Discover vs Capital One Secured
I am an 18-year-old who is looking to try and build credit and am deciding between the Discover and Capital One. I am aware that the Discover has cashback but I don't really want to waste it as my expenses as of right now are really only gas and eating out. But I also heard the Capital One doesn't graduate as easy as the Discover. I think I would be happy with either but some feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Posted Jan 16, 2020, 8:49 AM UTC
07
Personal opinion. Take with a grain of salt but...
Discover is not as widely accepted. It for the most part is, but you will find yourself in the rare situation where discover is not accepted compared to Capitol One.
Capitol one has a lot more cards, both store branded and base cards. Starting and having q history with Capitol one -IMO- is more beneficial in the long run.
Discover has a rule where you can only have 2 cards with them, ever. Capitol one as far as I can tell does not.
With these in mind, it's my -OPINION- that Capitol one is the better choice to start your credit journey with.
Is Discover doing this to avoid risk from people having multiple cards or something? I can't understand why they would purposely further limit their utility to their customers when they're already among the least accepted of the major credit cards.
Do they even have more than two card options?
I'd presume it's to avoid gaming of the cashback match.
I made the mistake of complicating my life with 1 more card which I didn't need. Visa and Mastercard are the only 2 cards you need for life so far since they're the most widely accepted internationally.
Use this subreddit and personal finance to find the best starter cards and any advice in general.
You can try applying for the Capital One Journey MasterCard. If you have family or someone who pays for your expenses, you can put their income. I put 10k and got a 500 limit. 500 automatically graduates to 750 after 5 months.
After that people say capital one only increases to people who max out credit cards since they want to make money from the debt and interest of financially irresponsible people who got higher limits.
After one year of credit card history other more mature big boy cards are more likely to accept you.