@Anonymous wrote:
Is there a reason why you are waiting until January to apply for the new CC? If it's something you are going to apply for regardless, I'd recommend applying now. The reason is that while you have the inquiry from the auto loan on your reports already, the account definitely hasn't reported yet. Once the account reports, your score will drop a little due to the addition of a "new account" as well as a reduction to AAoA (if you cross a threshold). You may have lost a couple of points from the inquiry, but when the account reports you could possibly lose say 10-15 more. Rest assured that any additional points lost will return in several months (likely 6 or less).
Another thing you didn't mention is where your aggregate utilization sits between those 3 cards that you have now. If it's relatively high, but could be significantly lower by next month, I'd say that factor is more important than this new loan account and holding off on apping would be better next month. If you give us a little more feedback about the details of your file we can better guide you.
BBS makes some great points as usual. The only slight caveat I'd give is that the inquiry won't actually begin affecting his credit score for another 29 days. See this language from FICO:
"... FICO Scores ignore mortgage, auto, and student loan inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring."
http://www.myfico.com/credit-education/credit-checks/credit-report-inquiries/
Other than that tiny tweak, his advice is spot on.
As he says, if your CC utilization is very low now (< 8.99%), then it makes sense to apply now, before the new account appears and before the inquiry begins to affect your score.
If your CC utilization is NOT ultralow, and you have money to pay your cards down, then it likely makes sense to do that first.
The answer for how the new account will affect your score is that it will hurt it for a while. Beyond just the usual hit to your average age of accounts and so forth, there may be a hit associated with your installment loan balances. Right now your open installment debt is partly paid off (you owe 72%). After the new installment account appears, however, almost none of your combined installment debt will be paid off (you'll be well over 91%). For complicated reasons I am guessing that in your case this hit will be zero, but it conceivably could be more.
Bottom line is that the advice from BBS is great. Circle back with us and tell us what the amount owed is for the three cards as it appears on your credit reports. The ideal place you want to be is with two of the three cards at $0 and one with a small-ish amount (less than $100 say).
