cardjuggler said:Trachei said:My goals are:

To make more than $2k in interest. $5k would be stellar for me.
Not hurt my credit too much
Which is more important? Even if you stay below 50% utilization, your credit history is short so I would guess that a reasonably profitable AOR is going to hurt your credit.

At age 23, treat your first several AORs as early steps in a long-term strategy for making extra money (provided you can pay bills on time and avoid the temptation to spend "other people's money").

A very rough estimate: you could make 5% of your HHI, and your wife another 5%. (I have no idea whether you can do that well on your first AOR, but perhaps your second 1 year later. And, that may require more aggressive utilization than is wise. The math is left as an exercise for the reader, though I'll be happy to chime in on reasonable attempts.)



Ok, I've read a lot about CC that allow me to reallocate credit lines, should I try and get those cards first as long as they have good balance transfer rates/fees?

How can I tell whether an inquiry is "hard" or "soft"?

I've signed up for TrueCredit.com and according to their reports, in the "summary" at the top of the page, they list under "Inquiries (2 years):" the following:

TU: 5
Exp: 4
Equ: 5

Are these all "hard" inquiries?

Also, at the bottom of the page, they list other inquiries. Now, in the past week or so, as I prepare for an AOR, I've been trying to increase credit limits and consolidate lines and whatnot. I also had to apply for a student loan last week and I had a friend at a bank do a quick check on my credit score for me (this was prior to my realizing I needed to get a TrueCredit.com account for long term and sustained credit score checks). Also, I foolishly applied for a pair of credit cards independent of the AOR, not realizing that all cards should be applied for one after another. Hopefully that won't hurt me too much...

As a result this is what I see in the "inquiries" section (note that the item in brackets is my own note of what I believe the inquiry was over):

Creditor Name Date of Inquiry Credit Bureau

FUSA, NA 04/04/2007 Equifax........... [requesting a CLI increase on a Chase card]
CITI 04/04/2007 Equifax............... [requesting a CLI increase in a Citi card]
FAC/CHEVY CHASE 04/03/2007 Experian... [my friend checking my credit score for me]
CREDCO 04/03/2007 Equifax............. [my friend checking my credit score for me]
DISCOVER FIN 04/03/2007 TransUnion.... [applied for a Discover card]
FAC 04/03/2007 TransUnion............. [applied for a credit card]
FM-MHESLA 03/29/2007 TransUnion....... [student loan application]
ECHOSTAR 01/18/2007 Equifax........... [signed up for directv service]
BANK OF AMERICA 12/02/2005 Experian
FUSA, NA 12/02/2005 Equifax
INSTADEBIT SERVICES 11/25/2005 Experian
DISCOVER FIN 09/12/2005 TransUnion
DFS-BSD/CIT BANK 04/15/2005 Experian
AMEX 04/07/2005 TransUnion

So can anybody analyze this info on my TrueCredit report and tell me if these are considered "hard" or "soft" inquiries? How would one be able to tell between the two? Are all the recent inquiries I've piled up in the last week or so a real negative for me? Or are they more or less harmless "soft" ones?

ok, well I submitted about 35 apps today. I got instant approval on about 7 of them and was deferred on the rest. For the deferrals, should I just sit back and wait to hear from them via snailmail? Or should I be more proactive and call their CSRs and ask them what my
status is periodically?

Assuming I just sit back and wait for the mail, how long before I start hearing back? Few days? A week? Couple weeks? An entire month? Longer?

Also, what is the general consensus on the companies that will auto-refuse you beyond a certain # of card applications? Discover, iti and Chase? Or are those FW urban legends?

I've got a situation with credit lines consolidation I'd like to get some advice on.

I have a pretty new Sony card, 95% utilization 0% till march 08. I also have a 39k CL on some other chase card that I just paid off a 0% BT in full. My credit scores/reports suck lately due to a combination of factors that includes recent pulls and heavy utilization. Chase has said they will do a hard pull to combine the CLs

My question is, should I try to combine the CLs? I could then drop utilization, get more BT $ or some combination of both. But I risk chase not combinining the lines or even cutting CLs. And another hard pull for my poor FICO score.
Should I pay someting off on the recent Sony BT before I ask for consolidation?

Thanks
DD

robertw477 said:Your scores seem tight at 796 across the board. I have citi business cards but have found them to give me much larger lines on the personal side. I dont think it matters to pay down the biz card for citi. Personally I think your high scores with near zero util should yield excellent results. I am trying to knock off some inqs myself and waiting for zero balances to update on my report.


Rob

Thanks - GL on your AOR.

So BOA called me up on my new Raider card with 0% to Dec Statement, 3% fee ($75 max). They were more than happy to steal $10,000 in CL from my WorldPoints card. Then they pretty much bent over backwards begging me to max out the card even though I asked for only 50% (they used the logic that since I didn't know how much my new patio cough... cover story... cough would cost, I should take everything and return what I don't need. So my question is, how bad is it to have one card maxed out if you have 20 others that aren't and/or should I attempt to now raise the credit line on the card to get in below 50% usage (or at least closer)?

Jobus said:I think I made a huge mistake.
I thought 5.05apy (4.93 rate) meant that for every $100 invested your monthly return is $4.93 I checked various online savings/intrest calcultoars and they only show my return at the end of the year being 1/12 of what I expected. I haven't come across any kind of forum or post with this problem. I even called up the bank offering me this rate and they said the return would be similar (1/12th) of what I expected.

So savings intrest rates are not rate/30*amount for one month but are in fact
rate/360*amount for one month? can someone help me please as there is quite a large amount of money on the line.....
The a in apy is annual.
for every $100 you get $4.93 a year. Actually $5.05 if you keep it in all year due to compounding interest.

At your interest calculations, your annual percentage rate would be about 60%.

Jobus said:can someone help me please as there is quite a large amount of money on the line.....

How much money are we talking about anyway?

Anin said:Can someone do an AOR while having filed for divorce ?

I did an AOR but waited until after my divorce was complete. (Divorce was final 11/29/06, AOR was 1/23/07.)

Factors to consider:

1. Your HHI will drop after the divorce if your (ex)spouse is working.
2. Any debt you rack up in an AOR may ought to be 50/50 split if you're in a community property state.
3. Any income you earn may ought to be split 50/50 also.
4. Your spouse might get cards on your new AOR accounts which you may not want to happen.
5. Your address may change as a result of your divorce.

As I said, I waited, mostly because of factors 3, 4, and especially 5. I didn't want to try to track 30 new credit cards and/or credit card bills coming in the mail and risk having them come to the wrong address.

You can read about my AOR in the linked thread in the Quick Summary.

2Cor521

kiasuchick said:I'm in an AOR holding pattern right now. Would appreciate some help if anyone has any thoughts.

My current stats:

HHI: $93k
TrueCredit FAKO: TU790/Ex796/Eq796
Total CL: $142,400
Total Revolving Debt: $4,200
Total Revolving Util: 2.95%

Total TrueCredit Debt: $9,763
Total TrueCredit Util: 6.86%

Citi Business Card CL: $4,800
Citi Business Card Debt: $3,090
Citi Business Card Util: 64.38%

Total Installment Debt (Student Loan): $7,937

INQUIRIES:
CITI 03/03/2007 TransUnion
CITI 02/26/2007 TransUnion
CITI/CBSD 06/17/2006 TransUnion
CITIBANK N.A 04/10/2006 TransUnion
VISA/FDSB 12/28/2005 Experian
BANK OF AMERICA 10/11/2005 Experian

1. Should I pay off the Citi business card to $0 if I wish to apply for another CitiBusiness card?
2. Should I pay off all my revolving debt or pay down a little more and just wait for TrueCredit to begin reporting a low utilization like 1-2%?
3. I was an idiot and request CLI on my CitiBusiness and Citi Dividend card without realizing there was a hard pull. Should I scrap AOR until another 6 months has passed/or bumpage given I have two recent pulls?

ARGH. This is driving me nuts!

You're worried about a lousy 6 pulls ? Come on...don't get concerned until you get over 20 !!! Come strong or don't come at all !!!!