Applying and being approved for a HELOC doesn't seem like something you can do under a time constraint, depending on the lender of course. If you need to leave your job ASAP I would tackle the HELOC and forget about adding credit cards.
The reason I say this is the experience my DH and I had during the HELOC app process in late 2019. The underwriter focused on a recently acquired Chase Amazon Prime card my DH had signed up for which had a $29 charge pending. Since the card was brand new we had no statements acceptable to the underwriter. This slowed things down and became the focus of the loan processor for over a month.
Take advantage of the CLI you mentioned but don't apply for anything other than the HELOC before you leave your job IMO.
Good luck!
Agree about focusing on the HELOC and worrying about credit cards after. Most major cc lenders will let you use HHI, at least if you are married and filing jointly, so unless there's a card at a small CU or something that's more important to you than the HELOC, you should be able to get what you need after leaving your job. To answer some of your other questions:
1) CC's you can app for w/o an HP are very rare, but even if you found one it would still show as a new account on your reports, which, as stated above, could give the HELOC underwriter concern.
2) To see whether you can use joint income on an app for a particular cc, bring up the info on the income field of the app. If there's language to the effect that you can use any income available to you to pay your bills, etc, then you can use HHI.
3) To recommend specific cards we would need to know more about your profile, what you are looking for in a card, and what your credit goals are. But if you want to get an idea of what might be available to you you can check soft pull pre-approval links for various lenders: https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Soft-pull-PREAPPROVALs-Updated-4-20-21/td-p/5...
4) If the charge-off from Citi was recent or if you did not make them whole, I probably would not bother apping for a new card with them.
5) For CLI's, yes, you would probably want to look for ones that are SP if you're going to do them before the HELOC app. You should basically always assume that any request for credit is going to be an HP, but if you're very concerned to raise your limits before then some lenders are pretty reliably SP (e.g. Amex, Disco) for CLIs while others are exclusively HP (e.g. Chase). If you want to list your spouse's issuers we should be able to tell you what to reasonably expect.
@Anonymous wrote:
@Slabenstein wrote:
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3) To recommend specific cards we would need to know more about your profile, what you are looking for in a card, and what your credit goals are. But if you want to get an idea of what might be available to you you can check soft pull pre-approval links for various lenders: https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Soft-pull-PREAPPROVALs-Updated-4-20-21/td-p/5938753
--Thanks, just saw this link today. Will review. As for credit goals, I don't actually know for sure. Other than establish credit to have financial flexiblity for necessary life events or purchses. Is there a place here in forums where people specifically state or discuss their goals? Or is that surmised from the myriad questions people ask? Would be good to see examples to help clarify my own goals.
Establishing credit is a perfectly cogent goal! The main thing to keep in mind is that there are so many different credit cards out there that you could app for, so you want to be deliberate and app for ones that you'll get some benefit from and that you can keep in your profile long-term. You'll want to know exactly how that closed Citi card is reporting before proceeding, since whether or not you have a recent charge-off is going to majorly effect what kinds of cards are open to you, but a 779 F9 seems high for that, so it may be that the card is only reported as closed by credit grantor, as @coldfusion suggested.
As far as issuers you could look at, I think Discover is always a good one to try if you're early in building your profile. They're pretty open to thin files, they have a pretty reliable softpull prequal link to check your app chances, and two of their options are decent cards that could have a role in a wallet long-term: It Cashback for 5% rotating categories or It Miles for 1.5% cashback on all purchases. (The Chrome I'd avoid, since its rewards structure is easily beaten by other cards.) If you have a way in to membership, Navy Federal is very popular here, can grow to really healthy limits, and has some good options for rewards structures. The other things I can suggest are: 1) Looking for a good all-purpose card. There are plenty of 1.5% base cb cards out there, some 2% cards, and even a few 3% cards. 2) Looking at your budget and working out what categories are your highest spend areas and then researching cards that could get you 3%+ back on those categories. All this, ofc, is assuming that the Citi line isn't reporting as a major derog, but w/ a FICO9 of 779 on one of the bureaus I expect that your FICO scores in general are probably high enough for most cc apps.
One thing that can be tempting early on is to get a bunch of store cards since they're relatively easy approvals and most can grow to fairly large limits without much effort, but I'd avoid that route since it's not really a stable base for a profile and the use case for most store cards is pretty limited. Store cards are fine to have, ofc, but, just like bankcards, you only really want to get them if they're actually going to serve a purpose in your wallet.
4) If the charge-off from Citi was recent or if you did not make them whole, I probably would not bother apping for a new card with them.
--It was in the last year. They closed -- and zeroed out-- the account so there was no clear way to make them whole. Should I call them and specifically ask to pay them back? If I do that, should I simultaneously ask for a pay-for-delete?
Like @coldfusion said, you'll want to pull your actual ACR's and see how the Citi card is reporting. If it's "closed by credit grantor" and showing nothing negative, you're probably good to go. If it is showing as a chargeoff there's not much you can do about that now other than pay it so it stops updating. Generally, creditors do not offer pay-for-delete for charge-offs. I missed the part in your original post where you said the amount that cause the closure was $9, so I don't know that we're really talking about "making them whole" anymore, but however the account is reporting you could still call them and make sure you don't have any outstanding owed amounts associated with the account. If you do and assuming it's still small, I think you might as well pay it if you want Citi cards in the future.
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Spouse's cards, in case anyone wants to comment on them or whether they do HPs for CLIs, or whether we should ask for CLIs:
Barclays Arrival + (12, 500 limit, but 4,500 current balance--- I will pay it off this month)
Citi Dividend (9,700 limit, $0 bal)
Citi Simplicity (13,100 limit, $0 bal)
I don't know either of these lenders CLI policies, unfortunately. Hopefully someone else can answer!
Some very good points and advice given above. The only thing I haven't seen touched on is who will you be applying for the HELOC with? If it's a bank or credit union with whom you have an established relationship, you may want to consider one of their credit cards (if it's not CITI). You may even be able to apply for the card with the same pull done for the HELOC. Credit unions especially have some very low interest rates compared to the larger banks.
As far as types of cards, there's cashback to consider if you're comfortable using it for every day purchases like groceries or gas. I think a flat 1.5% - 2% card would be good for you. Or travel rewards, since you like to use your cards for trips. Regardless of what you decide, I think it's important to diversify and have at least 2-3 cards so that you're not at the mercy of one bank's whims. I personally would be mad at Citi for terminating a 30 year relationship over $9.
