you sent me a PM asking about how bad it would look on a credit report if you got denied for a barclays card. I wanted to post on here in case other younger/less credit savvy ppl wanted to know as well.

first, i think you really need to look into building credit and what goes into a credit score/credit report (like utilization, AAoA, etc), which most points blogs really do not go into. The points guy kinda does, but Doctor of Credit is probably the best hybrid points and credit building blog out there that i've seen. before you can start churning and doing 2BMs, you need to understand how credit reports work and how to take advantage of them.

to answer your PM, my rationale for applying for barclays and not caring about the credit pull is that there are 3 credit bureaus that store credit report data, Experian, Equifax, and Transunion (also note they have different algorithms to calculate credit score). Different lenders like Barclays, Chase, and Amex pull data from different bureaus.

It depends by state, but most credit bureaus that we care about (Citi, Amex, Chase) pull from Experian. Barclays more or less pulls from Transunion. Of the data on a credit report (# of accounts, age, late payments, loan balance/availabile credit line, and credit pulls), the only thing NOT shared between bureaus is credit pulls. Therefore, if you got denied on Barclays, that hard pull would only affect your TU credit report. And WRT credit pulls "hurting" your credit, that has less of an effect 6 months after, and then falls off after 2 years.

Based on the additional info of only having one AU account with a 1k limit, I would definitely avoid applying for any real rewards cards for a year, and just build using starter cards. Like I said earlier, read creditboards and ficoforum and see what people in a similar demographic are getting approved for. Consider Capital One; I would NEVER recommend this for most churners, since they are the only lender that pulls all 3 credit reports, but since they offer cards to mediocre credit score ppl for cheap, it would be a good start to building.

Personally to build credit, I got a Capital One card (before i knew they pulled 3 bureaus) and the Barclays Apple ITunes card, and had to recon both. I actually got rejected for a credit card from the gap, that's how bare my credit was. But I kept my utilization low, and was able to start the churning game about a year later. Granted, my case also had student loan history and decent income post college, for someone who is presumably starting school with limited income, I am not sure how you would get around income requirements.