The hit on your score for lowering AVG age by opening a few new accounts will be very minor, and short-term. The inquiries/new accounts reporting will likely be a larger short-term negative, though also pretty minor. The benefits of building a thicker credit file far outweigh the negatives. These benefits include total age and total payment history (huge factor). Both of these factors start helping as soon as the accounts begin reporting, and should gain you back the points you lost for credit shopping/opening new accounts in a few short months, then it's all gravy. Also building a thicker file now actually helps with AVG age in the future if you ever open more accounts a few years down the road.


I'd open 2 or 3 new accounts, make your payments, and don't carry big balances. In 2 years all the new account stink will be off your reports, and I'll bet you're at 750+ across the board. Nothing wrong with trying for higher limits, but it can't hurt to wait for more history and higher scores.

hasn't the bolded been proven to hurt your score rather than help it?

It's not helping, but I'm not sure it hurts his score. Silly to do though.

Thanks guys. Increased my deposit and will apply for a few more cards in about a month. Any recommendations on cards to get? I'm going to go for the Discover IT and the AmEx Blue Cash as my rewards cards, and I'm curious to see what sort of limits I'll get on those. Then I'm also going to apply for a few more cards that I won't plan on using much, but just want them to beef up my card total so that ~5 years down the road I'll have a better history. So for those I'm thinking a couple store cards and an Amazon card, but open to suggestions.

This is incorrect. It's still scored as a negative and will adversely affect you score no matter if paid or not. In fact, if it's an older chargeoff it can lower your score by re-aging the account. Common misconception about credit scores.
Pay for delete or a goodwill deletion is the way to go. Checkout creditboards.com for the correct way to do it. Repairing credit is often counterintuitive.

I have pretty ****ty credit. I kind of ****ed up my credit while in college (a few charge offs, etc.) and now I'm slowly bringing my score back up. My credit karma score says I have a score of 634. It says I've brought up my credit score from a dismal 533 dating back to last summer. I've had this capital one secured card for about nine months and have a 600 dollar credit line. 100 of which is unsecured. A few months ago I received this 100 dollar credit line increase. (assuming because I've made 100 percent of my payments on time; been also paying off the balance every month)

I want to obviously keep on improving my credit score with on time payments and low credit card utilization. Keep in mind, this secured card is the only credit card I've been using in the past 9 months.

But...I also would like to eventually get that 500 dollars back I've invested for the secured capital one card. (again, $600 limit: 100 of which is unsecured). What are my best options? I would like my secured deposit back but also want continue using a credit card to improve my credit score.

Is it best to continue using the secured card and apply for a second credit card (unsecured) as well to build a thicker credit profile? Or should I apply for a new unsecured card, get approved, and then cancel the secured card? Or just try to get two unsecured cards? (cancelling my secured card obv) I realize applying for a few cards will put a hit on my credit score. Is it really that bad having your credit pulled?

Any recommendations for a unsecured card for people like me with borderline poor to fair credit? Thanks.

Discover IT and BCE are both good cards. Chase Freedom and Citi Forward (if you're a student) are good choices as well.

Having a credit pull (or multiples) is worse for someone with a lower credit score as it's much more likely to be interpreted as trying to get more credit.

From some cursory reading it seems like a lot of people have luck getting unsecured cards through military affiliated organizations. If you or a family member is affiliated with the military you may be able to get an account at NFCU which gives pretty good limits on their cards.

I think you have a decent chance of applying for a store card, or a basic rewards card like the Freedom or IT. Do a little research. Google "what card can I get with a 650 FICO" or similar.

Anyone ITT have experience with closing a secured CC and getting your deposit back? Was just wondering how big a hassle it is and how long it might take for me to get it back if I close my capital one secured card.

Is it pretty terrible to close a credit card 9 months after opening it? Especially a secured card made for rebuilding credit? I appreciate this thread JL. I'm just a complete noob to credit cards, credit, etc.

AUG, I recently closed a cap1 secured card I had for a little over a year. I maxed out the secured card immediately to $3k to build credit faster though, and I recommend it. During that time, I got approved for a cap1 cash rewards card (now quicksilver), amex blue cash rewards (with big credit limit increase approval), and a couple store cards.

Mission accomplished so I got my deposit back. It took about a month for my check to arrive.

Applied for a barclays rewards mastercard tonight after reading a few reviews and that it's a card for fair credit. Liked that it had no annual fee and some rewards. Got approved for a $500 credit line. I am pretty happy with that. Debating whether or not to apply for another card so I can close my cap one secured card and get my deposit back.

Is it pretty silly to apply for a unsecured card with capital one given that I already have a secured card with them? I haven't closed my secured card yet but if I'm approved for a second unsecured card, I definitely will close it. Was just wondering if there is anything that would suggest not to apply for another card (the hard inquires are coming I'm sure) specifically with the same company I already have a secured card with.

Did you read my post above?

Yes, I did. Was just wondering if there was anything to suggest not applying for an unsecured card with the same company you already have a secured card with. Stupid question I know...but like I said a few posts up, I'm a complete noob to credit cards, credit, etc. My 100 dollar unsecured limit increase to my secured card only came a few months ago. Was wondering if that would have any bearing on being approved for an unsecured card with cap one. (ie - having to have a certain number of billing cycles with the cap one secured card to be able to get an unsecured card with cap one) But yeh, probably going to apply for the cap one cash rewards as well.

Yea just apply. If you happen to not get it, you def won't get approved for anything else, so wait a few months for a new round of applying before closing your secured card.

It is actually 100% correct. A pay-for-delete is better but not everybody does them. Paying your debts is waaaaaay better for your credit score than letting them stay in collections; it's not even close. Getting an item deleted is obviously the best, but settling or paying in full is 100x better than not doing anything.
You are also incorrect about lowing your credit score if it is an older charge-off, but you are correct in the fact that if it near the 7 year mark where an item will fall off your credit report it is better just to not pay it rather than pay and restart the clock on the reporting limits.

Creditboards.com has a lot of good information, but just like anywhere else on the internet, there is a lot of nonsense out there.

Yeh, got denied for the capital one card. ****, oh well. There goes that plan. Still happy I got the other unsecured card so now I have the option to close my secured card to get my deposit back if I really want to. Or wait like you said. Just wondering if doing that along with having a few new hard pulls on my credit is going to dip my score a lot. Guess I'll find out.

Edit: credit karma says I only have one hard inquiry before all this so I suppose I'll be fine in that regard before a few more show up

You seem to know what you're talking about in general here so I'm not sure why you insist on pounding home this wrong point. The computer that figures this **** out reads a collection as a collection. It does not know or care that AFTER YOU DEFAULTED you decided to "do the right thing" and "pay your debts". If you're buying a house you'll probably need to pay these off, if not there is very little, if any benefit.


You're right about credit boards, there is a ton of bs to wade through, and some bad opinions. That said I've spent enough time there to say that I highly doubt that anyone who knows what they're talking about would suggest you pay off old collections in order to boost your score. It's nowhere on the common knowledge list of things to do to repair/build credit.

Odd question - is there any negative to applying for credit cards through creditkarma's site? I like the service they provide and would be happy to give them the referral, but not if it's going to adversely affect my application or cause lower limits, lower sign-up bonuses, etc. Anybody know this?

Also, as I'm getting ready to apply for the Blue Cash Amex, Discover IT, and Chase Freedom, is there a good site to track historical sign-up promos to see if I should wait for a better one to come around in a month or 2?

Ill answer that when I get home today. No signing up yet!

Not sure if this is the right place to post.

We just refinanced our house with cash out for a renovation. What's the best way to maximize the return on that cash while doing the renovation? I'm thinking about opening one or more new credit cards that have 0% for a long period -- I think Citi has one that lasts 18 months. Then I would pay for as much as possible on the card, put the cash equal to the credit limit(s) into a savings account or CDs.

We already have a Platinum account with BofA, and the loan proceeds will be wired to that account. Should we go into our local branch and ask what they can do for us, or just go straight to the best rate we can find online?

We don't have the schedule set for the renovation, but I would be surprised if it is not done within 12 months. We will likely spend all of the loan proceeds and more.

One other question is around the taxes on cash out refinancing. How do I calculate the cash out? Just add up the amount that I received plus amounts that ended up in escrow accounts? Can I still deduct all of the interest on the mortgage, and if so, is there some time limit on the use of the funds?

Discover IT - Has been as high as $100 in the past, I think the best deal right now is a $75 Amazon GC. Discover has lower signup offers than everyone else, although when they were phasing out the Discover MORE card, there were offers as high as $200/$250 I think.

Amex BCE - Best bonus is $150 through creditcards.com/cardmatch and I'm not sure if that's still active. You should be able to find a $100 offer somewhere.

Chase Freedom - Has been as high as $300, but I think now the best offer is $200 rarely, and $100 much more often. I think CK might have the $200 offer.

There shouldn't be any downside to applying through CK, they're just an affiliate in that scenario. Best way to check that you're getting the best offer is to just search slickdeals.net for the name of the card you are going to apply for and see what the offers have been historically.

Thanks buddy

I'm coming up on the one year mark for my Chase Sapphire Preferred. I love the card, but I'm not sure I can justify the $95 fee based upon my spend. I think I will convert it to a plain Sapphire or Freedom.

Anyone have a quick analysis on what level of spending you need to really make keeping the Preferred?

It's a really difficult analysis to make because the regular Sapphire doesn't bonus travel spend, doesn't give the 7% annual bonus, and charges forex fees. So the only way to make the apples to apples comparison is if you only used your CSP for dining and no travel expenses.

And if you use the points to transfer to travel partners then they are completely different types of points with different "values".

Just signed up for (on accident) a platinum capital one MasterCard, thought I could submit the application and they'd tell me what limit I'd have before I would get some final prompt. Got approved for 3k, which is good because some unexpected costs came up.

I'm new to the game, have a bank of America cash rewards and now this new one. If I'm paid off in full on the capital one before the year expires where they charge $95, can I close the card without hassle or does that look bad on your credit report? Also, what's the recommended all purpose card I should be getting next? Thanks for any replies

FYI those looking into getting a Discover Card, now is as good a time as any because their 3 month category for October-Decemeber (same as last year) is online shopping. 5% cashback on first $1500 spent. Note that this included PayPal, Amazon, whatever - free $75