Originally Posted by
wahooflyer
This would be my strategy if I were in your shoes:
1) Apply for the Amex Platinum charge + one revolving Amex credit card (the Everyday card might be a good choice as it has no annual fee and also earns MR points that you can pool with points you earn from the Platinum card.) If you apply for a charge card and a revolver in the same day, it is only one hard inquiry from Amex. Two new accounts, especially several months before you apply for a mortgage, aren't going to hurt your credit score in any significant way. It's "app sprees" with many new accounts and high credit lines in a short period of time that can spook lenders. You'll probably get a $10k or so limit on the Everyday card with your scores, which will help the utilization part of your FICO. The charge card doesn't count toward utilization one way or the other for most modern FICO score models, which can be a double edged sword. That's why I'd advise opening both.
2) Apply for mortgage when you are ready.
3) After you close on your house, close the Citibank Amex since you don't use it. It'll still show up on your credit reports for 7-10 years as closed in good standing, which will help keep the "average age of accounts" on your FICO high.
I've got a couple other cards, an American Airlines MasterCard and Amex, I honestly don't remember what I got both those, and Alaska Airlines and the CSR and now this Amex Plat (which I got instant approval for). I've had the American Airlines and the Amex network card 8 or 9 years ago and have always been in good standing with them.
Alaska card is about 1.5 years old and of course the CSR and Amex Plat are very recent.
I've had a couple personal unsecured loans that were in great standing (paid off early actually) that are ~2 years old. So my credit history has some mix to it and the only recent things now are my car lease and these two credit cards.
I may downgrade the CSR (if that's possible?) to keep an account open for the average age but get out of that high fee... unless it seems worth it in the long run to keep both the CSR and Amex Plat.
I'm a little annoyed though that when I applied last night at home it was a 40k bonus point offer (after $4k of spend? I think) yet today when I googled it at work on my break to look at the perks again it came up with a 75k bonus point offer after $5k in spend! It must be that I work for a national lab (so have .gov IP and stuff) but it was the personal card, not the biz card that the offer was good for! I highly doubt if I call in they can adjust that, right? It's been less then 24 hours....