My SO and I live in southern California (scores ~770) and applied for 3 cards each in July (SPG personal/biz + Citi AA for me and Chase Onepass for her). All pulls were on Experian and all were approved except the SPG biz for me and Chase for her.

The reasons for denial were 1) inquiries (no surprise) 2) payment size relative to balance. This is a little puzzling since we always have paid balances in full every month, but I'm guessing it is because we split some of the payments between us. Guess this is a bad idea and we will stop it, but I suspect the denials were mostly rooted in inquiries anyway.

A side complaint/warning: I called Amex after the SPG business denial and the rep agreed that none of the reasons for denial (except for the inquiries) made much sense, and said my app could be reviewed by someone if I liked. I specifically asked if it would cause another inquiry and she assured me it would not. I should have known better than to believe a phone rep, but I told her to go ahead...

Of course, I saw an inquiry 3 days later from them and was still denied. Now I'm soaked with inquiries and have no choice but to sit out a while...