question about Capital One (and other CC) evaluation of excellent credit

[Anonymous]

I am helping my MIL with her finances.  She has always had excellent credit, but decided a number of years ago to get rid of all of her credit cards and to only use her debit card because she thought it was a good financial decision.  She doesn't have a car loan or a mortgage, because she has paid cash for these.  She travels a lot now (spending months at a time abroad), and so we have been trying to get her a Capital One CC to avoid the foreign transation fees.  Because she had no recent credit history, the best we could do is to get her a secured credit card.  

We want to move on to getting her a regular Capital One CC, but all the ones without fees seem to require "excellent" credit.  This is where I start to get confused.  My MILs FICO score is 747, which I thought was excellent, or close to excellent.  If I play around with one of the FICO score simulators, I can find no actions that would raise my MILs FICO score.  But if you click on Capital One's description of "excellent credit", it says that one has to already have a credit line of at least $5000 in order for one's credit to be considered excellent.  Because some of her closed CC accounts are still on her credit report, my MILs oldest credit line is over 20 years old, but her current credit amount is limited by the credit limit on the secured CC card ($3000).  So I'm wondering what my MIL should do.  

I don't know when her oldest credit account will disappear from her credit report (since it is closed), but I know that when it does her credit will look worse.  It seems that we need to get her current available credit amounts up, but I don't want to hurt her credit score even more with additional inquiries.  It seems to be that Capital One will reject her for a "regular" card for people with "excellent" credit because she doesn't have at least $5000 in credit right now, but I'm not sure that opening up more than one account, each with a smaller credit limit, simply to try to get over this limit would be a good idea, because dosen't opening up multiple new accounts also hurt your credit score?

I'm hoping that someone here might have some advice about the best plan of action for her?  The longterm goal here is for her to have a credit score that better reflects her financial situation (which is sound, and has been for many decades), despite the fact that she previously closed all of her credit accounts.  I don't think she will be taking out a mortgage or a car loan at any point in the future, but the main goal right now is just to have some credit cards that don't charge foreign exchange fees (and that have a high enough credit limit that she could buy international flights and pay for hotels, etc, without going over her credit limit.  

Thanks in advance for reading my post, and for any advice!

[Anonymous]

You can do the pre-qualifyer sites and it is not a hard pull.    With a 747 she should be able to get some approvals.

Try AMEX :  https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/?intlink=USHP-LFC-PersonalCards-Large

With her using cash for everything, she should have no trouble using the AMEX charge which is paid off each month but gives good rewards and benefits and will help her ith a history.    With her score she should be able to get the Amex...she may even be able to get an Amex charge and revolver both.  And if she had an AMEX back when she did use credit cards, they will backdate her member since date back to that original card issue date after she opens the new one....if so, once she has an online account set up go onto chat and ask them to change the member since date to the original date.  

Discover's is here:  https://www.discovercard.com/application/fmo?execution=e1s1.  They may ask her to call for verification since it hs been awhile since she apped.

There are more if you check this site there is nothing but excellent advice all over.

And, if she has paid cash for everything including house and car and all her traveling - she probably has a great rapport with her bank.  Have her go in to see a banker there and see about a credit card and/or LOC.  Have her tell them that with traveling so much, and so many security breaches in the news these days, she would feel more comfortable now using a credit card vs her debit abroad.  A LOC would report and she would have it sitting as a reserve but would show as an open line and give her a bit of a 'mix'.  

With a couple of these, in a few months she should increase her score having an active history and be able to take her choice of the best rewards.

Doors have opened for me in a huge way in the past 3 months and that is with having some baddies still haunting my reports.  She has none, it should happen pretty quickly with a showing of a little recent history.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply, MrsRecoveryBound.  I didn't originally find any prequalified cards, but tried again just now and found one through Chase.  She doesn't have a closed Amex card on her credit report, but her oldest closed account was with Citibank (opened 25 years ago) and next oldest was with Bank of America (opened 20 years ago) followed by Chase (opened 10 years ago).  Is there any chance one of these companies might be willing to use her original opening date on any new credit accounts?

I will also call Citibank and ask them about how their lines of credit work, since she has a checking account there.  I'm hoping they can tell us whether she might be approved and for how much, without doing a hard pull?  Unfortunately all her banking was previously with a very small town bank where she used to live, so she closed that account and transfered everything to Citibank about four years ago, which has been fine, but they don't have a longstanding relationship with her.  Her other assests are with mutual funds like Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.  

I'm also not sure to what extent it is good for her future credit prospects to open up new accounts?  This seems to be a catch-22, or am I misunderstanding?  She needs higher credit limits on currently open accounts in order for her to become more creditworthy, but on the other hand opening up new accounts can lower her credit scores because of the hard pulls and because opening up several accounts recently also looks bad, is this correct?

It is also a bit frustrating, because what we want is a card with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees.  But the ones that she qualifies for now don't fit that description, meaning that we can open them to build up her credit, in order to later get a capital one card that does fit the bill, but then we will have to close these again (where they have annual fees) because she doesn't want to use them longterm.  Not sure if someone here has a better idea?

[Anonymous]

I am currently rebuilding but have been 'addicted' to reading this forum and it gives a lot of information.

With her score over 700, there are a lot of reviews on here about DCU.  They seem to be very good at starting out good CLs on their cards.  It does require you become a member (but you can do that by giving a one time contribution to one of their charities when you apply for a checking or savings for membership - I just did it for $10).  I have done a lot of apps in the past 3 months so I am gardening but, figured if I open a bank account with them and make some deposits to save when I come out of the garden and show no apps for 6 months I am going to try them as I wil have revolving use history and pifs.

 And a lot of people on here apply first for credit and then confirm membership after approval.

Here is their cc link for the Rewards Card:   https://www.dcu.org/loans/visa-rewards.html

And here is their home page:  https://www.dcu.org/index.html

If you think they would be a good match I would CALL them to apply, alot of people I have seen on here do that too.......that way, you can actually be talking to a live credit analyst and she can explain that she owns her house and car because she had the financial insight to plan ahead and paid cash for both.  Then explain with traveling so much for work, needs a good credit line to use abroad for security purposes.  By being able to explain her extremely controlled savings ability to meet goals, you will have someone actually listening to her financial responsibility, not a computer just looking at the slim CR.

Good LUCK!!!

When you app for the membership account, they will ask you to upload your DL, a utility bill to match the name and address, and probably SS card.

Search DCU on these forums, they have been giving $5000 to people with lower scores and thin files etc.  

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Oh for some of the notes on your post;    BoA, Citi etc don't reopen closed accounts.   However, if she has a Chase approval, they DO allow Product Changes and I shifting of credit limits between their own cards from what I see on this forum.  Meaning if she is approved for Chase, I would take it;  keep growing her credit history with them and later she should be able to apply and get approved for one of the 'target cards you'd prefer' and likely shift the CL to the newer product.  Again, this forum is LOADED with people who do these things and how to get that done when the time comes!!