@KanesInferno wrote:
A little background, I used to have a 800+ score until a bunch of life events and major medical expenses happened. It put me into debt consolidation and rebuild mode. I spent the last 3 and a half years settling debt and the only cards I've gotten were Home Depot, Shell, and Exxon (in December of 2020 for Shell and Exxon and April 2021 for Home Depot, all were store versions) and kept a Valero card for about 6 years now (only card that wasn't closed during the rebuild). My scores dropped to around 500. I've now settled all of the debt except one loan (hope to next year). My scores finally starting rising to between 640-690 depending on the burea in the last 6+ months and I decided to start applying for cards again. I'm shocked and excited by my luck! I have a long way to go and some of these limits aren't what I want but this is my rebuilding journey and I don't plan to apply for any other cards for 3+ years and just work on getting these limits up.
It all started with AARP advertising the Barclays card to me, with all of the medical/prescription expenses I now permanently have I decided to give it a shot and was approved! After that I decided to go on a spree, knowing I wouldn't apply for anything else after this for a long time.
A couple of interesting things to note:
1. Only one I didn't get that I applied for was Citi Custom Cash, I made a thread about it but I essentially sent a request to cancel my app after an insane process that I didn't agree with. After that is when I applied for additional cards (FNBO/Credit One Amex/Amex BCE) instead, if I had gotten the Citi card I wouldn't have applied for more.
2. I tried the prequalify at AMEX many times throughout the last two months and wasn't given any offers, finally it advised me to apply for Credit One AMEX at 1% rewards but within the Credit Karma app it was offering me a Credit One AMEX at 5% rewards, so I took that one instead. Literally after receiving, activating, and using it once... two days later I check AMEX for prequalified offers and had like four offers listed. So, now I have their Blue Cash Everday card! This is the card I wanted initially and think it's weird that it's showing up now. I know others on the forums have speculated but I do think the Credit One relationship opens the door with American Express, maybe I'm wrong but judging from my experience it seems to matter.
Below are the approvals and limits in the order I got them, this is all over the last about 55 days:
Barclays AARP Essential - $1,500
Discover it - $8,000
Wells Fargo Reflect - $4,000
FNBO Evergreen - $500
Credit One AMEX (5% not the 1%) - $1,000
AMEX Blue Cash Everyday - $500
I know many others have much better cards and limits but for me this is exciting. I also plan to keep all of these (except maybe credit one, I may close it next year, not decided yet) for a long time and will just build my relationship and profile with these companies. Hopefully the limits for FNBO and AMEX increase before the year mark.
Just wanted to share my story with some data points in hopes of helping others, also share my excitement! If anyone has any other questions about data points I will do my best to answer.
Congratulations on your road back and your diligence to get there.
