Hard Inquiries..a couple at once or space them out?

[frankjaeger]

I'm finally getting back on track wth my credit and my score has gone up 80 points just in the past month. I'm very close to 700 and hope to be over that by this time next month.

However, I applied for a new car loan yesterday (was auto-approved) and it was a hard inquiry. I have another card that I would like a CLI on but it would be another hard pull.

Does it look better if I do two or three hard pulls within a couple days of each other? Should they be spaced out by weeks/months? Does it not matter either way?

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

I think it is just a pure matter of math.  You had a recent hard pull Car loan).  That my well have lowered your score.  So two questions. 

If you apply for the CLI tomorrow, is your score today high enough to get the CLI that you want?

If you apply for the CLI tomorrow, that may lower your score still further.  (But remember that inquiries lose all scoring impact after one year.)  Will the post-CLI score be high enough for your needs during the next year?

If the answer is Yes, that gives you a greenlight for the CLI if you want to pursue it.  I wouldn't allow the hypothetical possibility that some creditor will not like it that you had "too many" inquiriers in "too short" of a time.  They will likely just care about your score.