Hi all,
Newbie here (to credit and the forums). I'm 31, and recently realized I needed to get my act together and start building my credit, as up until now I have no credit history whatsoever. (No student loans, no cards, no nothing.) In September of 2019, I got a secured Capital One card ($200 limit, $50 deposit), and have been using it judiciously since then. I was expecting a CLI after my February statement posted thanks to their Credit Steps program, but it didn't show up at that point. I called to ask a CSR if there was a reason for that, and was told that it would actually be scheduled for after my April statement.
In the end, that proved to be untrue, as I just checked my app this morning and found a new credit limit of $500 waiting for me! (Working backwards, it looks like it showed up now as I just paid my fifth full-month statement - the first one only covered my first few weeks with the card.)
I'm not planning to use the card anymore, as just a few weeks ago I was approved for a Discover It Chrome ($2,750 CL) and there doesn't seem to be any use in putting charges on the card that won't graduate beyond this or give me rewards, but I'm happy to have that little bump to reduce my utilization %. (Thank you all for the information - I was lurking on the forum for a few weeks gathering information before even trying the Discover preapproval and then applying!)
Forgive me if tacking a question onto this is inappropriate, but I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to get another card now as well. I'm committed to primarily/only using the Discover this year to maximize the first year cashback bonus, but would it be judicious to add another vanilla-ish card that I can get approved for now, to improve my AAoA when I'm looking to get into a more productive ecosystem like Chase down the road? Out of curiosity I applied for the Apple Card on my phone (thanks, soft pull), and was offered a $4,000 credit limit - would accepting this offer and sock drawering the card for now help me later on, or does it seem like a fruitless hard pull?
Thank you again for all the CC wisdom!
