Just want to share information and experience regarding the Citi Secured Card. As we all know, this card has 18 months before it graduate from being secured to a regular Credit Card. Well, it's not always true. Found out myself and received this letter that my card will continue as a secured card for another 12 months. I found it interesting as my Fico score went up and just receive some Credit line increase from Discover, Kohls as well as Amazon. I called them up and asked for explanation of the letter but nothing much they can tell me so I closed the account since I don't need any $200 secured card anymore. I used this secured card monthly for my car insurance and paid in full every month but they still don't trust me... lol. Anyways, just want to share my experience to everyone who has this card.
Thanks for posting. About six months ago, I kept trying to seek DPs for how long this card really takes to unsecure, and why, but I didn't really get much info. In part, maybe because my thread got combined with a less focused mega-thread. But anyway, anecdotally, it can take as little as 11 or 12 months, or as much as 30 months, and it's unclear what determines this. No pattern was apparent from the small number of people describing their credit situations at the time their card was or was not unsecured. It seemed random. It's too bad. Citi was the first card I got this time around (my first account since 2011), and I felt loyalty to Citi as a result, but couldn't justify carrying a card that a) might still be secured as late as fall 2021, b) was stuck with the original CL (no way to raise it).
I've been considering opening the minimum secure card with them at the 2 yr post discharge mark. I burned them for about 4k. I do not expect them to let me in until around 7 years (if even then), but I'm willing to park $200 with them if they'll allow me as an experiment to see if I can make it back in sooner.
Pretty sure this is why my Discover is stuck. But at 12 months they gave me unsecured anyhow. 🤷♀️
I'm at 13 months, but I used the secured card pretty heavily starting at a $500 deposit and working up to $2500. I put 1500-2500 through it per month. Still secured, but approved for unsecured at 12 months for 14,500 14 months following ch7 discharge. Discover not IIB. So I'm going to give my secured card another 10 months or so, if it graduates I'll merge the accounts. If not I'll get my deposit back. Realistically I've already accomplished what I needed to with it.
@cr101 wrote:
@recoveringfrombk7 wrote:
Pretty sure this is why my Discover is stuck. But at 12 months they gave me unsecured anyhow. 🤷♀️as i was reading this thread, i was fearing this exact thing. i opened a discover sec card and then realized that i qual for "normal" cards and went on a spree. now, i'm concerned that when i do grad w discov, it'll either be more than the normal 8 months or for a lower amt than i probably would have received if i hadn't opened so many new cards.
I had a thin but clean file, opened a secured Discover in May, then opened eight more accounts in the four months after that (10+ new accounts for 2019 as a whole), and my Discover unsecured like clockwork after my seventh statement. Not a great CL, though. Good luck!
