Just chopped CC debt from $20K to $9K, and my score zoomed up to 720!

[joshuagraham]

But CrapitalOne still denied me a credit increase!

Before anyone goes crazy, I have $6K of that at 0% ($2K of that rolls off in 6 months, but there other remains at 0% as an installment loan), and $3K at 10%, which since it is the same rate as my brokerage's margin rate, I am going to keep (that CC is also as an installment loan) so long as I think that there are good COVID-recovery investment opportunities. I have paid off everything else, and will (try to) be in the mode to pay off stuff in full every month for here on. To paraphrase SNL, the COVID unemployment boost has been bery bery good to me.

Anyway, I have the CrapitalOne Quicksilver account with only a $1K limit, and it is the only one that is $0 annual fee and 0% foreign transaction fee - I have been traveling a lot abroad for some time, and this time I planning on getting a lot of dental work done at 1/4 the price of American dentists (in fact, one of the procedures, an implant tooth extraction and replacement, will cost a little over $1K, so I need more limit). I tried to get it increased to $2K, but got denied; it appears that CrapitalOne used the old credit score even though CreditKarma had my score bumped up a few days ago. I went ahead and re-applied for the credit increase after seeing that CrapitalOne showed my score zooming up.

I have also applied for a SoFi CC, and indeed, because of their great service for international travelers, I am planning on making that my regular bank to pay off stuff (I am currently at TD Bank, and will still keep the bulk of my investments there), so that would work out great. The only other CCs that have the $0/0% are banks that I had BK'd on, LOL, including Chase & BankOfAmerica. OK, there is Discover, but that CC is USELESS for international use.

Any other CCs I should look at?

[shipo]

While using CapitalOne as a financial institution for credit cards comes with some idiosyncrasies, I am very reluctant to cast around negative aspersions about them. As for their underwriting guidelines for A) credit line increases, and B) second cards, it has been well documented here and elsewhere they can be a bit stingy with the former and can be rather liberal with the latter.

FWIW, my first unsecured and no annual fee credit card following my Chapter 13 discharge was also a Quicksilver card; just recently two things happened; the first was they "pre-approved" me for a SavorOne for what sounded like a fairly high credit limit (the rep I talked with was sure I'd be approved for somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000 if I were to take the offer, I declined). The second was my son's very clean 1989 Ford Bronco (5-speed manual and a 302 V8 if anybody cares), blew out his rear differential while moving from Denver back to New England to start a new job. I asked CapitalOne for credit line increase so I could cover the $3,500 hit and collect the 1.5% cash back; denied. Did I take it personally? No, this is just business and their algorithms said I wasn't ready for a CLI yet, so I used my TDCash card instead, yeah, I lost $17.50 in rewards, but no big deal.

Next year, after my Chapter 13 falls off my credit reports, and after my wife and I apply for a mortgage for a new house, I'll probably take CapitalOne up on an offer for some flavor of a Savor or Venture card.