Hey all,

I'm a recent college grad who currently has two personal CCs: a no annual fee BankAmericard with a $3,000 limit (since 06/09) and a $60/year Chase United Signature Visa with a $3,000 limit (since 07/10). My CreditKarma FICO is 738, and I currently have a ~$30K/year income, which will expire at the end of June when my job ends and I transition to a NYC-based med school. Right now the average age of my CCs is 1 year and 4 months, and I've been using my United Visa as my primary source of mileage earning (30k sign-up bonus + 21.5k spend to-date).

In terms of travel, most of my flying consists of JFK-HKG-PVG twice a year via CX/KA, and occasional North America side trips for pleasure, though this year I earned almost enough for a WN round-trip award through travel for med school interviews. I've been accumulating UA miles because the rest of my family is UA 1P/2P, so it's convenient for award tickets or upgrades when travelling with them. I'm interested in building a history with Amex because of the Starpoint flexibility/value when it comes to airline mile transfers, plus I've heard it's a great all-around consumer travel card.

I was wondering whether it would be wise to sign up for an SPG Amex at this stage in my life, as I'm still trying to build credit and worry that holding onto 3 relatively new CCs would damage my credit in the near future. As a foreign national studying in the US, it's hard to find sponsors, so I must rely on my own credit background for any major financial decisions. I'm also planning to apply for a credit limit increase on my United Visa by July 1st, hopefully to the $4k range in case I ever need to book a flight to Asia last-minute.

Given my situation,

1) Would applying for the credit limit increase and SPG Amex be too many hard pulls within a short period of time?

2) Would you even recommend obtaining the SPG Amex now or wait until I am no longer a student and have a more permanent source of income? I love the benefits, but don't know if I want to be paying annual fees on 2 CCs.

Sorry about the long post, but any insights you guys could offer would be greatly appreciated!

Start with the Amex Hilton HHonors Surpass Card - http://www201.americanexpress.com/ge...Honors-Surpass

After receiving the card and getting the Hilton HHonors Points, call Amex and say you want to downgrade to the no fee Amex Hilton HHonors card. The law stipulates that Amex must give users a grace period of several days so you get to keep the Hilton HHonors Points you just earned and you don't need to pay a annual fee.

Wait for a year or two and maybe you can apply for a different Amex card with a wonderful offer attached to it (aka see Amex Gold Premier Rewards Card promotion of 75,000 MR points).

What med school are you going to?

As a relatively recent college grad (currently 27 years old) I would suggest building solid average age of credit with no-annual fee cards. I currently have several that I've had for 5+ years now, and will probably never cancel. From there, you can cycle in one or two cards at a time with annual fees that you can churn.

The issue is NOT that applying = hard pulls. Because that lowers your score minimally and having the card and making on time payment raises it.

So the question is history, like the length of your credit cards. If your united card is coming up on its anniversary then I would call and say, "Hey, I was wanting to cancel this, UNLESS you get rid of the annual fee."

Honestly, length of cards isn't nearly as important as the amount of time you've had good history. If you have 10 years of holding cards for 2 years then anyone would give you a card.

The SPG is a good daily user, there are bigger signup bonuses out there. But if you want this card, trust me, having 3 cards will ONLY be good for your credit score. I'd do it for sure.
It's not about length of credit cards, its the length of good history. Be on time and have 3 cards. It will look good and you'll get good rewards.

1) Dont be afraid of hard credit pulls. That said, dont accumulate 500 pulls. But having between 2-6 pulls, per year, is not something to fear.

2) I definitely recommend getting 1 card from each of the 4 majors, ie, 1 Visa, 1 MC, 1 AMEX, 1 Discover (yes, yes, even Discover).

3) Consider joining a credit union

4) Assuming you are not about to purchase a home or car, the more cards you accumulate now, the better. So by the time you're ready for a big ticket purchase, you can show a lengthy credit history on numerous lines. I'd suggest visiting one my favorite websites ever, http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com and check out a huge list of other annual fee free cards to choose from

5) DONT carry a balance. Ever. Period.

Getting an Amex at 23 might be hard, especially if you managed to avoid student debt and car loans in college like I did. I'm 30, have had an MC credit card for 12 years and a Visa for 5 years with perfect payment history, 770 FICO, and I was still shot down recently for the Citi personal Amex with the 75k AA bonus miles due to not having a "diverse enough" credit history. All I had was 2 credit cards on my CR, they wanted to see additional types of debt like loans or mortgage. Not a platinum card either, just the Citi Select AAdvantage Amex.

I guess I'd suggest diversifying your credit history beyond credit cards with a loan or mortgage. At least if you want an Amex.

Not sure I'll ever be able to get an Amex since I hate loans and like renting, at least not a Citi AAdvantage Amex.

I'd have to disagree with this. I'm a 21yo college student with minimal income and got approved for the AMEX Gold Premier Rewards card. My oldest card is about 2 years old.

I agree. I just turned 23 and graduated from college not too long ago. Last summer I applied and was approved for a AMEX Premier Rewards card (mind you, while still in school and working as an intern during the summer) and then was recently approved for the AMEX Delta Reserve since taking a job in January. My first card was a local credit union student cc that I got at age 19 which is my oldest card with the AMEX PR coming next. With the PR card, I've learned discipline with paying off cards every month and keeping my spending in check to ensure that I can pay off my bills every month. But as always, YMMV

American Express did not deny you this credit card. Citibank did. The Citi AAdvantage Amex is a fairly recent trademark/licensing agreement between the two, but Citibank is/was completely responsible for deciding whether to give you the card.

Get an AMEX card from American Express. They backdate any new cards to your original membership date. When you add more AMEX cards in the future, they will all be backdated to this year (the year of your first card with American Express). You can build your average age of accounts nicely while building a thick file that will be an asset in the future.

That sounds pretty enticing. A couple questions, though. Would I be undermining my chances of securing future Amex cards (e.g. SPG, Gold MR) with this kind of maneuver (I'm new to this so it's hard to tell if it's shady or common practice)? And wouldn't I stand a better chance of receiving the SPG Amex over the Hilton Surpass, which seems to be a higher-tier card?

Would the rest of you recommend getting the SPG Amex or the no-fee Hilton Amex (either upfront or downgrading from Surpass) as one's first Amex card? Thanks for all the advice so far!

Go for the one you want. When you apply, you can apply for two AMEX cards on the same day and only end up with one inquiry from AMEX on your credit report. So decide which card you really want, then apply for it, you might get it. If you don't get the one you want, have another go and try for your second choice (on the same day).

The easiest cards to get approved for are the charge cards. For the revolving cards, the Delta and the Hilton are pretty easy. Apply for what you think will benefit you the most. You want the cards you want, not a bunch of cards you don't want.

Definitely the best part about getting an amex card early...

https://www262.americanexpress.com/a...ard/71-1000-78

The regular Hilton Honors card could actually get you more points than the Surpass deal and you don't have to worry about calling back to downgrade. There's no annual fee and as long as you're confident that you'll spend $500 in the first 3 months, you'll get 50K points.

I agree with other posters that it would be advantageous to get an AMEX card early. I also wouldn't worry about the hard pull, especially since it sounds like your UA card is coming up on two years.

I am 23, foreign student as well and in Grad school. I got my first no annual-fee card in 2007 (age 19), slowly built history around 3 no annual fee cards (Chase Student, HSBC Cash or Fly, AMEX Blue Sky[with $8100 limit!]) all opened in 2007. Then in 2009 I got the Discover More, Citi Forward, and Delta AMEX Gold. I also got 2 store cards at some point as I read somewhere lenders want to see "mix" of credit and that counted. Late 2010 till now, I started this mileage-earning-card-applying game. Have gotten 3 Citi AA cards, Chase CO, Chase British Airways, CapitalOne Venture, Delta AMEX Gold Business, and AMEX Platinum charge.

Credit score still in mid-700s. As you can see, number of cards doesn't really matter. When your credit history is short, what matters is your relationship with the banks and the age of your oldest card (average age of cards plays a smaller factor), given you have solid debt/income ratio (my income was around 30k a year too) and no negative stuff. I built relationship with each bank with no annual fee cards, never missing a payment, never carrying a balance. This built my history AND my worthiness to them, which greatly increased my chances of getting approved for future cards with them. It was hard to get certain cards at first, especially with Citi for me, but once you get and have a good record with them, you're "in." Of course that's given that your credit score is still good and history is good and all that.

To answer your questions:
1) Sometimes credit limit increases don't result in hard pulls. Ask first. I noticed that inquiries played a bigger factor when I first started out, not so much later on, but if you're not doing 5+ a month, you're ok. Also, depending on where you are, different banks pull from different bureaus in different states. I believe AMEX and Chase pulls from different bureaus where I am, so even if both actions result in hard pulls, they may not be as bad as you think.

2) I would hold off on the SPG for a couple reasons. First, because I think there can be better SPG sign-up offers in the future, like the one last year with 35k(?) I believe it was? Second, I think you should have one or two more no-annual-fee cards, if you eventually want to go the AMEX route, which you should because their CS is by far the best, I would suggest the Blue, Blue Cash, Blue Sky, or Hilton as mentioned.

Blue for Membership Rewards: you can't transfer to airlines or hotels with this tier of MR membership, but if you later on get a charge card, the MR account can be merged. And when you cancel the charge card, you don't lose all the MR points.

Blue cash: NEW Blue Cash Everyday & Blue Cash Preferred cards

Blue Sky: $100 statement credit on any travel purchase after $7500 spend. A 1.33% return rate.

These are suggestions based on my experiences and hopefully you can relate to it. Of course they may not suit you and YMMV. Feel free to PM me for more.

You should also checkout http://www.frugaltravelguy.com. Lots of great advice. I can send you links to some useful posts on his blog if you like.