Someone just wrote to me and said he had a ThankYou Preferred app denied. When he called reconsideration, they said it was because he had "more than one credit inquiry in the last five days." He called back a few times and got the same answer. He could not get them to budge.

I've searched the web for similar denials and found nothing.

One time thing? New policy?

If it is a new policy, it's not catastrophic unless all issuers adopt it. If just Citi does, then you just apply for the Citi cards first in your app-o-rama.