Credit One, Ulta Store Card and Capital One

[Anonymous]

Hi. I have read through posts without an account for a while now but today decided to create one as I have a question. Ok, I have a LOT of questions. I have a Credit One credit card with a $900 limit. I've paid it down to 0 but now I keep getting the monthly fee which is annoying because I just want to use the card occassionally and pay it off. I have 5 credit cards right now:

Capital 1 Quicksilver: I've had it 2 years. I have a 0 balance and a 500 credit limit. I should be due for an increase as it is part of the steps. But I am not 100% sure. I requested and it said my utilization had been too high (it had been) but I paid it off last month. 

Capital 1 Quicksilver 1: I've had it a year and 7 months. I have a balance of 673.88 and a 1000 credit limit. I will have it paid off by February 7th so it is going down a substantial amount each paycheck.

Ulta Store Card: I've had it 9 months. I have 0 balance and a 250 credit limit. I make a purchase every few months and pay it off immediately.

Credit One: I've had it a year and 9 months. I have 0 balance and a 900 credit limit.

Home Credit Sprint Credit Card: I've had it a year and a half. I have a 0 balance and a 500 limit.

I have gotten my score to increase substantially so far so I don't want to drop the 2nd highest limit card but I also don't want to pay a monthly fee on it each month. Ulta keeps denying me an increase due to not having a home loan? The Sprint card is also being stubborn. I don't want to get rid of that one because I get a % back when I use it to pay my Sprint bill and then I can apply the % to my bill to pay less on my Sprint bill so its nice for me for now. My score is 620 on credit karma right now. I recently bought a car in August. I have a lot of new credit but should I close Credit One now? Should I wait to see if I can get an increase for my Capital One? Credit Karma tells me my approval odds are good for a Target Redcard. Should I shoot for that and close Credit One? I wouldn't do that until my Quicksilver 1 is paid off because of how high utilization is right now. Are there any tips for the Ulta Credit Card? I don't understand why it keeps saying that I don't qualify because I don't have a mortgage - I've never gotten OR seen that reason for denial (I work in the student loan industry and frequenly audit Adverse Action Letters) so it's weird to me!

Please give me some insight on next steps! My score keeps slowly increasing but I don't know what else I should do as far as credit cards go. I have no pre-approvals/pre-qualifications for any good cards - no capital one, discover, etc. Should I try for a store card?

[HeavenOhio]

Dump Credit One. It's not helping you enough to offset the annoyances.

Call Capital One and see if you have an upgrade offer on the QuicksilverOne. Be forewarned that these cards are notoriously difficult to upgrade, but it's been done. Consecutive months of usage seems to help, and you would have a good start on that if you've been paying down a balance each month.

If there isn't an upgrade available today, call in each month to see if an offer has appeared. Once you've paid off your balance, continue to use your card at least once each month and make a payment. I believe it's having a payment in each statement period that constitutes "consecutive." I was able to PC (product-change) two QS1s after about 12 or 13 consecutive months of usage.

Also note that ideally, you'd be offered an upgrade to a Quicksilver. But if your only offer is to upgrade to a VentureOne, take it. At least you'll have lost the fee. And because VentureOnes are reasonably easy to PC, chances are that you'll be able to upgrade to a Quicksilver down the road.

[Anonymous]

I had a Platinum after months ago and was able to get to the Quicksilver. I just got a line increase on the Quicksilver 1 in August, I think? So I know I'll need to wait to get that switched over. Dropping the 900 credit limit card won't make my credit score go down too much, will it?

[HeavenOhio]

When you do an upgrade, nothing changes except for the card's three-digit verification code and (usually) the expiration date. Card number, APR, and CLI eligibility remain the same. The ability to get a product change isn't dependent on previous credit limit increases. And it doesn't seem to be very dependent on good cardholder behavior either.

For most of Capital One's cards, the most significant obstacle to getting a PC offer is a recent PC. Upgrade offers won't appear until the most recent PC on that card is at least six months old.

Limits don't affect scores in and of themselves. Any scoring changes would be due to a change in utilization, i.e. a change in limits can indirectly affect scores. You can deal with this by keeping tighter reins on your balances until your limits increase again.

By the way, welcome!

[Rudy1]

As HeavnOhio said dumb credit one I still have them for one reason and that is I have not paid it off yet but I aim to pay off and close. Credit one is just not good in general.

[NoMoreE46]

Go for the Red card when ever you are ready. Keep in mind most SLs are low- like under $1000. Some claim a better success rate if you apply in store.

Good luck and Welcome to myfico forums!

[Anonymous]

OP, please do two things:

1) pay $1 at www.creditchecktotal.com to get your FICO scores. You need these to assess how creditors see you. The scores on CK are not used by lenders and are essentially useless. You can use CK to watch your reports but pay zero attention to the scores they offer, as they're calculated by an algorithm that lenders do not use. At times these scores may line up with your FICO scores but other times they'll diverge by 100 points or more. FICO scores matter, those don't.

2) ignore the recommendations and approval odds from sites like CK - they get referral fees every time someone apps for a card through them, so it's in their best interests to tell you whatever they have to in order to get you to apply. If you want your odds, go to the lender's site and prequalify there.

[AverageJoesCredit]

+10000000000 @Anonymous

These are the two biggest things that needed to be said. We need your actual scores to advise because through those numbers comes our experience

Almost any credit card sites recommendations are going to be hogeash as they get paid to push credit cards. Riddle me this? How does CK recommend an Amex when they have no access to Ex? Smh. Use ck to monitor your reports.

Realistically you have 3 credit cards with your store card and Capitol Ones so you could dump Credit Ones now but if you actually need the limits.....with your scores known we might be able to recommend another card to replace those peski credit ones. Thanks for posting, good luck

[GApeachy]

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@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
 Riddle me this? How does CK recommend an Amex when they have no access to Ex? Smh. 

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Lol!  Never thought about that...good point!

[Anonymous]

That IS a great point and serves to underscore what we know - CK will tell you anything to get you to apply with them.