Hey everybody, Well im pretty excited lately. I just pretty much cleaned up all my credit history. I had a 30-60 day lates on a Associates Visa File. Its now been deleted. My score from tonight is 768 Fico from Equifax Credit Watch. A little run down of my credit history: Im 22 years old with 5 years of credit history. I have 4 credit cards that are active, but now have 0 balances. 1. Wells Fargo Student CC- 19.99%/$1200 CL 2. Capital one - 12%/$500 CL 3. Mark Morris/Firestone 19-20% 4. Att Universal 13.99% My oldest credit card is the wells fargo. When i turned 18 that was my first credit card ever. Although its a very high interest rate, i dont want to close it because of the history. So now to my main questions: I hear alot about AMEX. What is so good about them? The reason i really want to go to them, is becuase of the name. I want to get a platinum card one day, if not now! But the thing about this rewards cards, is that i dont travel very much so it wouldnt get much benefit. So my other option that i was look at was American Blue. But also, i work at Citibank and can get a card from them at Prime+1%, which is REALLY GOOD. So which card would you get with my credit history and 768 Fico score and why? Remember i dont travel much, so let me know what you think. Thanks
Oh yeah, how long does it take before i start getting mail from American Express? Ive never recieved anything from them.
once I got over 720 I recieved mail from them all the time, now that all scores are within 10 points of 800 I get crap every day on line and in the mail box. As far as score needed some amex reps say all you need for green is 580 and all you need for gold business is 500 take it for what it is.... I've always had scores over 700 when I applied for amex never turned down .... I have 5 accounts with them now and love them.. when their on their game they can't be beat..
ps blue can be had at 6.99 fixed and my citi plat is prime plus 1.99 they won't give you prime for life?????
I was in the same boat. Cleaned up my credit report after years of dings I wasn't ready to face. Turns out, things weren't nearly as bad as I envisioned, nor as difficult to remove. I had a pair of primes, Citi and Chase, but still with anemic credit lines from college days. Emboldened with a sterling credit report, I jacked the climits to the big leagues. Then, I started looking to add new trade lines. The first I looked at was Amex. For years, I knew better then to pay some outrageous annual fee simply for the snob factor. But, wouldn't you know it - I got so excited I applied for Gold (cause there was no way in hell I was paying $300 for plat). Within seconds after applying, I regretted it. Snob factor be damned - I never activated it and cancelled when it arrived. My good credit entitles me to have credit companies fight over my business and shower me with free offers, no annual fees, etc. Instead I got MBNA Quantum. If you go Amex, get BLUE. It's a good credit card, instead of a crummy charge card. With Plat, you pay for the privilege of asking establishments whether they even accept Amex, and when you go to pay, get declined because we all know there's really no such thing as "no credit limit." At least with Blue you have a very competitive credit card, a healthy credit limit, and no annual fee. If you're a big traveler, you may get some perks with Platinum, but I've spent half this year in London, Paris, and Puerto Vallarta, and would have found it fairly useless (all you need is Expedia to book travel, some cash, a VISA (accepted everywhere you want to be), and your debit card to use at ATMS which automatically exchange currency at the most competitive rates). It's really intended if you use it with less regard to cost, and more so for business people who aggressively make business deductions to itemize and offset sizeable income during tax time. If the bulk of your income is filed W-2, Amex won't be of much use to play the deductions game.
