What is a good card I should qualify for?

[Anonymous]

Hi all! Long time lurker, 2nd time poster!

I've jumped up almost 100 points across the board following the advice of this board, and I'm looking to finally add another "prime" card to my credit file to increase my overall limits and show a bit more worthiness to lenders.

I currently have a few small limit cards through the shopping cart trick, but would like a Visa or MC to add variety of where I can actually utilize cards. I currently have a Quicksilver with $1,500 and a Platinum secured with $600. Run rate as of last report is 70% utilization (I run high and pay balance off in full after the statement day on the advice of this board to prompt credit increase (it worked as my Quicksilver was originally $500 and got increased to $1500 on my 3rd month).

I have zero baddies and 100% on time payments. 

Any recommended cards? I'm in Maryland and my scores are in my signature.

[Anonymous]

With those scores you likely won't get anything worthwhile, and the SCT will come back to bite you in the long run because of too many accounts already.  You are better off going for a secured card (BofA, Capital One, or Discover) and letting it grow and graduate.  Then a year or two down the road, see about applying for prime cards.   After which I would cancel the store cards (I've already canceled Walmart since acquiring Discover and Chase and having history with them).

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the advice, I will absolutely follow this recommendation. On the secured card side who do you recommend most?

[jbsea]

One more thing.... Dont let your utl report so high.  you want it to report somewhere between 1% - 9%.  Otherwise it looks like your using all your credit.  You will see a bump in your score when you bring it down.

[stellar]

Bank of America-graduates 12m or les

Navy Federal CreditUnion (if you have military connection)-graduates 12m

Citibank-graduates 18m

USBank Harley Davidson-graduates 12m

Discover-graduates

[Anonymous]

citibank 

discover 

certain credit unions. navy fed is easy if youre in with them

[Anonymous]

Should I pay balance in full before statements are cut then? I've only run my utilization up and PIF because I read Capital One gives increases quicker this way.

[Anonymous]

I started with my QS1.. Now I am still a newbie here but I found that Cap1 loves heavy usage and multiple payments. Until last week (and as far as the CRA's see) I still have the one card. I don't PIF myself, I keep it at 9% or below because I want them to see usage... So I pay it several times during the month and make sure to get it to that 9% or below usually before my payment due date... or at the very latest before statement cut date.

With my 3 cards now since I don't plan to app to anything for at least a few months.... I'll be leaving one card at <9% and probably put a little bit of balance on the other 2 to show some usage. Closer to an app though I will be leaving one card at <9% to try and min/max scores.. (though it's not 100%). 

It's very YMMV obviously, depending on your credit file, income, etc... and there's no concrete way to tell what type and if/when you'll get the CLI's. 

[Anonymous]

Having your utilization report 30% and below is adequate to get your score up! But I agree with having to garden those cards for now and wait till you get your scores up to apply for prime lenders. Having borderline 700 scores across all the boards will help you - along with other factors as having little to none inquiries, good payment history and low utilization. I would say wait a year or so and then apply for those prime lenders you want!

[Anonymous]

How important is it to have multiple cards? I'm fairly new to even having credit cards as I always stayed away from them as I've always had a good cash flow.

It wasn't until recently when I started looking into home buying that I realized my score was in the 500s from never having anything on my file except for a speeding ticket that went into collections (disputed and removed).

Is there an ideal number of cards to have for mix of credit? I currently have 1 closed car loan, 1 closed bank loan, 1 open bank loan, 1 open car loan, 2 open credit cards, 3 open store cards.