@dtran14 wrote:My CC's are as following; Chase Freedom, Wells Fargo Platinum, Bank Of America Cash Rewards, Barclay Card US, Walmart Store Card, Target Red Card, Help Card, Capital One, Amazon Store Card, and PayPal Credit. According to Credit Karma, I have 12 Credit Inquiries, should I just wait til the end of the year of 2015 to apply for the AmEx or do it within these next few months? I have 700's across all 3 Bureaus and in March or April I am expecting to open up a auto-loan.
The term people are using is "Gardening" which I want to do as well but I really want to get my hands on an AmEx before I start. Should I wait? If so how long... don't want an extra inquriy on my report and get denied.
Wow, you are doing a great job for your age!
My advice to most people is to get 5 to 8 quality credit cards as soon as you can and keep them open for your lifetime and you already have them! It is very important to not close any of your CCs from here on out unless you absolutely have to for some reason. When all these cards are 10 years old you will have stellar scores that will be VERY stable so that when new credit is added like an auto loan, your scores won't drop very much if at all.
I agree that your next step should be an AMEX card. I would suggest waiting to app for the AMEX until you have 6 months distance from your last inquiry and you should easily be approved.
Make sure to set-up auto payments for minimum payments on all your accounts. One missed payment can derail you for quite a while.
You are doing a great job in building your credit!
