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Trying to build DW's credit file, she able to join this weekend based on my membership. I've been a member for about 5 years. Currently, her credit report is thin. The pulled Equifax and TU for membership, then TU the next business day for CC approval. (all entered in the credit pulls database) She was given a $10K Flagship Rewards card. Her FICO scores: Exp : 789 TU : 798 Eq : 806 I know it's not a "great" limit for Navy, but once her Amex $28K limit posts to the CRA's, you can bet we'll be getting out the "prybar".

Hello, Just wanted to share my approval. So excited. I was discharged November 2013. I have received a few decent cards since then, Quicksilver with a 2.5k limit, and some other fee-free cards. Really surprised to get approved, and for 10k!!! Maybe it's because I charge everything on my Quicksilver. Anyways very happy. My Equifax FICO is 682, Experian 656.

So after getting approved a few days ago for Amex PRG/Old blue combo, I decided to finally do a app spree for myself (been almost 5 years since I've apped). After various approvals ranging in the $4k-$12k I thought I was done. Capital One offers kept popping up, but I was so reluctant due to triple pull and so many reports of CapOne's stingyness on initial credit lines. Today decided to pull the trigger on a CapOne Venture Rewards for the 40k bonus. Instant approval online for $20k! Super surprised. Data points: Triple pull Fico's in the high 600s-low 700s Inqs in last 12 months: 5-EX, 3-EQ, 1-TU (all inqs from app spree this week) 1 unpaid med CA 2 years ago $750+ large student loans almost 10 years perfect pay history revolvers reporting: $0/500 express, $0/500 amazon, and $1000/3000 dell 8-9 year AAOA

First off I just want to thank the forum, I have just been pouring through stuff recently and learned some tools to help. I am 32 and once again a college student (4-year graduate level degree in health sciences, have 2 bachelor's and a master's from before, all without debt because of scholarships/TA's/working) During my 20s I was very skeptical of big banks/gubernment, lived a mostly cash economy from my job, etc. I had at varying points: GAP ($500), Macy*s ($200), Kohl's ($100), Discover ($2000), and Capital One ($4900) cards, all of which I ended up not using enough and got cancelled, excepting the Macy*s card. My recent story: Summer/Fall 2012: denied for grad plus for incorrect info or bills I never knew about. Fix these, some of which come off my report, and some don’t. Get approved for the loans. At this time my checking/savings is online with INGdirect, which later becomes Capital One 360. 11/12: find out about travel-hacking, thepointsguy, etc. Sweat a US Airways card badly. Apply for this and United MileagePlus card and am denied. Call for recon and find out that I basically have NO credit history. Scores +/-600. Ouch. 3/31/13: After 90+ days, apply again for some cards: DiscoverIT, AmEX Delta (heard it was easy to get), Chase Freedom. I guess I didn't do enough research that I don't qualify- all those travel sites say to apply for a couple on the same day. Denied for no credit history, accounts not open/long enough, low income. Score drops even lower. One or two of them also talk about charge-offs for earlier. I didn't know about pay for delete. Whoops. 7/13: Apply for secured card through USBank and local credit union. I am denied. Didn't know you could get denied for a secured card! Start to worry a bit more seriously. 10/13: Apply for some bank bonus accounts to have a stick ‘n’ brick account. Denied! I didn’t know you could get denied for a checking account. Great. 10/13: Decide to try in person @ Citibank. Very friendly agent who wants to help. I find out I was put on chexsystems for a negative bank balance @TD Bank years ago, which I had closed to my knowledge with no balance. How could I even get money back when I closed if there was a balance? Ugh. Fix this and get removed or at least clear with Chexsystems. Unfortunately all this comes through too late for giant ThankYou points bonus. Also realize I still have a Macy*s account open. Reactiate/get replacement card. 1/13: After twp months of using Macy*s card again (I bought about $10 of underwear) I find out my limit is decreased from $200 to 100, when I try to buy about $170 worth of clothes. WTF? Clothes ended up being good even though I paid in cash mostly. end of 1/14: Decide to stop waiting for a good bonus to roll around, and take what I can get. A little unnerved by experience abroad during xmas where bank ate my card and I had no way to get money for days. Go to Citibank where I open checking and savings accounts with a monthly points scheme. Denied for credit card. He says to resubmit materials and we wait. beginning of 2/14: Go back into bank to resolve some other stuff and see what the H is going on. Apparently they never applied for the secured card, which I had told him I wanted if I didn't qualify for unsecured. Uh….duh? I get annoyed. We resubmit and I’m told I’m approved. later in 2/14: still wondering what is going on. I ask bank in person, they don’t know, tell me to wait. I finally call and they tell me because I waited so long to verify ID they have to do it over again. They sent everything to wrong address. Then they don’t like my actual address (Mailbox service that usually works; I live in an RV), give them my friend's. Getting really nervous since they are moving end of month. 3/14: Friend tells me they aren’t moving until April. Phew? Still hope her BF doesn’t see (he makes 200k+/yr and is a bit judgemental). STILL no card, what the F is going on? Also random charges, a lot of calling, going into the bank. Debit card stops working a couple times including in China. Getting really annoyed. Realize also in the beginning of the month my macy*s card wasn’t reporting since I always paid the balance on it too early. Leave some so that it reports, voila! Score increase. 4/14: Debit card stopped working AGAIN and still no CC. I go back in the branch and freak out. Then call on the phone and really freak out, with worst customer service reps I’ve ever dealt with. Finally it sounds like they are going to send me my card after about 40 minutes of holding and another 40 of arguing/mostly not being listened to. They refuse to verify anything which is totally ridiculous. However, 2-3 days later I finally receive my secured MC w/limit of $300! 4/14-5/14: I use my new MC card a lot but also pay it down leading up to 5/9 which is billing cycle date. Aim to have less than 10% but more than 0% usage on my cards (nothing due until end of May). 5/7/14: Check scores on creditkarma and credit sesame. CK: TU 693, Vantage 762 (both same since opening Citi Secured) CS: 701 (up 14 in a month!) I decide to search around credit boards again and see what I can do to help score. Considering taking out a loan somewhere and securing it w/a CD to diversify credit. Read about the shopping cart trick and decide what the hell, I was on Victoria’s Secret the other day anyway. Go and am automatically approved for $500! Wow, more than doubles my credit line. Doesn't look like I qualify at any other stores...I have no use for plus size clothing anyway Flit around a couple other sites and look at pre-approvals...it says I will qualify for DiscoverIt and some of the Barclay's cards. Reading more I find out about people's preapproval offers disappearing. I freak out and apply...am denied for the unsecured one but approved for the secured one. It actually looks pretty good, so I put the offer on hold for 3 days. I get back to the US this weekend and will try to call just to see if I can get a reconsideration for the unsecured, otherwise I'll go with the secured card. So after all this nonsense I feel the speed picking up and am excited for the future. I hope to document my progress here as I come along.

If at first you don’t succeed, you have nothing to lose by trying again…and aiming higher. (Caveat: some have incurred additional HPs in recon attempts. YMMV.) Two weeks ago I went into my local branch of a large regional bank (operating in 16 states) to close a checking account I was seldom using. The Team Leader who always helps me told me he could run a pre-qualifying credit card app, and while I was reasonably certain it wouldn’t work (I’m opted out), I also know they are primarily a TU puller – odds were in my favor that there wasn’t much to lose. I rightly guessed that my “soft, pre-qual app” turned into a HP, but it was on TU, and those have a bizarre habit of getting lost. Here today; gone in 56 tomorrows. My banker told me it would take 1-2 business days for an answer, and he checked on it the next business day. I was initially approved for $5K in the automated phase of the process, but an underwriter vetoed the software’s decision and denied me, based on the 2 remaining medical collections that are currently in Why Chat Mode. I searched high and low for a backdoor number or email – their “insider info” is guarded like a State Secret. But I’m a pretty savvy sleuth – which has annoyed more than one boyfriend along the way – and I felt reasonably certain I’d figured out the proper email formatting for employees. Yesterday, I hurled what turned out to be a rightly aimed dart at the Chief Credit Officer listed under Executive Leadership on their website. Thursday: 5:10pm – I sent email 6:09pm – I received brief but very personal reply AFTER "bankers' hours"; thanked me & congratulated me for aspiring to join the FICO 800 Club; someone will review it and get back to me within a few days 8:30pm – I replied with my sincere thanks Friday: 3:41pm – I received a generously personal response from a different person: EVP, Consumer Credit Executive – approved for $5K; original contact was copied on email 4:05pm – I was overwhelmed by their level of personal service and replied to both, letting them know they’d earned a customer for life In summary, you’ll win some…and you’ll lose some. But always remember the immortal words of Wayne Gretzky: You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.

So against my better judgment...and considering I'm going to be gardening for the foreseeable future, I figured I'd burn one more inquiry on TU. Used the prescreened offer I received in the mail for the Travelocity AMEX. Since I already have a Barclay Rewards card, approval wasn't instant...ended up getting the 7-10 message and called into the backdoor right away. The analyst was pretty pleasant...asked about my employment, why I had an unpaid Midland collection on my report (It took me about 5 minutes to explain that doozy.) and why I obtained a few accounts recently. In the end he approved me for $800. Not bad. At some point I might check to see if I could move some CL over from the rewards card.

So I went on Amazon and decided I would do an application to determine where I stood as far as creditworthiness was in their terms. In the meantime, I figured I would at least get the Equifax denial and have the right to request my Equifax report (which i will still do). Anyhow, I decided to fill out the Net 30 and Revolving application and then call in and play "the confused role" So I get a rep on the phone asking him if there was any primary difference in the two accounts outside of pay terms, and that to be safe I filled out both apps to let him fully process whichever I determined to go with. He states "Credit Review requirements are the same for both" So I told him to go ahead and see what we come up with. He puts me on hold for some time and then comes back giving me a reference code and telling me that he is transferring me to Verification department. When i got to her, she put me on hold for some time and also came and called the landline. After this about 10 minute process with her alone, she tells me Congratulations approved for $5000 (amount requested) At that point, I asked her which type of account she completed.. she stated that she did not know because once it hits her department, it is merely verification. *sigh* So I call back and talk to Net 30 customer service to see if thats the account I have (assuming this would be most logical) about whether it would be simple to convert over to Revolving account type.. another long hold session of course... then she gets me on the line with Credit Department Credit Department asks me if i want him to close the Net 30 Account .. WHOA BUDDY ... i told him that if he was able to simply approve the Revolving account in lieu of the net then we can close it.. (didnt want them to think i was going to overextend myself) however.. if we cannot simply open the Revolving account, then we will continue with the net account. 10 minutes holding COngratulations we were able to approve you for the Amazon.com revolving line of credit... $2500 limit.. SOOOO.... both lines opened simultaneously... net $5000 and Revolving $2500... Guess ill go ahead and try and get me a copy of my Equifax report since they should see the inquiry and ill just say i was DENIED...

My plans are to buy a home this year if possible my scores was looking bad at the end of the 2012 (eq-617, tu-582, ex-588) talked with a realtor and he sent through dhi buyers club the guy was suppose to help me get things off of my credit and he only wrote a letter for the things that was already due to fall off he also said I needed to get a couple of credit cards to establish current positive credit lines. I still continue to tweek my credit report to remove negative information. as of today my scores are eq-646, tu-622, ex-637 but I have applied for numerous credit cards starting the end of 2012 until now and have a lot of inquires (21). I'm done applying for cards....any advice will be greatly appreciated

So here is my situation: I have about $11,500 on my Bankamericard Mastercard at 9.9%. I did a BTF about 2 years ago and have paid a good chunk of that, but have incurred some purchases over the last year that were necessary when I didn't have excess cash. At any rate, I applied for both the PenFed Promise Visa and NFCU Platinum Visa because they both have no fees and good rates. I was approved for both! The PenFed Promise was given a limit of $12K and the NFCU Platinum Visa was granted a limit of $14K, which brings my total available credit to $76K. However, NFCU is the one that is going to process my large BT because they asked for the info while doing the app. My CONCERN is that if I transfer an $11,500 balance to a $14K card that my score will take a hit. My overall credit card utilization will be low, but this card will be at 80% of its limit. What are you all's thoughts??? Will my score be affected how I think it will be? Or no?