I'm someone who started with BNPL back in 2017 with limit of 2000 and my first CC limit 80K and now holding 9 cards all with limit greater than 1.5 lakhs with the highest being 5.7 Lakh (All Unsecured, 4 Cards were pre approved), Here are some tips I can share -
1. Start your journey with anything, if you are just a student get BNPL, I know many people say it's bad for your credit history and it's not good, but if you don't have any other option just opt for it, use it and close it in the future, It will at least start your credit history journey. I started with Red Carpet app (Not sure how many people have heard about it)
2. Keep utilization low, use your credit cards like Debit Cards at the beginning, don't spent the money which you can't pay. I still try to follow this habit 80% of the time, by not spending the money I don't have or can't pay back.
3. Always pay back the full amount if possible, try to avoid paying only the minimum due amount, This shows the banking institute that you are responsible with your credit product
4. Also let your utilization get reported to Credit Institutes!. You need to have High number of timely payments in your credit report. For eg. if your approved limit is 20K, use 3k of it and let it be reported to the credit institutes and pay it off when the bill is generated, This will increase your timely payment count across different credit lending institutes.
5. Don't chase for Premium Cards unless you have the spend to justify it. Like Axis Ace is a really rewarding card and it is not even a premium card. Just get a card and use it even if it's reward ratio is not that great. The idea is to create a good credit history.
My approved limit back in 2017 was 2000. Just 2000. I was in 2nd year of university back then, but I did got to know from seniors back then that CIBIL and Credit Score is a Bird which you need to catch early.
One benefit I had from having CIBIL Score already generated before I joined my first job is that my Credit Card Application was very easily approved and I was assigned the limit of 80K which was more than I was expecting.
Sorry if this post is very long.