Ok sorry for the delayed reply I got locked out of my account for the last few days. To provide an update I was accepted for the BoA BBR and US Bank Cash+ this weekend. I was planning on applying to those anyway so it wasn’t really related to this but hopefully that makes my file a bit thicker. Also if someone could clarify what constitutes a thin vs thick file and what the ceilings on scores are based on them that would be helpful! I found a few bits and pieces of info online but nothing too concrete.
I’ve also had the chance to think about the SSL technique and I've decided I'm absolutely going to do it! Just not right now. With my recent approval on 2 more cards (see my newly updated sig for my status) I’m thinking I have enough CC's for the rewards I want. I’ve looked around online and literally no other cards make me want to apply based on the rewards. My utilization is already around 3% so I don’t need more CCs to increase available credit and decrease util either. My long term goal is a mortgage 5+ years from now so do you see much of a score benefit 5 years from now if I get more cards in the near future? If the answer is no then my goal is to garden for a few years (2+ at least). If I manage that (gardening can be challenging) then I don’t have any reason to do this Technique right now because the loan could easily expire before I need to use my credit score for anything. In that case I'll likely wait a few years and then do it. I’m still mulling it all over because I don’t like to make financial decisions like this too quickly but I have a few ideas I’d like to share below.
One solution to this is to simply get a longer SSL from a different CU that will last long enough so it’s active when I next apply for something. In fact this would be better because it would give me a higher AAoA. So I went back and read through all of the earlier posts in this thread to see if anyone had found other CUs that do an SSL like this but only saw mention of NFCU and never a conclusive answer if it would work. I looked online and found DCU has a 10 year SSL and NFCU has a 15 year SSL so I called both and talked to a CSR. Don’t worry I read the DoC article about not calling your bank but both websites lacked a lot of info so I had no choice. Also I was very careful about how I asked the questions so I don’t think they really caught on to the Technique. For example I asked a lot of distractor questions like “How does the SSL work? You put the money in my savings account and then what?” So I think they just thought I was a clueless kid and had a ton of questions, not someone trying to do something complicated like this. In both cases the CSR told me they didn’t know enough to help me and forwarded me to loan officers. The loan officers then asked me to hold when I asked specific questions about minimums (and maximums to throw them off) and they seemed to go lookup the actual company policy to see the tiers for minimum amounts vs length of loan. Basically both LOs I talked to seemed intelligent and like they genuinely looked up the company policy when they weren’t sure so I think the data is accurate. Below is a summary of my findings for each:
NFCU SSL:
- 15 year maximum length applies only to “home improvement” loans, which require you to show a deed at some point in the process.
- Loans for a different reason (like a “credit builder”) the maximum is 5 years
- Interest rate is 2% above the savings interest rate for loans 5 years or less (distractor question)
- no hard pull for getting a SSL
- they do report to the CRAs (volunteered without asking)
- can pay with a checking/savings account through them or outside bank (distractor question)
- no early payment penalty
- if you pay early it pushes back the due date rather than shortening the life of the loan (so “If I get a windfall and make a year’s worth of payments what happens?” “You would see ‘Next Payment due December of 2017’ online rather than due December 2016”)
- I asked if they had a branch in my area (distractor question). Fortunately they did not so she explained without me asking that all of this could be done online without talking to anyone in person. She said "most of the stuff can be done online or from mobile app, so you will talk on the phone when establishing a loan but then scheduling payments or setting up auto pay can be done online”. It was unclear if I could apply for the loan online too or if that REQUIRED a call but basically she said I would need to talk to a person once AT MOST and the rest could be done online or through a phone app.
Minimum SSL amounts:
$250 for 6-12 months
$3001 for 12-180 months (the one drawback)
DCU SSL
- 10 year max
- interest rate = 3.5% (distractor question)
- no hard pull
- no prepayment penalty
- everything can be done electronically you never need to speak to a person
Minimum SSL Amounts:
$200 for 6-12 months
Loans over 1 year the minimum monthly payment is $30 on a $1000 loan
10 year loan minimum is $5500 so monthly payment must be around $50 or more
She said their minimums are based on monthly payments not the principal. So rather than saying the minimum for a 1 year loan is a $1000 loan she said the minimum is a $30 per month payment which corresponds to around $1000 loan. She clarified if I wanted to make an extra large payment one month the extra $ would go towards the principal but I would still have to make a payment the following month. I couldn’t skip that month’s payment by paying more in advance. At this point in the conversation she was getting frustrated by all my questions so I didn’t follow up but I’m surprised they don’t let you make early payments and then push off the future payments.
Conclusion:
DCU is not an option because their policy is based on minimum monthly payments, which prevents dragging the loan out to last several years without paying the minimum and therefore accruing huge amounts of interest. NFCU is an option but requires a much larger principal amount ($3001 or more). I have enough cash in my emergency fund to do that if I decide to go that route. I know NFCU is popular on these forums so may be useful for someone that’s aready a member. Also, for me, joining NFCU and then being able to get a high limit card and/or the SSL would make joining more attractive because you get multiple benefits. But again I’m not interested in the rewards of any of their cards so I don't really want one of their CCs.
In the end I still think it makes the most sense to go with Alliant just to get this one loan because the loan size is smaller and the play by play on the first page of this thread is well laid out (which I now realize you’ve been saying all along 
). However since I was just accepted for 2 more credit cards bringing me up to 5 total I’m wondering if my file is thick enough to simply wait. If I decide in 2 years I want to apply for some CC’s maybe I’ll do this first to bump up my score. I have a feeling if I got the SSL today it would sit on my account for the next 4 years (btw seems like Alliant changed to max of 4 years for SSL) but I may not apply to any new cards or loans in that time so it would fall off before being useful. Perhaps the only thing I should do now is apply to join Alliant so if they do a hard pull for joining I get that out of the way. Then I can do all of this in 2 or 3 years when I’m closer to using my credit score for things. Also would make it less suspicious if I take an SSL with weird terms out 2 years into a relationship with them rather than 2 days.
Sorry for the wall of text and hope the info helps some others and if anyone has any ideas on other CUs to try I would be happy to call! Thanks for so much feedback!