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Before I joined TPG in March 2022, my knowledge of credit cards and the world of points and miles was limited, to say the least. Authorized users<\/a>? What are those? Free night awards<\/a>? Don’t know. Chase’s 5\/24 rule<\/a>? Never heard of it.<\/p>\n I come from a family of relatively infrequent travelers, vacationing in the Outer Banks in North Carolina every summer but only going abroad a few times and not having any real sense of how valuable credit cards can be to the average traveler.<\/p>\n That quickly changed when I began to work with the experts on TPG’s credit cards and points and miles teams, who’ve taught me the basics \u2014 things like the major card issuers, how to maximize your redemptions and the all-important 10 commandments of credit card rewards<\/a>. It’s made me a more knowledgeable employee but has also helped me in life \u2014 <\/em>allowing me to transition from having no credit history at all to a credit score comfortably above 700 in just over a year.<\/p>\n What follows is a step-by-step guide to how I did it and a simple blueprint for how you can do it, too.<\/p>\n First, some context: My parents aren’t exactly what you’d call points and miles enthusiasts. They have exactly one (1) credit card, a cash-back card<\/a> from their bank of choice. My dad, being the frugal guy he is, also didn’t see to it that I got a student credit card<\/a> in college or got added as an authorized user<\/a> on their card. (For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have trusted me either.)<\/p>\n Upon graduation, therefore, I had essentially no credit history to speak of, save for some rent payments on my college apartment and a few utilities. In one sense, that’s not so bad \u2014 starting with a clean slate \u2014 but I was definitely behind the eight ball a bit in trying to build a trustworthy profile for issuers.<\/p>\n TPG director of content Nick Ewen was amused, but probably not too surprised, when I told him about my “limited” credit history a few weeks into the job. Together, we set about making a game plan to boost my score \u2014 and quickly. The first, very generous step on his end: adding me as an authorized user on his longest-standing credit card.<\/p>\n Days after he did that \u2014 and chopped up the additional card sent to his address, meaning I was essentially an authorized user in name only \u2014 my credit score catapulted into the 700s. With that credit score, I couldn’t instantly land a premium credit card \u2014 issuers also look at the length of credit history as part of their inquiries, and I still needed to build a longer record of creditworthiness. However, it was definitely a step in the right direction, and a confidence boost for me to see my score was that high having done, well, pretty much nothing on my end. Thanks, Nick.<\/p>\n The next step, per our plan: getting a card of my own. For me, that meant getting the Discover it Secured Card, one of the best-value secured cards on the market, with perks akin to the regular Discover it<\/a>.<\/p>\nI’m not from a credit card family<\/h2>\n
Getting added as an authorized user<\/h2>\n
Applying for a secured credit card<\/h2>\n