
Chase Sapphire Preferred Review
A powerful combination of bonus rewards, annual credits and travel perks.
Courtney Mihocik is a NACCC Certified Credit Counselor™ and a senior editor for the Bankrate credit cards team. She specializes in helping people with limited or no credit understand their options for improving their credit scores. She focuses on the subprime category and provides guidance to people on their credit-building journeys.
Courtney is passionate about creating a space where people can learn more about managing their personal finances, specifically helping her peers achieve their credit card and credit score goals. She believes that public education fails to teach the essentials of personal finance to students and wants to make up for it in her editorial work.
Previously, she led insurance content at Reviews.com and worked as the loans editor at The Simple Dollar, where she produced daily personal finance articles from founder Trent Hamm in addition to student, personal, business and bad credit loan articles. Before entering the digital media space, Courtney worked in hyper-local print journalism, covering arts, culture, food, news and more for publications in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Courtney graduated college with a 750 credit score, which quickly plummeted to the 500s when she nearly defaulted on her high student loan payments she couldn’t afford. After applying for an income-driven repayment plan and six years of careful budgeting, hustling and responsible credit use, she’s happy to report her credit score is back hovering around 720 and she can qualify for better financial products.
Achieving a good credit score takes time and patience. But as long as you pay bills on time and manage your credit wisely, you will watch your score climb. As someone who went from a 500 score to a 750 score, I can tell you it’s worth the effort.
— Courtney Mihocik, CCC
A 500 credit score or lower doesn’t mean you’re out of the running for some competitive credit card options
While not as flexible as its bigger sibling, the Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express offers strong, year-round cash back on crucial bonus categories like groceries and gas.
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Compare the best Bank of America credit card offers available online at Bankrate.com. Read reviews from our personal finance experts and find the card that's right for you.
The best Mastercard credit cards offer generous rewards, tempting sign-up offers and long introductory periods during which you’ll pay no interest. Check out Bankrate's top picks.
The OpenSky Secured Visa Credit Card can help you rebuild your credit or create credit from scratch. Plus, there's no credit check, so anyone can qualify. The downside is that there aren't many perks.
Learn how the OpenSky® Launch Secured Visa® Credit Card can help you build or rebuild your credit.
As a starter card, the BankAmericard provides access to credit in a simplified way.