Cards to get before going to garden

[AverageJoesCredit]

Dont let the Store Card lowering your insurance rates scare you from getting a card that could be useful to you. They aren't the Devil, even though they can seem that way if you carry a balance. Of the store cards you listed id say Macys is the biggest grower and can grow fast and mostly with sp increases ime. Even if you dont get the Amex version, they are known to do upgrades that wont create a whole new account. I staryed out as a Store card and was upgraded to the Amex. Good luck OP

[Anonymous]

Why are there red lines through several things?
Good to know Kohls caps at 3k! Thank you
I only thought Macy's was AX. I'm not sure my score is high enough to get that card.
I didn't realize the pre approvals were buckus. I would ultimately like AX and chase as those seem to have the best rewards but ouch those annual fees on some of them. But for the records it would be covered based of my spending.

I have never noticed an increase in my car insurance and I think I have good rates.

I didn't mean I was going to carry a balance on store cards. I just think 500$ limits are small. I am a single mom and I do find the discounts and rewards on the childrens place extremely helpful. At the beginning of growth spurts or seasonal changes when quite a few things need to be purchased that limit gets close to used at around 300$. That is paid within 2-3 months so no the interest doesn't kill me in that time, nor does the UTIL. I would just like it to be higher because I do like to keep mine low.

Congrats on your cards! That is something for me to keep in mind. After I garden 1-2 years my goal was to try for chase after inquiries had dropped off. I currently have 5. 2 being from when I needed a car in may. 1 from this month and 2 from February.

[Anonymous]

Was Macy's a hard store to qualify and if they ask you to apply in store is that considered a pre approval like some other stores?

[AverageJoesCredit]

Ime, Macys isnt too hard to get. I got mine at the begining of my rebuild and started off at $300. I used it very lightly but made it my habit to always pay in full. In the three years ive had it ive gone from $300 Store card to an upgrade to the Amex version with my limit now my largest at $25,000. Amazing part, i dont even make that much. Also Amex offers some good rewards .

[Anonymous]

I put the red lines through them to get your attn.  Store cards are fine and all if you're using them for a specific reason and they pay off in high discounts.  You wan to limit the amount of them though due to them usually ending up being tossed when you get higher CL's on cards you can use everywhere instead of one place (captive). 

Macy's comes in 2 flavors Store and AX... You could probably snag an AX version with a 700+ score.  Applying at the register isn't a pre-approval it's just an app in store.  The only benefit of doing it in store if that if they need to verify your ID you're already there and they'll call up DSNB to push the app through since the person at the register makes a spiff of the app / approval they're incentivized to push the cards to each person they work with.

AX and AMEX though are 2 different creatures.... cards that run on the AX network are issued by a ton of different banks.  The Amex cards you apply for directly are the ones I was referring to.  If you go to https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/?category=all  and find something to your liking and spend pattern you're better off. The direct Amex cards have large growth potential and are based off your Experian scores which is what I was looking at.  Even if you got approved for 1K CC with Amex directly you could see it grow significantly in a short time period and it's also a Major Bank vs the store versions or co-brand AX network cards.

You don't need to pay an AF to get value... the AF subsidizes the higher payouts but, then you have to spend $$$ to make up for the initial AF costs before you start to profit from the enhanced earnings.  

High insurance rates are a combination of the claims where you reside and the credit information they're using to assess increased premiums.  Always shop around when you're coming up for renewals as it tends to save you some money.  I've cut hundreds off my insurance renewals just by shopping around and I go for the annual policies like AAA and mutual companies.  This last go round I ended up with Geico which for me is odd because they tended to have the higher rates than everyone else but for whatever reason they came in $150 lower than my renewal offer with AAA.  

$500 limits are what you tend to land with store accounts if you have a thinner file and lower scores.  Fighting your way out of them isn't going to work with adding more of them though.  Going with more mainstream options is how you get out of the low limits and into better cards.  It takes a little more effort and focus to get the better cards rather than an easy approval for 10 store cards.  If you want examples lookup the SCT threads where there was an avalanche of store cards being issued by Commenity w/ SP approvals and then a couple of years ago they all started to get shutdown.  Sync did the same thing with the Blue Envelope method of income verification or high CL's w/ lack of usage.

Understanding you're dealing with kids and needing to swap out the whole closet every 6 months is taxing at the least and burden at the most.  Keeping 1 or 2 store cards that give hefty discounts is ideal... so, taking that into account you might want to look at the Rakuten card which is Sync backed and stacks savings on in store purchases at all the stores you have mentioned but, it's a Visa and not restricted to a single chain like the others. Since it's Sync backed there's a ton of potential for boosting the CL easily with a SP.  I would aim for this instead and consider dropping the others.  You'll have 3 major MC/V/Disco cards and that's more ideal from a scoring perspective.  Cutting the store cards might get a boost in the insurance scores when they fade off into the past but, insurance scoring also takes into account the new accounts and such as well.  

Ok... so, Chase... 5/24 is the rule... 5 NEW CC accounts not inquireies in the last 24 month rolling period is how it works.  If you are over it there's still ways to get a card from them though.  If you have Credit Journey aka credit monitoring they will sometimes slide in some offers for cards, while they're not as highly rated for approval they're a bit of an indicator they want your business.  Simply drop by a branch if you have an open savings account or checking account and ask if they have any cc offers and they can pull up all the cards you're eligible for.  In branch approvals are as close to guaranteed as they get.

I know this is a lot of info to take in and parse through but, it's worthwhile to take a step back and think about things .

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the info! Guess I'll hold off on chase for longer than I thought.
My scores just came up a few days ago
Ex-673
Tu-664
Eq-655

I try to follow the AZEO method. Where else are methods like this listed?