Best Cards for 620 FICO8

[twilliam1313]

I am in the process of rebuilding my credit right now and trying to get some decent credit cards. My FICO 8 on all the bureaus is 620-624. I do have a repo/charge off from 2019 with Flagship Credit Acceptance. I have 6 late payments as well in the last 3 years. My current set up is:

Cap1 secured: $200

Cap1 quicksilver1: $400

Credit One platinum: $300

Credit One Wander: $500

premier1 : $500

milestone: $700

mission lane: $1100

Any recommendations? I can't get discover or chase as I had charge offs with them when I was 18, they are off my reports and were all paid off but they still have not forgiven me.

Also any recommendations on Auto Loan Refinance companies. Currently have a loan through Cap1 with 20.8% APR that I've had for almost 2 years now and my scores have gone up from low 500s to where I'm at now since I got that.

Any help or guidance is much appreciated as I am just at the start of my rebuild.

[pizzadude]

What balances are you carrying on these cards now ?    You have a good number of cards now, are you looking to get cards with higher credit limits ?   If you can practice AZEO with your cards you'll maximize your FICO scores from a revolving utilization perspecitve, and this should help if you are looking to refinance your auto loan.   Do you have membership with any CUs that you could leverage to try and get a better rate than 20% ?

[twilliam1313]

Cap1 secured: $0/$200

Cap1 quicksilver1: $0/$400

Credit One platinum: $0/$300

Credit One Wander: $0/$500

premier1 : $0/$500

milestone: $400/$700

mission lane: $490/$1100

should have milestone and mission lane both at $200 by the end of the month.

ideally looking for larger credit limit with better banks that's have less fees and more benefits.

im not familiar with AZEO but will look into that. 

no relations with CUs but have been considering opening a checking account at one I just havnt done too much research. I'm located in FL if you have any recs. I can't get into navyfed or any military associated ones as I have no relation with anyone to get me in.

[Shooting-For-800]

Check prequals.

Regions, Cap One, Amex, Discover, Home Depot, Lowe's.

Merrick is very fair.  I never paid a dime to them.

GL!

[ForwardLooking]

---

@twilliam1313 wrote:

I am in the process of rebuilding my credit right now and trying to get some decent credit cards. My FICO 8 on all the bureaus is 620-624. I do have a repo/charge off from 2019 with Flagship Credit Acceptance. I have 6 late payments as well in the last 3 years. My current set up is:

Cap1 secured: $200

Cap1 quicksilver1: $400

Credit One platinum: $300

Credit One Wander: $500

premier1 : $500

milestone: $700

mission lane: $1100

Any recommendations? I can't get discover or chase as I had charge offs with them when I was 18, they are off my reports and were all paid off but they still have not forgiven me.

Also any recommendations on Auto Loan Refinance companies. Currently have a loan through Cap1 with 20.8% APR that I've had for almost 2 years now and my scores have gone up from low 500s to where I'm at now since I got that.

Any help or guidance is much appreciated as I am just at the start of my rebuild.

---

How new are these cards?  You have a lot already and they may be holding you back if they are less than 12 months old with dings to both your inquaries and new accounts metrics.  You may just want to let what you have age a little.  In the meantime, focus on that auto loan.  If you can't get it refinanced soon, get it paid down at least by paying as much as you can afford on it.

[twilliam1313]

Will for sure start checking some prequals!

are store cards like Lowe's and Home Depot easy? Also forgot to put I have a Merrick charge off too from when I was 18 that's off my report that's paid and they have not forgiven either.

[twilliam1313]

Cap1 secured : 2 years

cap1 quicksilver: 6 months

Credit one platinum: 1.5 years

Credit one wander: 1 month

Premier1: 6 months

Milestone: 2 years

mission lane: 2 years 

got the cap1 quicksilver from an offer in the app and same with credit one wander. Credit one didn't do a hard pull tho when they gave me that. 

The auto loan is my main priority right now, I just don't really know where to look for refinance. I'm not upside down on it, owe $24k car is worth $36k my payment is $670 right now but I usually pay $1k. I ruined my credit young but am fortunate enough now that I have a decent job making around $150k so have been able to afford the terrible rate but would be very happy if I could even get it dropped to 15% and save some money and do that for a year and the refinance again with cap1 and get it even lower. I just got an update last night my Experian fico jumped to 660 so waiting on trans and Equifax too and I think that would put me in even a better spot. 

[GreyvyTrain]

@twilliam1313 

Discover so far has been the best towards me.  Had a $200 secured card, 6 months good behavior and got unsecured not long ago with instant CLI to $1800.

[twilliam1313]

Unfortunately have a charge off from them from about 10 years ago and they seem to still not have forgiven me and can't even get approved from the secured card.

[ForwardLooking]

---

@twilliam1313 wrote:

Cap1 secured : 2 years

cap1 quicksilver: 6 months

Credit one platinum: 1.5 years

Credit one wander: 1 month

Premier1: 6 months

Milestone: 2 years

mission lane: 2 years 

got the cap1 quicksilver from an offer in the app and same with credit one wander. Credit one didn't do a hard pull tho when they gave me that. 

The auto loan is my main priority right now, I just don't really know where to look for refinance. I'm not upside down on it, owe $24k car is worth $36k my payment is $670 right now but I usually pay $1k. I ruined my credit young but am fortunate enough now that I have a decent job making around $150k so have been able to afford the terrible rate but would be very happy if I could even get it dropped to 15% and save some money and do that for a year and the refinance again with cap1 and get it even lower. I just got an update last night my Experian fico jumped to 660 so waiting on trans and Equifax too and I think that would put me in even a better spot. 

---

Even though you did not get dinged on hard pulls for some of the cards, you still get dinged for accounts that were opened within the past 12 months.  I had a profile makeup similar to yours now.  I stopped applying and let all of my accounts age until they were 1 year old.  After that I was able to start getting higher starting limit cards.  This past year, I actually closed all of my sub-prime rebuilding cards that had an annual fee, which was a great feeling.

You are doing the right thing in the short run by paying more on your car loan.  20% is high.  I had a personal loan that was about 24% that I was forced to take out during covid to pay a laywer to help through a child custody change after my son came to live with me.  The debt made me angry and I had to tackle it with a vengince.  I made extra payments, as you are doing, but as soon as my cards aged to about 1 year old each, I was able to get approved for a Discover IT card that had a 0% balance transfer offer.  I used that transfer to pay off my personal loan and was able to kill the debt pretty quickly because I was no longer paying interest on it.  I know you mentioned issues with Discover, but AMEX has similar cards in their Blue Cash line that usually have 0% incentives.  Even if you are able to transfer 25% of your car to a 0% balance transfer card, it could help, assuming you continue to practice good money management skills.