I have been rebuilding my credit since July of 2016. Had many CO’s and have all of them paid off now including the most recent final payment to AMEX for a Platinum Skymiles Card I had. The final payment was just sent in last month and hasn’t even updated on my credit report (this account ended up being a default judgement). I decided a couple nights ago to see if I pre qualified for any AMEX cards (did this about 2 weeks ago and I wasn’t pre qualified for any). The pre qualify came back and it showed me the Hilton Ascend and the Amex Gold. I went with the Amex Gold and was instantly approved!
I have a family trip coming up and checked the spending power to buy all 4 of our flights and it was approved for the $2500 request too!
A couple data points on this:
FICO Scores:
Equifax - 672
TU - 683
Exp - 674
EDIT: Current UTIL - 7%
12 Late payments on a closed auto loan from 2017 & prior.
5 CO’s that are paid off now. All of them CO in 2016. Paid over the last 3 years.
I went from 2016 - 2019 without any CC’s as I needed to get back to basics and have recently started getting a couple CC’s to help with the rebuild. I am also obsessed with the points and miles game. I travel substantially for work and travel with family 4 - 5 times per year, so paying cash for these trips does me no benefit other than to be disciplined which I can be now with credit again.
The current cards I had prior to the AMEX gold are:
Credit One - $550 limit (don’t use as there is no grace period)
Capital One Quicksilver One - $500 Limit (use this all the time currently for the cash back. Have to make multiple payments a month in order to keep up with spending though, but for a starter card, the cash back is nice)
USAA Classic - $1000
EDIT: Also AU on AA Red Mastercard for work w/ $25K limit.
Hope this info may help someone who may be in a similar situation.
“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough not to quit.”
