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Hello,
I'm a new resident in the US.
I started to build my credit 4 months ago.
In May I opened a secured credit card with wells fargo with a $300 limit, and since then i only make small purchases (under 9% of my limit) , and i pay in full every month
Recently i took the decision to try and apply for unsecured cards. I applied on the same day for capital one platinum and walmart and i was approved instantly for both ($500 capital one and $400 walmart). With those two cards i plan to do the same and just swipe a small amount every month and pay it in full.
And 2 days ago i opened a contract with AT&T and i was instantly approved with no deposit. I was surprised, because everybody tells me they are hard with people with no credit history.
Anyway my next card i was thinking about is AMEX ZYNC.
When should i apply the earliest? I want to apply for it around December (By then i should have had 7 months of perfect history). I want to still be a member from 2012. What are my chances ? will it be more likely with a hard limit or NPSL ?
Any other suggestions what i should do to improve my credit ?
You can take a shot as soon as your sixth reported payment hits the bureaus; however, I'd wait till November. Like you I wanted to get my Membership date set in 2012, so I was targetting October and then December if I had been denied. The additional inquiry is trivial in the long run, whereas the extra year backdating is meaningful for probably the next 4ish years in my case.
In any event, if you decide to take the two step shot, the latest you want to apply would be mid-December, so count 31 days back from 12/15 or whatever, and pick your initial application date in early November.
A counter offer doesn't matter if you're chasing backdating later, but if you do get a counter, accept it immediately as it'll disappear if you don't take it.
my first card i opened in may 2012
my first statement closed on 13 june 2012 with a due date of july 8th
so when do i hit the 6 month ?
december 8 (my 6th due date) ? or november 13 (my 6th closed statement) ?
When your tradeline reports it's sixth statement. Unless Amex see's that six month it's going to be a marginal application regardless anecdotally.
Use Credit Karma or one of the other free services to see, once that sixth balance is reported, that's when to go apply. That first may have been in May, or it may be June depending on when you activated the account and the specific lender policy; it's probably worth burning your EX report from annualcreditreport.com just to see (since you're going to lose it 1/1/13 if you haven't already).