My husband and I joined NFCU recently.
(That said, we wish we had known about the May Military Appreciation Month bonus for being referred by an existing member and getting a bonus $50 for your savings account. Leaving this note here for someone else to find. Totally would have waited for May for the extra $. That promotion (at least in 2017) seems to be good for military and government contractors and their depedants, for future reference.)
We're preparing for a mortgage application in 3 years and wanted to make sure we each had 3 TLs in our files.
He had a thin credit file but high 700/low 800 FICO 8 scores. I have similar scores, but a much thicker file.
He applied for a CashRewards card online and was not instantly approved. He got the request for more information, turns out he's filled out the monthly income with his annual income amoutn. After that was cleared up he received a text message stating he was approved for a $24K starting CL and 10.4% APR.
Next, he applied (over the phone this time) for the often recommended Checking LOC for the 15K max and we added my name to application. It was instantly approved.
Since we were on a roll, and I'd read how generous NFCU was, I decided to apply for a Cash Rewards card as well.
I already have 2 TLs with decent credit lines, between 15-19K each. But this was the first time I was applying as a SAHM.
I applied over the phone. The agent didn't think I could use household income - but I'd read up on the law and had him put the application through anyway.
I was not instantly approved.
Two days later I received a secure message stating I was approved, but the offer was a paltry $500 credit line but with a 10.4% APR .
After we stopped laughing at the offer, I started to get offended (given my other credit card limits, my credit score and my excellent credit history) then I remembered what I'd read here about recons and decided to give it a go - the same day I received the offer.
I didn't see anyone talking about recon-ing a starting credit line, which is why I'm leaving this post.
I used secure messaging to leave a polite letter indicating that I was pleased with the approval but disappointed with the SCL. I explained why I applied for the card and how I intended to use it (recurring bill payments). I stressed that I had more than reasonable acces to our household income as I deal with our bills. I expressed that I would have a very difficult time meeting the initial spending bonus requirements with such a low credit line. I also threw out there that I have Signature VISA from USAA. I did NOT ask for a specific credit line, and instead said I wanted enough to make use of the benefits of the card and the initial bonus. I was super polite. I also stated that I was not authorizing yet another hard pull for the reconsideration because they'd alreay done it 4 times since we joined.
I sent that off just before midnight the same day I received the offer. I didn't expect to hear back from them for several days. Much to my surprise I got a not back the very next day asking for some more specifics - what my husbands income was, how do I have access to it and how much was available to pay bills with. I replied, again not expecting to hear back for a few days and this time had a response in less than 30 minutes.
My $500 CL was reconned to $20k, effective immediately.
So yes, hard pull happy NFCU got me 4x (with TU to join plus EQ [I believe for the CLOC] & TU again [twice before I even submitted the recon] for the CC applications)
But I've added a 15K LOC and a 20K Visa to my profile bringing me to 3 or 4 TLs total - not sure if the LOC reports as revolving. I know the hard pulls will drop off a year before it's time to apply for a mortgage, so I'm not that worried about them. In addition, since we might consider NFCU as a lender for our VA Loan we thought it would be good to establish a history with them ahead of time.
Thank you to all the people who have posted about NFCU in the past, I wouldn't have had the balls to do my first recon without the missives that have been left here by those who came before me. xx
