I'm curious to hear from any of you that use the Orchard Bank card what your personal experience has been like. Has it been a seamless transition since Capital One took over? Any issues accessing your account or confusion about the changes taking place?
Hi Josh I have a HSBC Household card that converted to Cap1 - I wasn't paying attention to this and had no clue that my account changed till I received the paperwork. I asked for a CL increase on May 2 on my HSBC and was granted an 150 increase - so far everything has be co-branded and I just paid my bill today. Nothing really changed, and I wouldn't get a new card till my HSBC expires in 2014 - I plan to cash in my "rewards" on my HSBC as I doubt that my card will convert to a Cap1 reward card in 2014. Des
Hi Josh The Household Bank card is a reward card - 2 points per dollar spend - you can redeem points for gift cards/certificates, merchandise, charity redemptions or cash. Nothing to get excited about - 25.00 cash = 2500 points etc. Points expire after 5 years - so I will keep em till right before the card expires and cash out.
That's what I thought...just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing. Did Cap One give you any indication of what your card will turn into come 2014? Or did they just say you could continue to use your existing card until the expiration date?
Hi Josh No Cap1 did not give any indication what the card will turn into in 2014 - they said to continue to use the card till it expires. The letter does address if you currently have both a HSBC and Cap1 card - they will not be combinding at this time (I currently have both Cap1 cash reward and an HSBC reward card). All written communication is currently co-branded - but HSBC payment website has Household Bank logos - but Cap1 is branded on the site on the bottom of the page. Nothing really has change yet but then again it's only been 16 days.
Hi Josh Just checked on my CRAs this morning the following report as follows: TU - account changed to CapOne 5.19.2012 (my reporting date) - credit increase reporting and HSBC has been removed under my account address section - one soft pull from CapOne 5.2.2012 - the day I asked for a credit increase from HSBC - credit score increase of 1 point EX - via freecreditscore - account still showing as HSBC under old credit limit (I think my reporting date is the 26th) - no change in score (yet EQ - account changed to CapOne 5/12 - credit increase reporting - 2 soft pulls from CapOne 5.17 and 5.21 I have no clue why - credit score increase of 5 points. My scores have been stagnant due to using my cards as 30-day cash - I charge, I pay, I don't charge up to limits (currently unemployed to afraid to do that) so I keep it under 200 per month once I'm working again I will charge higher to attempt to increase scores. I haven't applied for credit in 7 months - but a vehicle purchase in March 2011 hit me 3 inquires per report in a 2 day period - one car = 12 inquires yikes. No late pays and almost everything reports correctly - still have one account not reporting IIB - working on that, so these small score increases must be due to the credit increase. So far, so good.
FYI- charging a higher amount won't help increase your credit scores. Focus on your credit utilization ratio and continuing to make on-time payments since those are the key factors that will help improve your scores. Oh, and those 12 inquiries for the auto loan should be treated by the FICO model as one credit inquiry. The FICO credit-scoring model doesn't penalize you for rate shopping as long as the hard pulls are all done within a short period of time. Also, if you didn't already hear, Capital One gave the Orchard Bank card the axe last week. Existing cardholders can continue to use their cards for now, but Cap One is no longer taking new applications for the Orchard Cards. It'll be interesting to see what your Orchard Card eventually turns into once they rebrand it is as Capital One card.
Sorry to hijack, but I have a question about the credit utilization. If I have more than one card, could I use 20% on one card with a $500 limit and 0% on the other card with a $500 limit and have that translate to 10% of utilization. Or do I have to have a balance on both cards?
What you suggest is fine. Using $100 of $1,000 in total available credit means you have a credit utilization ratio of 10%. At the same time, you still want to avoid using more than about 30% of your available credit on any individual card too.
