Multiple approvals

[Anonymous]

Hello,

 I recently found this site and want to reach 800 as a goal score. I also want to take advantage of cash back and rewards. My question is I may have pushed a little too hard too soon. I applied for a Discover It card about a month ago and got approved. I applied for an Amex BCE and Citi Diamond Preferred on the same day about a week ago and got approved for both. I applied for a Chase Sapphire Preferred about two days ago and got approved for a large credit limit. Do you think I have damaged my score much from the apps? My fico according to a Barclays card I've had for years has done the following over this last year: 721 732 728 699 708 717 719. The CC approvals said 719. What do you think?

[Anonymous]

Did you damage it? I wouldn't say that. You temporarily reduced it a bit.

First, inquiries are only 10% of your score. And you only cost yourself a portion of that.

Second, within six months most of the reduction will be gone. In a year, it will be as if you had never had those hard pulls (as far as your FICO score goes, anyway). It's not really even a setback, which implies that you need to climb back from what you did. The reduction will just dissipate in time.

From this point forward, I'd stay away from apping for awhile, though.

Welcome to the forum!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info. I have no need to apply for any CCs anytime within years I would say. I also noticed that about 4 hard pulls will fall off in Oct. of this year. Thanks for the info and the welcome.

[Anonymous]

Great advice from Plip. 

Since you are really curious to see what you can do with your score, I would (if I were you) not worry much about tracking your score during the next four months.  You've just changed your profile quite a bit, so your score will be unstable for a bit.

You can do three things with your credit cards to help yourself out:

(1)  Pull your reports (you can do this for free weekly at Credit Karma) and make sure you understand when your cards begin to report and what your CC balances are.  Learn too what dates your cards report each month.

(2)  If you are not doing this yet, pay off existing CC debt so that you are paying your cards in full month. 

(3)  Charge at least a little on your new cards, let your statement report a positive balance each month, and then pay it in full.  I personally think there is a lot to be said for having a new card start out with a repeated pattern of use and then PIF.  $0 balances are fine after a few monrths, but I just think it is good to establish right away that kind of history on the card and on your credit report.

After four months, pay all cards to $0 except one and make sure your total utilization is in the 1-5% range.  That's the sweet spot for CC balances.  At that point your scores will go up as high as they can be, given the other aspects of your profile.

[Anonymous]

Good info, thank you. I haven't kept a balance on a CC in probably 5 years, I always pay in full a few days before the due date. I do plan on putting a little on each card every month, while using the CSP mainly. I plan on never in my life carrying a balance to the next month on a CC. Is there a rule of thumb on when you charge to a CC and when you pay it off that actually gives you credit? Would it be counter productive to charge to a card and pay it off it off in say a few days?

[Anonymous]

I recieved the CSP card today. The others inquiries used fico. Chase has used Card Aquisition Risk Score, never heard of this. My fico on the other approvals was stated at 719, the score Chase used is listed at 742. Also, under keys factors that adversely affected score it states "total available credit on credit cards". Why would this be on there? My total CL, not including the new line with Chase, is $31,000 across 5 cards.

Edit: It states that the range on the risk score is 250-900

[Anonymous]

My comments in blue!

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@Anonymous wrote:

Good info, thank you. I haven't kept a balance on a CC in probably 5 years, I always pay in full a few days before the due date. I do plan on putting a little on each card every month, while using the CSP mainly. I plan on never in my life carrying a balance to the next month on a CC.

Good for you!  That's just what I was suggesting.  Use the new cards, allow your statements to print with a positive balance, then pay it in full in the 1-3 weeks following that. 

Is there a rule of thumb on when you charge to a CC and when you pay it off that actually gives you credit? Would it be counter productive to charge to a card and pay it off it off in say a few days?

I was just thinking that it made sense to do with a new card.  It just feels right to me: it creates a very visible trail on your credit report that you used the card and paid it off for the first three months.  That's my personal style and certainly if it DID matter then you'd be covering your bases that way.  In your case, your own style is to allow cards to report and then pay them in full, so you are 100% covered.  The alternative to PIF is one I call PTZ or Pay To Zero.  You pay your card to zero before it reports each month.  That probably is just fine in practice, especially for a card you have had for more than a few months.  But it also takes more work -- there's no way to set up autopay to do that for you.

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Now that you have several credit cards, I encourage you (3-4 months from now) to pay all cards to zero except one and see how high your score goes.