Howdy, y'alll.
I'm currently on a credit repair journey where I am focused on paying off all my old COs and collections. It will likely be another year before I get everything paid down, but I've made some good progress so far.
Part of my strategy to not have repayment drag on forever, as I owe nearly $40k across all my previous COs/collections, is to settle as many of these accounts as possible. This will drastically decrease my timeline for repayment.
Ths problem is, I am burning a lot of large banks in the process:
- American Express
- Chase
- Barclay's
- CapitalOne
- Discover
- Synchrony
- TD
Of these, I have gotten "back in" with CapitalOne, with a low CL ($300) Platinum as well as the Wal-Mart branded card. I am putting tons of spend through these cards and paying them in full before statement cut and practicing AZEO (although my COs are still reporting balances; I hope to have all COs paid off by this summer).
With that said, I don't really love CapitalOne's products, and don't foresee AmEx or Chase doing business with me again any time soon given I settled with them.
With that in mind, I am looking to establish a relationship with a bank who's higher-end products I will qualify for in the future. While I obviously have a tainted credit profile, I am working hard to clean it up and would like to have a good rewards card on the level of Visa Signature/Infinite or MasterCard World Elite one day before thel likes of Chase will let me back in. I also have relatively high income ($180k+/year), so I'm hoping banks will want to do business with me once I clean up my credit.
Any suggestions on what banks to seek a relationship with, and what my options might be? So far it seems starting a relationship with US Bank or Bank of America could be beneficial, as I've never burned either. US Bank's products look more appealing to me. Any other banks I should look at for the future, or anything I'm missing?
Cheers 
You could also try Citi or TD Bank. Also look into credit unions such as DCU, Alliant, even NFCU if you happen to have military affiliation. And look into local credit unions as well.
@OmarGB9 Thanks! I actually also did burn TD in the form of a low-balance Target Credit Card, and settled for about 50%. Oops.
I am currently affiliated with a local CU, but ..I also burned them -- sort of? I repaid them in full, but they went delinquent (and conveniently just took the money from my account, I learned the lesson on cross-collaterization the hard way). They only have a Visa Platinum card product which isn't super appealing to me.
Are there any favorites among the national CUs ?
My question might be, have the issues that caused you to burn the banks in the first place been addressed? I don't know if it was loss of job, over a bad spending habit or something else but please make sure that is addressed before trying to get back in w the banks.
@hsfun2019 Yes -- the start of my credit journey here has been focused on making sure that the core issues behind my initial delinquency was addressed. In short, it was reckless behavior fueled by bad spending habits. I've since changed my attitudes around money and spending as a precursor to starting off paying my past debts.
@Anonymous Thanks for the info -- I guess PenFed and NFCU require military affiliation, so guess those won't work for me
I was wondering if it'd be worthwhile to get a secured card with BoA or USBank if I want to shoot for one of their unsecured products? I currently already have unsecured CLs as follows:
Mission Lane - $1000 CL
West Elm (Comenity) - $1500 CL
Merrick Bank - $500 CL
CapOne Wal-Mart - $300 CL
CapOne Platinum - $300 CL
CreditOne - $300 CL
I also have a really old CFNB account still reporting open with a $2000CL, and an old "restricted" CapOne account that for some reason still reports as open with a $1000 CL, which helps pad my total CL.
All accounts except Mission Lane report $0, and I let ML report ~1-2% per statement period.
Is it best to just focus on these accounts and my cleanup with regards to getting in with potentially US Bank, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo in the future? Or would getting one of their secured products be a good idea?
Cheers.
Awesome man! Hope that didn't come off as being a jerk.
Good luck on your journey!
@hsfun2019 Absolutely not! I appreciate the reality check and your politeness about it. I think it's easy to get caught up on the symptom without actually rooting out the cause Cheers!
