I have a very good credit score but a thin credit file and I can’t get the credit card I want – what can I do?

So the other day I was catching up on my Redditing, and happened upon a post that caught my eye. It wasn’t a new post, a month old in fact. It didn’t present a new problem, either, but rather one a friend of mine encountered just recently.

So you see why it caught my interest.

Sally’s situation

In broad strokes, the situation goes like this. Our friendly neighborhood Redditor (let’s call her “Sally”) had applied for a specific cash-back credit card that offered attractive terms.

She wanted this card.

She applied for this card.

She was denied this card.

And as so often happens when customers encounter these kinds of situation, Sally had no clear idea why she was denied. Sally described her credit score as “very very good.” (Experian says that any score in the high 600s or above is “generally considered good,” while a score in the high 700s is “excellent.” So let’s ballpark Sally’s score at 700). On the other hand, Sally’s credit report had only “a couple loans and one old store card I have been paying off” on it.

Weighing the one against the other, Sally guessed it was this lack of an extensive credit history that prompted the card provider to deny her application. But honestly, this was just a guess. And so she polled the Reddit community for advice. Specifically, Sally asked for recommendations of a “good card” that she might get approved for despite her limited credit history.

But think we can give her an even better answer than that.

What you need to know about FICO

First, though, let’s go over the basics. A 700 credit score may be very, very good. But it might not be quite good enough for certain cards that require an even higher minimum score. Additionally, some cards have income requirements for approval.

While FICO scores are something of a black box, and it’s never 100% certain why any bank makes any specific decision, either of these issues may have been what tripped Sally up.

Finally, it’s worth keeping an eye on credit utilization.

Sally said she was “paying off” the only card she possessed. That means there was a balance on said card, which was her only card. This in turn means the amount on that card was probably a large percentage of her total credit availability. Credit card companies are known to be leery of extending more credit to someone who is already using a large percentage of the credit they currently are entitled to.

Admittedly, this creates something of a Catch-22: To improve her chances of getting a card, Sally has to show she has a lot of credit already. The easiest way to do this is by getting approved for a second card. Of course, this was Sally’s problem to begin with!

So how do we solve all these problems at once? How do we get:

• The specific card we want?
• Without raising our credit score?
• And without first getting a card we don’t necessarily want, and perhaps cannot even get?

Tell me what you really want

Recall that this story all began with Sally hoping to get a specific credit card that appealed to her, and not just any old cash-back card. This was the same situation my friend faced, having applied for a credit card specifically designed to allow renters to put apartment-rent on credit, and thus receive cash back on rent payments.

(Few credit cards, and few rental companies, will allow this, so you see getting why this specific card was so attractive).

I came up with a novel solution to this problem, one that might not work for everyone, but did work for us, and one that might solve Sally’s situation as well: Because I trusted my friend, and knew I had a better credit score and higher income than she did, I applied for the card my friend really wanted, and made her an authorized user when I got it. She’ll charge her rent to the card, 

In this way, she got access to the exact card she wanted, without making any changes to her own credit file. Going forward, she will benefit from my credit score and higher credit limit, which will in turn boost her credit limit and credit score. Next year, she will apply for the credit card in her own name, and have a much better chance of getting it.