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My credit history is almost 6 months old and I have a score of around 700 now. I got my first credit card 6 months ago and two weeks ago I got another credit card. Last day I got prequalified for a Visa card, which I would like to have because my other two cards are not Visa.

I am planning to take a used car loan in January. My doubt is will it be good or bad on the used car loan deal that I will be taking in two months if I apply for my third card, since my credit history is less than an year?

Also one of my friends told me that at least 3 credit lines would be good to get a good deal - less interest - on car loan, is it true?

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  • What country is your credit report in?
    – TTT
    Nov 5, 2019 at 19:20
  • Credit report is in US Nov 5, 2019 at 20:34
  • OK, great. My answer is US centric but after I wrote it I noticed your country is India.
    – TTT
    Nov 5, 2019 at 20:46
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    You may be unaware (because of different styles taught in India) but if you are using "before" to mean "ago", it's changing the meaning of the sentence. "I got my first credit card 6 months before" clearly should have used ago. "and two weeks before (that), I got another credit card" is grammatically legal but pretty clearly wrong. If you got card Y two weeks before you got card X, then card Y would be "first" and card "X" would be second. I think you mean you got the first card 6 months ago (= before today) and the second card 2 weeks ago (= before today).
    – Ben Voigt
    Nov 6, 2019 at 18:47
  • Another possible way to read what you did write is "got the first card, X, 6.5 months before card Y" where only the time between the two actions is specified and no relation is given to today. I definitely cannot recommend saying "before (event)" with the event left off... it does not mean "before today" but links to some other event you are talking about (and if there's more than one other event mentioned, the reader has to wonder which one).
    – Ben Voigt
    Nov 6, 2019 at 18:50

1 Answer 1

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Having the 3rd credit card might slightly help your credit score in the future, but it probably won't help much right away. In fact when you apply for the new card the inquiry could lower your score by approximately 5-10 points for 2-3 months before it recovers. Since you're planning to purchase a car in less than 3 months I'd recommend getting the car loan first, since those 5-10 points might make a difference in your interest rate if your score is close to 700 right now. Once you have the car you can get the new credit card since lowering your score for a few months at that point won't matter. (You only need to have a good score on the day you apply for new loans.) During the upcoming months also try to make sure your credit cards are paid off and keep your utilization low a month before you apply for the loan. (Say under 10% of your total credit limit.)

Note in the link I provided which shows how much credit inquiries affect your score, credit card applications count as the "other" category and do not collapse. So it's possible that your 2 credit card inquiries within the last 6 months will count against you when you make the third inquiry, which is even more reason to wait to get the card until after you secure the car loan.

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  • Also the new credit card likely isn't on the report and will significantly drop the "average age of accounts" which will likely drop the credit score.
    – xyious
    Nov 7, 2019 at 16:29
  • @xyious not really. Since all accounts are so new (within 6 months), a change in AAoA won't make much difference.
    – TTT
    Nov 7, 2019 at 20:06

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