F-You Capital One! Hello, Chase!

So this month (post bonus) has been a how shall I call it? hmm. Spending orgy is probably accurate, haha. Anyway, combined with my business travel expenses, I'm about $500 from the $10,000 limit on my Capital One platinum whatever card. I never applied for this card -- it switched over when HSBC sold their card portfolio to C1. So I applied for a credit limit increase. I got rejected!! I was so mad. I pay in full on time every month on that card and every other card. Always have. Never have had a late payment. AND they told me my credit score is 793. I called and got bumped up to talk to a credit supervisor but they're idiots over there and can't tell me why I got rejected.

I had been thinking about ponying up for the Platinum Amex (it has good travel benefits like they reimburse the fee for the Global Entry program which I've been meaning to enroll in for forever because I'm gold on American and they will add me to their TSA Pre list if I do). Anyway, the Platinum Amex is $400 a year. Even w/ the monetary benefits (I figure I could get about $300 worth out of it), I feel silly spending that on a credit card.  Plus, I love getting cash back. I just got a $500 credit added to the C1 card as a cash back reward.

So I went on CreditKarma and found another cash back card. The Chase Freedom (I know anyone reading this now is like duh of course). Credit Karma has some really useful tools. It showed me that barely any of the cardholders have even the limit I have on C1. I think the C1 cards are more for people who don't spend as much, have worse credit, etc. I'm probably ideal for the Amex, but because I want to keep earning that sweet cash, I got the Chase Freedom card. And I'm pretty sure that they gave me a credit limit of $28K, which sadly I actually might need at some point because of all my work expenses (i pay them and then get reimbursed). There's no annual fee on the card, so it's a win-win.

Credit Score Blues

I checked my credit score today, something I hadn't done since September (spurred on by the NY Times story about dating and credit scores). So annoying!! Because my mortgage took 4 months to get and I applied with several lenders, I have like 3-6 inquiries on my report, which brought down my score a lot. I also (god forbid), opened up a Best Buy credit card and a new Mastercard in May after I moved. The credit scoring algorithm is dumb - too dumb to know that all those inquiries on my report are related to my mortgage. Whatever, I know my score will "recover" at some point, and it's not like it's low -- about 720-750 depending on the bureau. It is ridiculous though that someone who has never missed a payment and pays off their credit card every month has anything other than a perfect score!