Credit App Strategy

[daveg38]

Having either lurked or gotten advice from these forums for quite some time, I know I can count on the collective intelligence of myFico users.

That said, I am trying to help my girlfriend plan a strategy for apping.

Right now, she's showing a Capital One generated score of 615. 

She has a perfect payment history, and currently has PayPal Smart Connect ($750), Craptial One ($750, didn't ask if it was a credit steps card), Credit One ($600?) and Amazon Store Credit ($1400).

I'm gonna help drop her util. to roughly 22% across the board, let a few inquiries pass (they came from a loan application).

Questions I have:

1) Best time to ask for Cappy 1 luv?

2) Best Card to apply for that would give a higher limit (BT the Credit One and shut it down?)

3) Is Amex out of the question?

Or should she shoot for Citi/Chase/Discover products instead?

[Anonymous]

I'm really too new here to give advice about app sprees but I can tell you that the Cap1 score provided is not a Fico and cannot be taken into consideration. My TU Fico is about 50 points higher than the Cap1 score provided. Those scores are the same as Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, etc. All Fakos. You could always pull her Fico scores from this site and go from there!

[gh17]

How long is her credit history?  Any negatives at all?  Why did she get Credit One in the first place?  (Just didn't know about better options..?)

Capital One tends to be hesistant to give credit limit increases, from what I understand.  I was able to get an increase, but it just came randomly through email and I don't think it was related to my recent clicks of the online button.  Definitely wait until utilization is as low as possible, and do it before any credit card applications.  Best case would be to wait for inquiries to be >1 year.

How recent are applications for the current cards?  If her history is all very new, continuing to apply for cards in the short term will probably only yield low limits.  Building history is probably best.

If there are no negatives, she'd probably benefit from having a card from one of the major banks (BofA, Citi, Chase, etc) and should be able to be approved.  Can't promise anything, but Discover It may be a good option - I've heard that they give higher limits to people with mostly low limits (and sometimes give lower limits to people with many high limit cards), and it's not too hard to get/has good rewards.  Based on the information you gave, Amex shouldn't be out of the question - but the current card lineup and score (even though it's not FICO) given a "perfect payment history" makes me wonder if something else is going on or if her credit history is really new or what.

[gh17]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I'm really too new here to give advice about app sprees but I can tell you that the Cap1 score provided is not a Fico and cannot be taken into consideration. My TU Fico is about 50 points higher than the Cap1 score provided. Those scores are the same as Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, etc. All Fakos. You could always pull her Fico scores from this site and go from there!

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Yep - my Credit Karma/Capital One score is 737, but my FICO is 767, as another data point.  My real scores tend to be consistently higher - but others have had theirs be consistently lower.

I don't know if I'd recommend buying a credit score though, just be aware that what you're looking at may not be accurate.  Having a score isn't going to help you know whether you could be approved for something any more than having a full report and credit history will.

[daveg38]

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@gh17 wrote:

How long is her credit history?  Any negatives at all?  Why did she get Credit One in the first place?  (Just didn't know about better options..?)

Capital One tends to be hesistant to give credit limit increases, from what I understand.  I was able to get an increase, but it just came randomly through email and I don't think it was related to my recent clicks of the online button.  Definitely wait until utilization is as low as possible, and do it before any credit card applications.  Best case would be to wait for inquiries to be >1 year.

How recent are applications for the current cards?  If her history is all very new, continuing to apply for cards in the short term will probably only yield low limits.  Building history is probably best.

If there are no negatives, she'd probably benefit from having a card from one of the major banks (BofA, Citi, Chase, etc) and should be able to be approved.  Can't promise anything, but Discover It may be a good option - I've heard that they give higher limits to people with mostly low limits (and sometimes give lower limits to people with many high limit cards), and it's not too hard to get/has good rewards.  Based on the information you gave, Amex shouldn't be out of the question - but the current card lineup and score (even though it's not FICO) given a "perfect payment history" makes me wonder if something else is going on or if her credit history is really new or what.

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Great points!

First of all, I believe the credit is a 'rebirth' (you know, it was used before, ended on good terms then restarted after 'x' years).  So when she applied, it was like the aforementioned cards were all approved simultaneously.  Amazon gave her an auto CLI (nearly doubled).  I told her I wanted her to find a decent card so she can BT the Credit One balance off and close it down before the AF hit.

Of all INQ's she has (9), I believe 5 or 6 came when she app'd for a loan.  One was a Chase denial (too early) and another was BofA (too early).  Yes, I looked at her file - it's pretty clean (although I think she reported a low income) and has a perfect history of payments.  Only destructive things are utilization (currently hitting 70%) and AAoA.

I really favor Discover and Amex because they seem to be customer service oriented whereas Citibank and BofA (an American Bank with non-American reps) seem to be less 'kind'.

I'm also trying to teach her how to enforce her desires through the backdoor number - she's of the opinion that 'no means no' and not 'no means call backdoor for a yes'.

[coldnmn]

If she hasn't done so in the last year have her pull her free credit reports from annualcreditreport.com. That way we have a better idea how to help. It doesn't give the scores but answers all the other questions. With the information you have given so far a prime lender like AMEX will be a denial. The only card she may have a chance with is Barclay for average credit after recon if denied. Capital one SP CLIs every 6 months.

[lonelyisland]

If she can get her UTIL down to 25% or less, and there are no baddies, go AMEX Everyday. Once that reports for 6 months, her options will be be much broader.