When your installment tradeline drops, you will likely see a decrease; however, if you've purchased your vehicle prior to that, the auto tradeline line will likely mostly counteract that.
If you don't buy a car, it may be worth to open some silly personal loan secured against a CD even.
Beyond that, it might be better long term to open up one more credit card, but it's pretty moot. You're qualified for virtually everything if you decide to go that route. If you have an Amex already, I'd simply open a new one and backdate it from a pure FICO perspective (since it's unlikely that you actually need anything more credit wise from what you posted)... similarly, if you don't have one, personally I'd go get one so that you can partake of that singular benefit in the future. Outside of that look for whatever rewards card fits your expenditure, though between Amex and Chase think most options are covered there with few exceptions.
Mostly you just need to continue to pay your bills on time. There's no real magic to FICO scoring.
Figure out, and pull the trigger on purchasing a car first. The damage of a new account is small for you but why take any negative if you don't have to before a big ticket purchase?
Since the additional credit (or charge if talking Amex) card is just to appease the FICO gods, it really doesn't matter that much when you open it just it mathematically makes sense to open it as soon as possible... right after purchasing the car would be my suggestion. Long-term and speaking of Amex specifically, as long as you open it this year (2012) it doesn't matter that much delaying, but short/mid-term it's always better to open tradelines immediately if possible and no caveat with a big ticket purchase (auto or mortgage) as mentioned in the first paragraph.
There are tons of posts on backdating with regards to Amex, but the gist is this:
- When you first open a personal Amex, your Member Since date is set, e.g. 2012 if you obtained one this year.
- Any future Amex product you open, will have it's own Member Since date set to the original year you opened your card, with the month of opening being the same as when you applied for the new one.'
- This "backdating" also applies in how it's reported to the bureaus, it will look like an aged tradeline opened in the original year of the first one.
As a practical example, say I'm actually approved for an Amex in December (in my case, you won't have trouble), my member since date is now 2012. In another two years, my credit scores move up into the 700's, and now I'm qualified for one of their revolvers, so I apply for their BCP (or whatever it is in 2014/15) and for the biggest FICO boost I apply in January of 2015 for maximum backdating potential. This new card will be reported to the bureaus as being opened since 01/2012: I've gained three years on a tradeline from an AAoA perspective which I didn't have before. Instant tradeline seasoning = instant FICO goodness.
Admittedly this is a silly FICO trick, but since it's offered it's worth taking advantage of. Also Amex is one of the better lenders from a customer perspective from what pretty much everyone here has posted, and they offer a competitive set of rewards cards and can be expected to do so in the future as well. There's really no downside and of all the lenders out there, personally I think they offer the most upside if you're just looking for a new card for FICO reasons, and not any more "real world" reason.
Anyway finding an Amex is just as simple as going to their homepage, www.americanexpress.com. Incidently, other lenders "American Express" products only authorize payments against the Amex network, they do not have the backdating potential that the cards Amex itself issues.
@Barrick wrote:Thanks for the details. I understand the Amex backdating now... By reporting the opening date as the MS date, you increase your overall age of the line and the AAoA.
By other lenders, are you referring to the Delta / JetBlue / Hilton / Starwood type cards?
Thanks
Nah, those are real Amex cards that are co-branded; they all count as Amex-issued. Everything you can find on the Amex site (which is where I assume you saw those) are directly from Amex the lender.
What I meant was other lenders, Bank of America, USAA, etc. ad naseum, that offer Amex-network cards instead of Visa / MC / etc. Those cards are issued by other lenders (not Amex) and simply authenticate their transactions against the Amex network. Those don't count at all for backdating purposes.