Amex or Discover

[Trudy]

I appreciate ALL of your input.  I LOVE THIS COMMUNITY!!!

@staticvoidmain and @RealityBites, an earlier post states I focused on these 2 because it seemed through my readings on this forum that they gave relatively good starting limits that can grow quickly and felt my recent experience and profile had little chance with bank cards. 

@AllZero, I actually have a savings and checking account I opened with BECU when the car dealership a few years ago stated they would finance my loan but ended up going through HAPO at a better rate, so I'm in for that reason and/or living in Seattle???  I haven't touched the accounts since I opened them with a 1K deposit (checking & savings) 3+years ago when I purchased my car.  I did so wanting to pay my loan online.  I'll check with them again.

@credit_is_crack.  I'm still curious about thin vs not thin file based on my response to your original post. Will you elaborate?  I'll take a look at your suggestions, thank you!

[HeavenOhio]

Get an AMEX card now. After you achieve the sign-up bonus and after requesting your 61-day CLI, apply for Discover. Then garden for a year while using that year to earn your Discover cashback match.

With AMEX, you'd need to decide which rewards program appeals to you, e.g. cash, membership rewards (MR) points, Skypesos, etc. Then you can choose a card that best fits your spending. I believe that Discover cards are all basically cashback. You'd simply look at how a particular card might best fit your spending.

[credit_is_crack]

From what you described, you have at least 3-4 cards stuck at their limits (out of a small pool of total cards), but I’m not sure if those are stuck in low limits. By thin I mean that if a bank were to ask “how fast could this person snowball debt?”, then they’d look at how much available credit you have now.

Now anyone can snowball debt quickly, but on paper it looks like a higher risk to give someone who doesn’t already have an abundance of credit available. They want to take your high earning business away from the competitor, but it the profile doesn’t look like there’s much to take away, then it could be viewed as thin.

The good thing you have going is age of accounts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean (to a bank) that you’d be up to the challenge of managing a high limit card right off the bat. Most banks will quasi-match other cards you already have. If the average isn’t already high, then I wouldn’t expect a high role out. You just have to target a bank who isn’t afraid to be that first to take the leap. Does that make sense? I know it’s overly complicated, but I’ve learned a thing or two growing my cards by trial and error. I can only speak for myself and as always YMMV. Keep us posted if you take the leap!