App-O-Rama Help

[Mountainmanduy]

Hello All,

I am looking to sign up for some new CCs. Here are some of the cards that I have. I have a lot of Chase cards, so I will not include them in my App-O-Rama

AMEX Gold
AMEX Simply Cash
AMEX PLATINUM BIZ
AMEX SPG (Personal)
AMEX Simply Cash

CITI American
CITI Thank You Preferred

Capital One Venture

No Bank of America CC


I am thinking about getting SPG Biz, Citi Prestige and Premier, Capital One Spark, Bank of America Alaska (Personal and Business) and also the Better Balance Rewards. Does anybody have any advice? I been hearing about the shutdowns/denial for multiple BOA Alaska cards, so I might stagger it between two days. Not familiar about Citi procedures. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[rajin]

Seems reasonable. I'd do the cap1 separately, do the other apps, freeze experian, then get the cap1, then unfreeze.

I'm pretty sure Amex only does one app per day lately.
And Citi does one personal app per 8 days, so split those up too.

 

[Mountainmanduy]

Hey Rajin,

I am new to the whole freezing concept. Never did that before. However, I can look into it. Do you unfreeze it after you get approved for the Capital one card? I only planned on doing one Amex card. Citi I can spread out, is there a limitations to their business card? Thanks!

 

[rajin]

Yes, you should unfreeze it after. The reason is that almost everything else pulls experian, and cap1 tries to pull all 3 credit reports, but will approve you with 2/3, so you might as well give them the 2 credit reports that aren't hit by all the other apps. It will cost you 5$ or so to do. I'm not sure on citi business, I think you can add that one.

 

[Mountainmanduy]

Ah interesting. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[MilesJunkie]

I usually apply for 2 Amex cards on the same day - 1 credit and 1 charge card. The pulls have combined for me. I think (but have not seen enough evidence) that it's possible you could get 3 cards - 1 personal credit, 1 biz credit, 1 personal/biz charge card - and get the pulls to combine.

Personal Citi apps follow the 8/65 rule - not every 8 days. I'm pretty sure I've seen people get approved for a biz and personal Citi in one day, but the pulls are usually not combined AFAIK.

 

[Burgertm]

Any reason you want the Cap 1 card? I've never really found mine anywhere near as useful as some other cards. Plus the fact that they pull all 3 credit bureaus. The Discover it card is a good one to have with their current double cash back promotion. If you do shopping through portals at all, you can really leverage that for some huge cash back at the end of the year.

The rule on Citi is to wait 8 days in between the first application and the 2nd, and then 65 days before you do your next churn. I love the Prestige card (I'm a golfer who can take advantage of some expensive golf rounds to really benefit from that).

With Small Business Saturday approaching in 3 months, the more Amex cards the merrier.

 

[Mountainmanduy]

The spark card has a 500 CB attached to it when I do 3k in spend I believe. I plan on freezing experian like rajin said. I currently have the discover IT card and loving the CB and the double cash CB promotion.

Does that Citi rule apply to business cards? If it doesnt, I wouldn't mind signing up for Citi Premier Day #1, Citi Business Day #1 and then Citi Presitge Day #9. Also anybody have insights on downgrading the cards. I dont plan on paying annual fees up the wazoo. I was planning on downgrading the Citi Premier to Citi Double Cash, but no options for the Citi Prestige. I currently already have the Citi Thank you preferred.

Would it be crazy to sign up for the Citi Hilton Reserve card as well (day#1) and then downgrade to a Citi hilton honors. Or is everybody signing up for Citi hilton and then sign up for citi hilton reserve and cancel that card later?

Thanks Miles Junkie, Burgertm, and Rajin for the help!

 

[Mountainmanduy]

I am guessing now I want the Amex Platinum and the Amex SPG Biz now. I am thinking I should be good since I only have 3 credit cards. Any thoughts?

 

[MilesJunkie]

Online personal Plat 100K offers apparently are now dead (from yesterday). YMMV if you want to call in to request for that offer.

 

[Mountainmanduy]

Yeah, I think a part of me was glad that it happened, but I know the other half of me wants to call. =(

 

[Sloebrake]

I usually apply for 2 Amex cards on the same day - 1 credit and 1 charge card. The pulls have combined for me. I think (but have not seen enough evidence) that it's possible you could get 3 cards - 1 personal credit, 1 biz credit, 1 personal/biz charge card - and get the pulls to combine.

Tried this last Friday. SPG Business (credit), AMEX Business Gold (charge), and than Hhonors to test the theory (credit). 2 immediate approvals, Hhonors got some "call us" thing - so I called.

CSR told me the system will not allow him to approve anything else for 5 days, he assured me I'd be approved and he will personally take care of it on Tuesday (day 5). I asked about the pulls and he also told me they will do a credit pull for each card. Not sure if he's telling the truth or not, don't really know how to check anyway.

Don't know if it matters, but already had 2 personal cards with AMEX before all that.

 

[MilesJunkie]

Tried this last Friday. SPG Business (credit), AMEX Business Gold (charge), and than Hhonors to test the theory (credit). 2 immediate approvals, Hhonors got some "call us" thing - so I called.

CSR told me the system will not allow him to approve anything else for 5 days, he assured me I'd be approved and he will personally take care of it on Tuesday (day 5). I asked about the pulls and he also told me they will do a credit pull for each card. Not sure if he's telling the truth or not, don't really know how to check anyway.

Don't know if it matters, but already had 2 personal cards with AMEX before all that.

Thanks for checking this out. In a few days, I guess if the CSR was right you'll see the additional pull. Please update us then?

 

[Mountainmanduy]

So update on my app-o-rama, not exactly a success. I guess people can point out what I was doing wrong. To be honest, it was a Saturday night, and I was already tired but so many CCs I wanted to join in the fun.

AMEX platinum I wanted to get it, but was too late to the party.

AMEX SPG Biz
CITI TY Premier
Bank of America Alaska Personal+Business
Capital One Spark

Capital One Spark- I froze my credit report on Experian, and the application went through. I unfroze it to go apply for other cards.

Citi TY Premier-Denied the day off, found out due to too many credit inquiries. Called Recon, and they said they can try again to pull from Equifax which was the only credit bureau they could choose from. They said per policy they cannot check any other bureau. I told her nothing would change from two days since you last pulled. So I struck out on that one.

AMEX SPG Biz-In processed on Saturday, called in yesterday. They said they would check with Experian which was frozen according to the credit analyst. I asked him to check again since I unfroze it after the Capital One Spark.

Bank of America Alaska Personal- Approved the day of. Wanted to try for 2 and 3 personal since I saw a data pt on FT saying he/she got it. Decided against it.

Bank of America Alaska Business-In process, will try to call in today.

 

[Burgertm]

I never mess with freezing/unfreezing and the only issue I ever run into is having them tell me that they've already extended me as much credit as they are willing to do. In those cases, I either have them shift around some of my credit or close one of the accounts I don't need anymore.

I should mention that I never apply for Capital One cards, so maybe that's why I don't have to freeze/unfreeze. I know US Bank can be picky and some people freeze stuff before applying with them, but I've never had an issue.

 

[smittytabb]

I've never frozen anything either. I am fairly strategic with my applications and I have done them over a long period of time, never more than 3 at a time. I also still have not sprung for a CapOne card in part because of the multiple bureau issue. Never been turned down yet, but I was willing to start slow and pace it out over a long period.

 

[Mountainmanduy]

Yeah it was actually costly to freeze my credit report. $10 bucks to freeze, and $10 bucks to unfreeze in california.

 

[Sloebrake]

Thanks for checking this out. In a few days, I guess if the CSR was right you'll see the additional pull. Please update us then?

TL;DR - Experian Credit Tracker didn't seem to register it an inquiry after being auto-approved 5 days later.

Got nothing on Tuesday (Supposed Day 5) during business hours and I signed up for Experian Credit Tracker last night for $1. Credit report showed a single pull from AMEX on Friday. Later figured out how to check application status at AMEX and Hhonors was pending.

Bright and early Wednesday (Real day 5?) got an email from AMEX that I was approved without calling or anything.

Couldn't figure out how to get Experian Credit Tracker to update the "Report" tab, but no new updates under the "Protection" tab.

I applied for a Citi AA Exec just a minute ago, "call in", called and got approved. Experian Credit Tracker's "protection" feature saw the pull within a few minutes.

So unless AMEX pulled Experian on Friday and decided to check a different one Wednesday morning they didn't do another hard pull.

 

[Sloebrake]

Spoke too soon. The Experian credit tracker alerted me today that there was an inquiry yesterday. Not sure why it didn't alert in order of occurrence

So I guess the rules are still the same.
One credit card and one charge card in one day for one pull with experian.
A second credit card cannot be approved for five days and costs another pull.

 

[razor]

Was hoping 2 credit cards would still combine, not the case? Did 2 charge, 1 credit, 1 pull. 1 more credit in pending status, but have not seen a new pull yet..

 

[Mountainmanduy]

Just an update to my app-o-rama. It turns out that I went 5/5

I called in to Citi and finally talked to somebody who was friendly. She went ahead and approved me for the Citi Ty Premier Card. I planned on PC this to Double Cash. I already have a Citi TY card, dont know if I can get a 2nd one. Is it even okay to PC to double cash without any credit hits?

I never did get in touch with BOA to get them to approve my BOA Alaska Business card. However, it magically showed up at my door.

Currently happy it worked out. Now time to hit the min spend!

 

[sillystraws]

Congratulations on all of the approvals. I was planning on doing the same thing with the Citi TY Premier when I apply next month; however, it looks like they are changing T&C coming up in November and some are having trouble with the PC. Also of note, Citi gives out retention awards more often than just the account anniversary.

 

[guybrush3pw00d]

As a data point for others in the future, I applied for the Amex Plat, PRG and SPG all on the same day (that's 2 charge and 1 credit) and in that order. I was auto-approved for all 3. In terms of the exact steps, I filled out all 3 apps in different incognito browser windows, submitted each app individually and waited for the first card to indicate approval before submitting the next.

In terms of the # of hard pulls for all 3 of the Amex apps, I am enrolled in Experian ProtectMyID and only one alert showed of Amex requesting my credit report on the application date, which means that it was all combined into one hard pull.