Was approved today by the skin of my teeth for membership to the State Department Federal Credit Union and the Premium Cash Back + credit card. 
They pulled Experian, Amex Experian FICO 8 says 780. I had 9 INQ's in last 24 months, 2 in last 12 months. 6 CC's in last 24 months, 2 in last 12 months. Paid off a car loan and got a new one 2 months ago. One mortgage, 11 accounts total. AAoA 2y5m, oldest account 7y1m, no derogs, util ~1% total, $88.5k total available credit. Should probably mention that none of my Business CC's showed up in their pull.
I applied online and uploaded last 2 pay stubs, photos of drivers license, certifacate of membership to American Consumer Council. Told them I was specifically interested in Chip + PIN card in comments.
App'ed on Monday after telling someone else about in Credit Card section of the forum and talking myself into applying for it. They have a system so that you can check your application status online and the next day it as saying "Need more info". I waited for them to reach out until today, Thursday, when I called and asked what the scoop was. Not used to 4 day waits and was getting a little bit of cold feet about apping. They said they my app should be reviewed this afternoon.
I didn't hear anything back so I checked my application status after work and it said I was approved for $5k, which is listed as the lowest limit they would approve for. Not even sure on the APR yet, but I suspect it is the highest, guess we'll see.
Just wanted to give my data points for this card and CU, there aren't too many details on it except hearing that they are really conservative and are not friendly to thick credit files with lots of CC's or high available credit limits. Seems like I just sneaked in. Let me know there is any other details you'd like to know.
Congrats on the approval and thanks for the data points!
Congratulations on your approval!
Congrats on your approval !!!!
Sneaking in with 5k is pretty good imo
Congratulations on your approval...great DP.....
Ok so wanted to update this thread with my experience so far. I was only officially approved for the credit card today, a full 2 weeks later.
I applied for both membership to the CU and the credit card at the same time. The application went out of order; they approved my Credit Card application for $5k 2 weeks ago before approving my membership to the CU. This caused some issues. I had to call a few times to get it sorted, in fact about 4 times all together. So it was a little troubling that my application got lost in the back and that I had to call in myself to get it sorted, but at the same time all the people I talked to were like real human beings who could laugh at a joke and stuff, so that was nice =D
My credit reports are frozen and they were able to use my PIN to pull my Experian credit report for the credit card application. Then they told me I hadn't been approved for CU membership yet and that I would have to completely unfreeze my report for them to pull it again, they couldn't use the PIN. So I unfroze my Experian credit report last week for the next 2 weeks.
This morning I got an email out of nowhere telling me so sign my Credit Card agreement, they gave me lowest APR at 11.24% which I am really happy with (its more an ego thing I guess, I never carry balance =D).
This is where it gets interesting and the reason why this board has had some hit/miss with this CU and this card in particular. At the very bottom they had my credit score listed as 752 from Experian. I thought that a little strange since I knew my Experian FICO 8 at the time was ~780. When reading more carefully it says they use Experian FICO ver. 2 score and the range is from 320-844 and that I was in 58th percentile of US consumers which then deflated my ego a bit LOL.
Not sure what score they used for actual CU membership, and I am not sure that they even did another HQ on my Experian report, one has showed up from SDFCU, but it was the very first when reviewing my credit card app. So not real sure why I had to unfreeze my Experian credit report for them, but no big deal was really easy to do and it will automatically re-freeze.
Hope that DP can help others in the future!
I didn't want to start a new thread, but thought I'd update with my thoughts on Chip + PIN priority card.
I did order this card with Chip + PIN priority and when it came in the mail it said that I could change the PIN online to whatever I'd like. I did this online. In order for this to actually update, though, you have to get the card to do a SIGNATURE transaction first. The PIN will not update unless you do a transaction that bypasses Chip + PIN. This can be a little tricky. It took me my third transaction at a tiny gas station and I told the lady at the counter it might not work. She said "oh that's OK if it doesn't we have this one back here that will take practically anything". She was right, the card reader on the counter didn't accept my PIN and didn't allow me to bypass it, so she took my card and used this old ass one behind the counter and was able to bypass PIN and do a signature transaction.
Next time I used the card it asked for PIN and I put in my updated one and it worked. So it is all setup now, but kind of a little tricky to do at first. I just got a letter in the mail about 8 days after the card with the default PIN for the card, I didn't even know it was coming and thought it a little strange, I coudn't even use the thing until this letter came with the PIN unless I set it myself and was able to update it.
Now when it comes to actual security, I guess the Chip + PIN does allow for some greater sense of it, but it can be bypassed to signature in the states pretty easily and it is not used at all for online purchases. Useful when traveling to Europe, and a little more secure everywhere else, but all-in-all not really an 'must-have' feature.
Congrats on the approval!
