Good Morning,
Some of you may remember about 8 months ago, I was posing several inquiries regarding my wife's financial situation coming in to our marriage, and how to proceed with rebuilding her credit.
In a nutshell, she had somewhere in a 660 range because of some joint accounts with an ex that he racked up and bailed on. Her credit was spotless, but young AAoA prior to that, which is probably why her score wasnt worse. She paid off all but one of the accounts on her own, even though he left with the collateral property. One was charged off about 4-5 years ago, and that remains on her report.
Anyway, we married in May of this year, and about 2 months prior, I added her as an authorized user on my 3 cards ($10000 CL Delta Skymiles AMEX, $7500 CapOne Venture, $6300 Discover More). As a result, we've seen a steady increase in her scores over the past few months. She's somewhere in the 720 range now (she's gonna check on Score Watch later, but I wasn't able to reach her at work before posting this). We carry about $15 to $300 on the Venture from month to month, simply for the sake of reporting, and never pay interest on the old debt. All of this has helped.
But, I always like to be prepared for the unexpected. Thus, I feel it's in our best interest to get her a card in her name that will start to age on her report. That way, if something catastrophic happened with our other three cards, we could remove her from those without choking our credit supply, and allowing her to fall back on her own credit for our household if needed.
We use our Venture card almost exclusively, as we travel a lot, and spend about $6,000/month on it. Since March, we've earned about $1,200 in free travel with the 2 miles for every dollar spent--definitely worth the $59 AF. 
As such, other than occasional use, the card I'm looking to get for her would not be used very frequently. It's mostly for extending our available credit, and for use in an emergency.
Based on what I've seen here, Chase Freedom might be a good fit? Any other suggestions? We're open, but I'd prefer to steer clear of AMEX, since I wouldn't expect them to be the most generous when it comes to CL. Probably no need for two Discover cards either, so I think we're looking at Visa or MC. But I'm open, let us know what you think.
Thanks!
P.S. Definitely don't want any AF, but not against a Rewards card that is more about perks of being a cardholder as opposed to actual rewards. An example of this would be how the DL Skymiles card now allows cardholders to have priority boarding, free checked bag, etc. These types of things would be useful since we travel frequently.
If it were me, I'd look for the best cash rewards card, and encourage her to use it for gasoline, groceries, daily expenses and PIF...
Just my .02.
@avv7c0 wrote:Good Morning,
Some of you may remember about 8 months ago, I was posing several inquiries regarding my wife's financial situation coming in to our marriage, and how to proceed with rebuilding her credit.
In a nutshell, she had somewhere in a 660 range because of some joint accounts with an ex that he racked up and bailed on. Her credit was spotless, but young AAoA prior to that, which is probably why her score wasnt worse. She paid off all but one of the accounts on her own, even though he left with the collateral property. One was charged off about 4-5 years ago, and that remains on her report.
Anyway, we married in May of this year, and about 2 months prior, I added her as an authorized user on my 3 cards ($10000 CL Delta Skymiles AMEX, $7500 CapOne Venture, $6300 Discover More). As a result, we've seen a steady increase in her scores over the past few months. She's somewhere in the 720 range now (she's gonna check on Score Watch later, but I wasn't able to reach her at work before posting this). We carry about $15 to $300 on the Venture from month to month, simply for the sake of reporting, and never pay interest on the old debt. All of this has helped.
But, I always like to be prepared for the unexpected. Thus, I feel it's in our best interest to get her a card in her name that will start to age on her report. That way, if something catastrophic happened with our other three cards, we could remove her from those without choking our credit supply, and allowing her to fall back on her own credit for our household if needed.
We use our Venture card almost exclusively, as we travel a lot, and spend about $6,000/month on it. Since March, we've earned about $1,200 in free travel with the 2 miles for every dollar spent--definitely worth the $59 AF.
Based on what I've seen here, Chase Freedom might be a good fit? Any other suggestions? We're open, but I'd prefer to steer clear of AMEX, since I wouldn't expect them to be the most generous when it comes to CL. Probably no need for two Discover cards either, so I think we're looking at Visa or MC. But I'm open, let us know what you think.
Thanks!
P.S. Definitely don't want any AF, but not against a Rewards card that is more about perks of being a cardholder as opposed to actual rewards. An example of this would be how the DL Skymiles card now allows cardholders to have priority boarding, free checked bag, etc. These types of things would be useful since we travel frequently.
If you spend $6000/month on your card, I'm guessing you have a fairly high income. Some of that may be reimbursable business expenses, but in any event, my initial CL on a recent SPG application was $19,600. I just raised it to $25,000 (mainly just wanted it to be a round number and felt foolish asking for a $400 CLI so asked for an increase to $25K).
While I can't determine how Amex makes their decisions, I am guessing the fact that I had been putting about $5-6K/month through my Amex PR Gold and my income were factors. They certainly weren't matching other limits. The only other open card I had at the time was a $2500 CL Capital One card. I had a couple closed accounts with $10K CLs, but $10K was my highest previously.
Starting Score: ~500 (12/01/2008)
@avv7c0 wrote:Good Morning,
Some of you may remember about 8 months ago, I was posing several inquiries regarding my wife's financial situation coming in to our marriage, and how to proceed with rebuilding her credit.
In a nutshell, she had somewhere in a 660 range because of some joint accounts with an ex that he racked up and bailed on. Her credit was spotless, but young AAoA prior to that, which is probably why her score wasnt worse. She paid off all but one of the accounts on her own, even though he left with the collateral property. One was charged off about 4-5 years ago, and that remains on her report.
Anyway, we married in May of this year, and about 2 months prior, I added her as an authorized user on my 3 cards ($10000 CL Delta Skymiles AMEX, $7500 CapOne Venture, $6300 Discover More). As a result, we've seen a steady increase in her scores over the past few months. She's somewhere in the 720 range now (she's gonna check on Score Watch later, but I wasn't able to reach her at work before posting this). We carry about $15 to $300 on the Venture from month to month, simply for the sake of reporting, and never pay interest on the old debt. All of this has helped.
But, I always like to be prepared for the unexpected. Thus, I feel it's in our best interest to get her a card in her name that will start to age on her report. That way, if something catastrophic happened with our other three cards, we could remove her from those without choking our credit supply, and allowing her to fall back on her own credit for our household if needed.
We use our Venture card almost exclusively, as we travel a lot, and spend about $6,000/month on it. Since March, we've earned about $1,200 in free travel with the 2 miles for every dollar spent--definitely worth the $59 AF.
Based on what I've seen here, Chase Freedom might be a good fit? Any other suggestions? We're open, but I'd prefer to steer clear of AMEX, since I wouldn't expect them to be the most generous when it comes to CL. Probably no need for two Discover cards either, so I think we're looking at Visa or MC. But I'm open, let us know what you think.
Thanks!
P.S. Definitely don't want any AF, but not against a Rewards card that is more about perks of being a cardholder as opposed to actual rewards. An example of this would be how the DL Skymiles card now allows cardholders to have priority boarding, free checked bag, etc. These types of things would be useful since we travel frequently.
Just for clarification, you're not paying any interest at all on this card, old or new, right? You mean to say you let $15 to $300 report then PIF before the due date? If you let any amount carry to the next cycle and accumulate interest you are throwing away money because it doesn't help you build credit.
Correct. The $15-300 is new debt each month. The previous $15-300 is paid each month. I carried balances for a long time. Now that my head is above water, not planning to go back there.
I know you mentioned you'd like to steer clear of Amex, but being you also mentioned you were "open" to ideas; I can't help notice the great case Walt made for considering a rewards card with them. Maybe the Blue Cash Prefered might work (yes, I think the AF is 75 but I think it's the one that gives 6% on groceries too). Also, if she ever had an Amex before, she might get backdated to her original member since date, if the account was paid (I remember what you wrote about her ex, sorry to hear it). So that could help with her AAoA if there was an account in her history.
Chase Freedom isn't a bad rewards card, they had a bonus for a while (may still be going) of $100 reward after spending around 500 in the first 3 months I think.
If she's related to a service member or retired military member, NFCU might be worth a look, they usually give very nice CLs and it might help her build faster.
For more ideas, others have mentioned checking "whogavemecredit DOT com" to answer a few questions you might have about scores vs CLs etc. It's kind of interesting info there.
