Will it hurt my credit to apply for another credit card? I only have 1 right now?

Question

I currently only have 1 credit card-a Visa from my bank. ($0 balance) I want to apply for the Blue American Express card (it has 15 months of free financing...and I want to buy a new tv). I have a very high credit score....worried if this would hurt my credit score? I also think in the long run it's good to have another credit card incase one or the other is not accepted. Is this okay? Any other credit cards that you might recommend?

Answer 1

Well it really depends on how long you have had the other card.  Your credit score will drop a little no matter what because you apply but you should never apply for 2 credit cards without a 2 month wait in between and then only once a year.

Answer 2

You're fine.

A credit inquiry is only 10% of your score, and after a short while no one will even pay attention to it.  1 inquiry is almost nothing.

I've seen like 65 credit inquires in a 90 day period... now THAT will hurt your score.  I'm sure I've worked with worse too, but just failed to scrutinize that part of the credit report.

Answer 3

I understand your problem, now i myself have bad credit so what i did was go to this site, http://d95.com/credcard , and they were able to get me a 2500 dollar credit line which is amazing because no one else was willing to so you can try this, your gauranteed about 2000 dollars.

Answer 4

There are always pro's and con's to this situation. Typically after an inquiry and opening a new account your score will always drop. This is due to the fact that lenders need to see at least 6 mos payment history to determine how responsible you will be with the new account. If you take out the new account your score will drop, but most likely only a few points, after good payment history and keeping your balance below 25% of the overall credit limit you should see your scores increase and will probably exceed what your score was initially.

Answer 5

When you apply for the second credit card, they will make an inquiry on your credit report which will reduce your score by 5 points or so temporarily.

Apart from this there are no negatives. In fact in the longer run, your credit score will improve because you will have a greater amount of revolving credit available for yourself.