@Anonymous wrote:It's funny you should mention this because I am in the same situation. I opened up a secured card with them one year ago and it still hasn't graduated, however since then I've opened up their Amex as well as the Go-Rewards. And after requesting a CL increase on both cards, I now have $18,400 in credit between just those two cards. I also have a $56,000 auto loan with them as well as a $20,000 auto refinance. And for whatever reason that secured card just would not graduate so I actually called Navy today and canceled the card and moved the $300 security deposit into my savings account.
But the reason I did it was strategic because they only allow you to have 3 cards at one time and I'm certain that doing a cold app with them will result in an unsecured card with a much higher credit limit over the $2,000 which is what the secured card would have graduated to. My goal is to get the Flagship card and now that I got rid of the N-Rewards card I have an available spot since I only have 2 cards now. I plan on applying for it after the closed card shows up on my credit report and I will keep the group notified of the results. I would never offer unsolicited advice but it's possible that you may want to consider what I am doing as well because there is a much higher probability of you getting another card with a much higher starting limit. Just my two cents. Hope this helps you and I wish you all the best of luck.
This is probably a very good strategy. You open up slot #3 and that secured card still remains on your report for 10 years as a paid tradeline. On another note, my secured card didn't graduate for nearly 3 years ($5k) and has just finally begun to grow being 5+ years old. I bet that I would have been ahead total exposure wise now if I had followed your strategy a couple years ago.
@Anonymous wrote:I'm in the same boat, except they won't approve me for anything.
Member since 2015 where they've always been my only bank. I average 10K in direct deposits each month. 1 year SSL loan completed. Secured Visa for 26 months, Secured MC for 18 months. No late payments, average utilization at posting of 3%. I do use them like crazy, essentially like charge cards so that may be my problem.
I "pre-qualify" for everything every time (I know worth nothing) and they won't even approve me for a $500 unsecured card of any variety.
Honestly starting to think it's time to shut everything down and go elsewhere.
I wonder if re-opening up card slot #2 by closing one of them would help? You are going for card #3 now which may be a tad bit more difficult???
It's interesting that you mentioned this. I opened up a secured card with NFCU and Discover at the same time. Discover would be eligible for graduation after 8 months and NFCU after 6. Well, my Discover graduated at 7 months and I'm still waiting on NFCU. If my card doesn't graduate this month, I'm closing it. I'm not playing the secured card/wait for graduation game anymore. I already have an unsecured Discover It card, a Petal 2 Visa, and a Capital One Walmart Mastercard (which I'm probably going to close, as well). I'll garden and just wait it out til I qualify for better cards.
Last update: 4/8/2024
@TheRedHat wrote:It's interesting that you mentioned this. I opened up a secured card with NFCU and Discover at the same time. Discover would be eligible for graduation after 8 months and NFCU after 6. Well, my Discover graduated at 7 months and I'm still waiting on NFCU. If my card doesn't graduate this month, I'm closing it. I'm not playing the secured card/wait for graduation game anymore. I already have an unsecured Discover It card, a Petal 2 Visa, and a Capital One Walmart Mastercard (which I'm probably going to close, as well). I'll garden and just wait it out til I qualify for better cards.
Your post made me laugh in a good way. I like the attitude/strategy. 
I'd close one or the other between the Walmart card and the NFCU secured card, personally, to retain three open cards for the small scoring bonus that gives. But yeah, in general, I think a lot of people get way too focused on choosing a secured card that will graduate and keeping it forever, when it's usually faster and easier to just open an unsecured card and close the secured card after your credit builds up a bit. Even if it graduates, it may be stuck at a low credit limit for a long time. I was extremely focused on this when I started by build/rebuild in 2019, and it ended up not really mattering. I still have the now-unsecured Discover, but it's stuck at $3100 when I have an Amex at $30K and several others over $10K. I digress, though.
This board was 100% positive about Navy Federal for at least a couple of years. I was excited to join, then had some odd negative experiences with them, not directly related to the secured card graduation issue, won't get into details here, I've posted it elsewhere. But I wondered, is Navy great to everybody except me? I've seen more threads like this the past few months, so I'm wondering if something changed with Navy this year. Maybe they reacted differently to COVID than most issuers.
From the many DPs I've been reading about it's clear Navy has changed their UW across the board for CCs. Could be the literally hundreds of YouTube videos on how to get $25k limits with no credit history or the Navy "Hacks" FB posts all over the internet. Its no wonder they tightened up. It was bound to happen just like Synchrony after all the internet publicity. Pretty sure they don't want to be seen as a joke. You have new YouTubers regurgitating the same content from 2 years ago like its brand new causing a flood of low quality apps for UWs to choke on. 
Navy even stated they were changing their UW backoffice. Covid just accelerated the process I believe. The secured CC issue might just be collateral damage.