Thanks all for the help!

Citi declined me because of "insufficient" and "short" credit history. I do have a credit card with my credit union, but it is the lowest tier with no rental car insurance and a very low limit. I did try to upgrade but was declined not so long ago. I now realize the reason probably is that I had a balance on my credit card, I never bothered paying it off since it had a great (introduction) APR, so that probably looked bad to the monkey in charge, especially if they ignore my overall financial balance of checking,savings and car equity. I assume that Citi only saw that I had used 2/3 of my current credit card limit, and therefore considered me thrash.

anyway, I keep my credit card payed off at all times now. Hopefully that will make me look better for credit card issuers. Maybe I'll even swallow my pride and do the citi pre-paid thing..