Minimum FICO score required for lowest interest rate cards for AMEX, Discover & Sync?

[IcyCool7227]

So there are 3 cards I am hoping to obtain by the end of this year but not sure when I should go for it. First though, I have a Chase Freedom Flex card that by October 4th it will be 6 months old but I am still at 5/24 so not sure if I would be eligible for a CLI. If I apply and get more cards would that delay getting a CLI from Chase? It's still at the toy limit of $500 and I will not be under 5/24 until after the first of next year (but I don't want that long).

The cards I am interested is AMEX BCE, my own Discover It Cashback cc, & Synchrony's PayPal Cashback Mastercard again. I am going to hold off on the PayPal card because with the Freedom Flex I see that PayPal will be 5% October - December so perhaps that card should wait until next year. But what is the minimum score with all 3 issuers in order to achieve the lowest assigned interest rate? Hopefully somebody knows.

[FireMedic1]

Higher the scores, the lower the risk, and lower interest rates. No set formula for each. Some will have the same APR long as your in their radar range.

[nytokyobred79]

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@IcyCool7227 wrote:

So there are 3 cards I am hoping to obtain by the end of this year but not sure when I should go for it. First though, I have a Chase Freedom Flex card that by October 4th it will be 6 months old but I am still at 5/24 so not sure if I would be eligible for a CLI. If I apply and get more cards would that delay getting a CLI from Chase? It's still at the toy limit of $500 and I will not be under 5/24 until after the first of next year (but I don't want that long).

The cards I am interested is AMEX BCE, my own Discover It Cashback cc, & Synchrony's PayPal Cashback Mastercard again. I am going to hold off on the PayPal card because with the Freedom Flex I see that PayPal will be 5% October - December so perhaps that card should wait until next year. But what is the minimum score with all 3 issuers in order to achieve the lowest assigned interest rate? Hopefully somebody knows.

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With regards to Chase, I tend to think YMMV and also, it may depend on what your profile was like when you initially obtained the card as well. For example, in the case of my CSR, I kept getting rejected for soft pull CLIs for almost a year until I got to exactly 5/24. I got cli's before when I they were hard pulls from Chase. They kept referencing new accts as the rejection reason. So maybe not the 5/24 as much as the timing and velocity of app'ng for those accts. In the case of my CFU, the rejection reason was too many recent inquiries. Once my scorable inquiries decreased significantly and I was about 0/6 for new inquiries, I was able to get a CLI on that card. Both cli approvals were this summer. The difference between the Chase accts is I got my CSR 3 years ago at the highest APR, profile was young and thin whereas my CFU came via a green dot pre approval and at the lowest APR 7 months after having my CSR. Not saying this is an apples to apples for each person but since my Chase CAR score( their internal score) was significantly higher at approval, they've been mroe

generous in general to that acct. For example, I used the CFU far less than the CSR this year but the CFU got the higher CLI. 

Click the cli button in October and see what they say. It's soft pull so no harm, no foul. 

[firefox100]

Fico scores are not every thing banks use their own models also, what is your income and ul. If I was you I would apply for any new card for couple of years, first increase the credit limits on any of the cards that can be done with soft pull oonly. When you apply for new accounts they look at your limits on your other cards. The chase card with cl of only 500 is going to hurt you getting approved higher limits or may get declined. Good luck in what you do.

[fullstackdev]

I always got better APRs when I had low utilization and minimal recent credit seeking (inquiries and new accounts). Approval may have been somewhat based on my score, but the terms seemed to depend on profile factors. Lower APRs often went hand in hand with lower limits in my experience.

[markhs777]

These days "low interest rate cards" are at least 15% which even at that you don't want to carry a balance if possible. Better off lookiing for an intro 0% introductory offer. 

[fullstackdev]

If you search hard enough, you might be able to find a card with a sub-10% interest rate at a local credit union. 

[unsungivy]

Reminder that AmEx will never lower your APR permanently from what you are initially offered.

Other cards often will if you request it.

[galahad15]

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@fullstackdev wrote:

If you search hard enough, you might be able to find a card with a sub-10% interest rate at a local credit union. 

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Agreed 100% -- I currently have 7 cards with go-to interest rates below 10%, all but one of which are from credit unions.  Unfortunately, some of the cards are no longer open to new apps, and/or have since increased their go-to interest rates from the time that I originally apped and was approved for them.  Iirc, the only card that I am aware of that I have in my collection that are below 10% that still also offers a present-day, still-appable, and go-to rate below 10% is the Unify FCU Fixed-Rate VISA.

For the Unify card that I had mentioned above, the minimum FICO8 score that was needed was on or around 740 - 750, as far as I can best recall.

[SouthJamaica]

Conventional wisdom in this forum, and elsewhere, is that once your scores are 760 or better, your scores will no longer be an issue in getting any credit product.

As to whether this is true or not, I don't know.

Bear in mind that scores are only one of many factors. I was turned down for a plain vanilla credit card from a credit union when my FICO score was 829.