I am in a simmilar boat as you (recently turrned 22) with high 700's. I was a little better off with my AU's from parent's account and actually opened my first BoA cc in 2009 and a few more since then.
My personal Goal recently has been to aquire cards from all the major lenders that best suit my wants (cash back).
The better balance is an interesting card but it all depends on your spend. I've easily earned >$100 in 2 quartes with the 5% bouns from my Discover IT (and have absoluetly loved the card).
As such it depends on your usage and where you spend. If you spend inside the 5% catagories that Discover/Freedom offers you could easily beat $25 a quarter.
(I actually didn't know about the Better Balance until you mentioned it and recently PCed my Power Rewards PPV to a Cash Rewards; I reallly should have pced it to the Better Balance since I only use that card as a monthly service card.)
Welcome to the forums!
I would highly encourage you to look at credit building as a long-term proposition. You do need your own tradelines, and 4 total is about the minimum when we're talking getting over some underwriting hurdles. Doesn't include any AU's in those 4 tradelines either.
I'd open another card or two right now, and if I had an expected car purchase at graduation I'd just wait and get that as the third or forth tradeline; otherwise I'd suggest doing something like a Credit Builder loan from a CU, cheap way to get an installment tradeline if you can swing the payments.
Inquiries don't matter after a year, but you're basically a thinnish file now and that's not really where you want to be by the time you graduate college in my estimation.
http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/User-Guidelines-General/Common-Abbreviations/td-p/88458
Opening cards with other creditors is just a personal thing for me; and no it is not bad to have multiple cards from the same lender.
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the replies, what does "AU" mean? What are "tradelines"? Why are some people's goals to have cards from every bank? Is it bad to have CC from the same bank? Thanks
AU = Authorized User.
Tradeline = any reporting revolving (credit card) / installment loan / similar to the bureaus: there are some underwriting hurdles around mortgages and similar where less than 4 tradelines can be a problem.
Not sure on the rationale for having cards from every bank; I don't see any reason at all to get a card from Wells Fargo for example personally, or any number of others which don't have competitive credit card products.
The issue with having all of your credit cards from the same bank, is if that one bank gets spooked or otherwise something happens to your account, you can find yourself without credit access at least temporarily and sometimes worse. I'd certainly recommend branching out to different banks, my primary ones are BOFA, Chase, and Amex personally, with a handful of others (USAA, pair of credit unions) for various services.
In general though, while you have a good score, your best bet for future credit goodness is to go establish a few accounts now by leveraging what you do have already. Short term goal would be 3-4 cards and maybe an auto loan at some point; longer term will depend what your needs are from a rewards or other financial categories (mortgage for example).
