Well with the Cap1 Card, I had to start out with the whole amount secured, $200. I sent in $225 and just have been adding to it periodically. I am just up to $500 now. I have heard that bigger limits attract bigger limits so I want to add more to at least get it to $1k. I haven’t been able to keep it below 35% or 50% utility but I have paid it on time all the time. I haven’t seen an increase from them at all, but my score isn’t that great either. My goal is to get to another year and apply for an unsecured with my credit union, hopefully I’ll get a bigger limit and be eligible for big limit increases.
Probably about 3 months ago I went on an app spree. I applied and got HSBC 2% reward card $39 annual fee $300 limit. I went to their pre approval link to see if I was eligible for anything other than a secured card and that’s what the screen came up with. Capital One also has a preapproval screen, so instead of having to get a hard inquiry on your report, you can get a soft one (only you see this one, not the creditors, they see hard inquiries) and be confident you will be approved (I think almost always).
The other 3 were charge cards, WFFNB – Express, Victoria Secret, and Blair. I think I just got caught up in the “my score is a little higher, let me see what I can get” phase. On these, I’ve read where you can be preapproved, but you have to go on the sites and add a few things to your cart and go through like you are going to check out, you may have to or may not ( i don’t remember) put in your cc # and right before you would have to click on submit (which I didn’t) you will see a pop up window that says you are approved…for xxx amount of $$, if you are preaproved, I got $250 on VicSec, $200 on Blair, and $350 on Express. I heard this works on almost all WFFNB company sites if your scores are to their liking. I tried on others in between the ones I was approved for and didn’t get the preapproval message for those. So this is it for now. At least six months!