter What's the Cap One Death Penalty!!?

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2 years ago in my wonton youth (I was only 55 so youthful inexperience 😉), I mismanaged my accounts and as a result, I screwed up and had some NSFs in a short amount of time.  

At the time, I was emerging from a debt management program but has excluded my Capital One cards from the plan.  So at that point, I had 4 credit cards to my name:  a new secured Disco and three Cap 1 cards... 2 of them from the Bush 43 administration so pretty darn old.  

One day I logged in to check my accounts and discovered 2 were restricted.  I called in and was informed that I had not met the standards they expect of their card holders and they were permanently closed... Sony survived by the grace of the Comenity acquisition that was happening but it left me with only 2 revolvers: a secured Disco and Sony, which was maxed out at the time.

In retrospect, a blessing and wake up call since I started my rebuild by investing in secured cards with big-boy banks, got serious about my utilization, and truly focus on establishing a solid foundation.

Of course, have 1/2 of my trade lines and credit limit go poof overnight made me panicky about such a thing happening again so I went a "weeee bit" overboard in overcompensating by opening waaaay more credit as quickly as I could.  I steered clear of the first premiers but other than that, if it's name was printed on plastic and the accepted me, I accepted them!

Now I've rid myself of the rebuilders except for one Credit One card that was opened in November.  I found Navy and now that I've gotten my 3 cards from Navy, I'm going to head to the nearest knitting guild and watch my new projects grow (I have a black thumb so best if I steer clear of gardens lest they all go to seed!

@dragontears , I probably should have been more precise and said MY Discover will not grow.  Discover buckets their cards like Cap1 and since I started out secured, my card has limited growth potential... especially with my credit seeking ways.  It's a shame to because it is the coolest looking card in my wallet... the St. Louis Blues logo on a matte finish... from the year the blues won the Stanley Cup!

Cheers!

[designated_knitter]

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@Luxeedee wrote:

IKR, it's so arbitrary.

I'm going to try an Apple Card application with no hard pull today.  I need a new laptop so, I'm giving it a go.

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Good luck!  Got an Apple Card in April and have been using it a lot. It only has an 850 dollar limit so would love it to grow enough in time for the new M1 16" MBP that's expected in September.  My daily driver is a 2012 MacBook Pro that I installed an SSD drive and 16 Gigs memory and patched so it is running Catalina.  It still works great and 2012 was the best year for MBPs (though 2015 was also a very good year).  This year's is the first one that looks like it is going to be a return to the MBP glory days!  

Sorry for the digression!