managing INQ's

[Anonymous]

i inquired for an amex about a year ago and was approved, and then had to get a corporate amex card earlier this year.  i'm assuming they ran my credit report for that corporate card?

anyway, i want to apply for another credit card now (chase freedom) and i may be applying for a car loan soon also.  i have excellent credit and should be approved for both, but wouldn't want to jeopardize hurting my FICO score by applying for the CC and that INQ hurting my chances to get a good auto loan APR.

so i guess in this past year there have been 2 INQs, both of which i was approved for (personal amex, corporate amex).  the upcoming CC (chase freedom) would be 3, and the auto loan 4.  how bad is that?  i just don't know much about INQ and what they do to your score.  also, although my credit score is over 750+, i only have about 3 years of credit history.  i mention that only because i would think more INQ for someone with a short credit history is a bad thing, but i could be mistaken. 

also in part i would like to apply for the chase freedom and see if i am accepted and my CL, as if i am not accepted or have a low CL, my chances for an excellent auto loan rate are probably pretty low also.  i would delay the purchase of a new car if that were the case.

thanks for any help.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

i inquired for an amex about a year ago and was approved, and then had to get a corporate amex card earlier this year.  i'm assuming they ran my credit report for that corporate card?

anyway, i want to apply for another credit card now (chase freedom) and i may be applying for a car loan soon also.  i have excellent credit and should be approved for both, but wouldn't want to jeopardize hurting my FICO score by applying for the CC and that INQ hurting my chances to get a good auto loan APR.

so i guess in this past year there have been 2 INQs, both of which i was approved for (personal amex, corporate amex).  the upcoming CC (chase freedom) would be 3, and the auto loan 4.  how bad is that?  i just don't know much about INQ and what they do to your score.  also, although my credit score is over 750+, i only have about 3 years of credit history.  i mention that only because i would think more INQ for someone with a short credit history is a bad thing, but i could be mistaken. 

also in part i would like to apply for the chase freedom and see if i am accepted and my CL, as if i am not accepted or have a low CL, my chances for an excellent auto loan rate are probably pretty low also.  i would delay the purchase of a new car if that were the case.

thanks for any help.

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You don't mention what your FICO scores are presently. Nevertheless INQ's have a minimal impact on credit score. Just remember that it isn't the small impact in score that causes problems with INQ's, it is more on how other creditors look at them. Some creditors will not approve you for credit because in their eyes you have too many INQ's regardless of your credit score.

IMO I would apply for Chase before Auto loan but that is strictly my opinion...........

[Anonymous]

thanks for the response.  why would you apply for chase first?  just curious.

i haven't run my score yet this year.  last year it was 734 and i have only been significantly better in terms of credit this year.  i have continued to pay my auto loan off on time and have continued to have under a 30% UTIL ratio on my revolving CC's and have not carried a balance on either.  so, i would say there would be no reason it would not be well above the 750 mark.

[GregB]

What "credit score" was 734 last year? Was that your EQ FICO from here or some other actual FICO score? Who provided the score?

If it was a real credit score such as your EQ FICO and you continued as you stated in your post, making the assumption that your score is "well above the 750 mark" is likely to be very wrong.

[Anonymous]

the score i just pulled 10 minutes ago from this website for $20 for EQ FICO is 748.  great payment history, good amount of debt, good length of credit history, very good amount of credit, average UTIL was 22%.

negative factors were short history - 3 years, and new accounts - opened 10 months ago.

guess it did not count my corp amex as a new account.  so that means i have 1 INQ in the last year then?

also it says i shouldn't apply for credit and that will improve my score (obviously since that is the negative listed).  does it sound like that means if i applied for the chase freedom and THEN applied for a car loan, i may not get a great car loan rate?  thanks again for the help.

[GregB]

Hmmmm, I thought from your first post that you had "short" credit history. If they are rating length as "good" then it clearly isn't hurting you much even though it is listed in "negative factors".

Paying an installment loan like a car loan doesn't have much effect on FICO until the balance goes down significantly. If your 734 was an EQ FICO, I would think the increase came from length of history more than installment payments. That still sounds like a big increase for a year.

That report will show you any Inq from EQ. Are there any? There might actually be none on that report. 1-2 Inq will hit your score a bit. 3-4 will hit it a bit more. 

Does the Amex Corp Card show in "Accounts"? I know my true business Amex cards did not appear on any reports.

Just dawned on me that Amex pulls EX so you probably have inq on EX. Unless your TU and EX reports are very different, I doubt it will make much difference on a car loan what you do with Chase. Have you pulled you free reports from annualcreditreport.com so you can be sure there are no negatives on TU and EX?

[Anonymous]

EQ shows 0 inquiries actually.  i checked acr.com earlier this year and did not see any problem activity, though this was before i did the corp amex INQ, so i can't check acr again on this particular point.  sounds like either way i'm probably okay to proceed.

question, if you have an outstanding car loan with the car manufacturer, how would you go about applying for a new car loan through a bank?  do you have to pay the existing one off first?   if they were both with the same bank, would be easy probably.  one is with bmw financial, the new one would probably be with Bofa.  thanks again for the help, though sorry for the sidetracked question.