Score Jumped 150 points, What Now?

[KLEXH25]

Congrats on your successes! Take a day to look at several credit unions, their rates, and what they have to offer. You can probably find out which CRA they pull. DCU uses Equifax 5, which is a mortgage Score. It may be in your best interest to pull a 3B report and check out all your scores. Your FICO 8's and 9's may be high, but you don't want to be surprised by any low scores elsewhere (I doubt you do, but you never know).

Interest rates are really low now and it's a great time to refinance, so I would focus on your loans first. How much is left on your personal loan (dollar amount)? DCU banking and loans are great, but their credit card is nothing special (aside from low interest rate). Navy may be great if you qualify.

[Anonymous]

Appreciate the welcome! You guys are an amazing resource and community!

The personal loan is 14k/19k. Because of that nasty interest rate I'd still save over 1k with a refi before it's paid off with it's current 1.2k autopay (minimum is a third of that). It seems difficult to truly compare personal loan rates since I have no idea what rate within their range I'd get. Just from DPs on the forum, Lightstream beats out everyone else. The downside is it's not really helping build a banking relationship, whereas penfed and NFCU probably values that juicy interest from a member! Someone's gotta pay the dividends.

I have NFCU members in my immediate family so I'm qualified for that, no worries on that part.

[Anonymous]

Congrats for paying off your debts and 800s!!

Usually I would pop the smoke, call it a day, sipping my drinks. hooah? Nah, I quit drinking and would apply for Amex. Amex is customer friendly, at least to me so far. Once you successfully applied for a card, there is possibility for you to pre-qual for other cards down the road and CLI ( look at the boards for the Amex 3x CLI). I haven't apply for PenFed but i would like to at the end of March so I couldn't tell you much. NFCU is also good if you could open an account with them and they are not stingy with their credit lines. Since you have the US Bank, I am wondering why they wouldn't pre-qual you any credit card application? Lightstream belongs to Suntrust for personal or debt consolidation loan. I don't think you need to be Suntrust customer to be able to apply. However, the bad thing is they don't have pre-qualification link for you to check.