Q&A: Applying for Another Credit Card?
Question by poople4: Credit Score?
If I apply for another credit card even though I don’t need it, and don’t use it, will it still help my credit score?
Best answer:
Answer by variance75
When you apply for credit it will normally drop your score for a short time. That’s because people who apply for multiple products at once are often indicating and early risk factor. For this reason, you should be careful about who pulls your credit score. Keep in mind self-initiated pulls (soft pulls) don’t lower your score.
Back to the original question. There are dozens of factors that go into your score. Increasing your available credit can increase your credit score so yes. Having 2-4 credit cards shows responsibility and increases scores long term.
Give your answer to this question below!
The short answer to your question is yes — but there are a number of things that effect your credit score, and the number of you cards is one such thing — though not how you might think. Really what lenders want to see is if you have different kinds of credit and how much debt you have on your accounts. Usually they take a percentage average over your accounts or calculate what they call your debt-to-credit ratio. The more available credit you have on your accounts versus how much debt you have, the better your score will be. So the trick here is two fold. You want to have varied credit, but you want as a high an available balance as possible.
Increasing your credit score is important if you want to get the best rates, so check out my 10 steps you can use to build your credit score quickly. I raised mine to well over 700 points fro 500 using these steps in less than a year:
1. Know and Track Your Credit Score (be sure to sign up for the free trial of your credit score monitoring listed on the article below. It really helped my get my score up.)
2. Never Miss a Payment, Starting Today
3. Never use more than 20% of your Available Credit
4. Keep Credit Cards that Have No Annual Fees Open For as Long as Possible
5. Extend Your Credit Limit on Cards You Already Have before You Get New Ones
6. Get Credit Cards that Have CashBack Rewards to Contribute to your Balance
7. Transfer Your Balance to a Credit Card with a Lower Interest Rate and a Higher Available Credit-
8. If You Think You Are Going to be FORCED to Pay a Bill Late Ask for an Extension or Payment Plan
9. Take out a Small Personal Loan and Repay it Over a Year
10. Ask Someone With Good Credit if They will Account Shadow you
When you’re trying to build a solid credit score it’s important to get a comprehensive view of what is actually effecting it…
Your Credit Score (also known as your MyFico score) is calculated with the following breakdown:
* 35% -> History of Payments
* 30% -> Debt to Credit Ratio (available credit)
* 15% -> Credit History (length of open accounts)
* 10% -> New Credit (are you expanding your credit)
* 10% -> Credit Types in Use (varied credit types from loans to credit cards)
If you excel in one area and lack in another, only fixing the areas which you lack are going to improve your score.