Three secured cards that I think are good are Discover, NFCU, and US Bank. All three have no annual fee and all three can graduate into decent unsecured card. The Disco secured also has cashback rewards, and you can check to see if you prequalify for it before spending the HP.
Citi would probably be good, too. They're a major issuer, there's no annual fee, and iirc it can graduate. NFCU advertises "rental car coverage" as a perk for their secured, but I don't see it mentioned on the web pages for any of the others.
@Anonymous wrote:
I know Amex doesn't offer secure cards,
what cards aside from chase you recommend to open?
BOFA, Citi Group, and wells fargo are good enough?
With the proviso I have a Chapter 13 discharge on my credit report (set to fall off early next year)...
In the last year:
- I've attempted to get secured cards from BofA (where I'd been banking for over a decade) and Citi (and Discover as well); all declined me.
- I looked at Wells Fargo and considered them my Plan C for a secured card; unfortunately it is my understanding they no longer offer a secured card.
- After BofA declined my application for a secured card, and then declined my appeal, I closed all of my accounts and moved them over to TDBank (pretty much limited to the eastern third of the United States), and instantly got approved for a $5,000 secured TDCash card from them. This card has a few interesting wrinkles:
- It has an annual fee of $29, however, the fee is prorated, so if/when you graduate to an unsecured card, you are refunded said prorated difference. My card graduated after exactly 6-months and I was refunded $14.50 the day it was unsecured.
- The security deposit is kept in a locked interesting bearing savings account; as of the day my card graduated, the money had earned a whopping $1.14 in interest.
- The TDCash card when in secured mode, pays a flat 1% cash back on all purchases. When my card graduated I'd earned something like $125 in cash back rewards, easily offsetting the $14.50 I paid for the annual fee.
- Once graduated, the annual fee no longer applies, the savings account is unlocked, and the rewards structure jumps up to 3% for dining, 2% for groceries, and 1% for everything else.
@Anonymous wrote:If you can, Discover's not a bad option. I've seen people with even no credit at all on their reports get approved for the secured card respectively.
And then there are folks like me; I've never burned them (or even had a Discover card, ever), who get no love from Discover (denied, denied, denied...); at this point I've pretty much written them off.