hello...you will see by my story that i am still pretty new at this.
just sharing my experience because i appreciate everyone sharing theirs.
received invitation to apply for United Explorer 55k miles and pulled the trigger 2/16. then i received AMEX invitation with no points or offer, but I still wanted it. i'd never bothered with Amex before so I was just intrigued with having one. so silly me, i applied for AMEX gold without realizing i should look for an offer. at some point i started i started researching annual fees (whether they could be avoided), and then it led to researching this game. what an amazing world! was very intrigued and found the Chase SW card got it, found out about the companion pass and possibility to get another SW card but waited, found out about CSP, wanted it, applied, did not get it. then saw a special offer for Amex PRG for 50k points, and applied for that too. then i found out i could not get the bonus because i'd just gotten the amex gold. DARN! quite a few silly mistakes in my first couple of weeks. it taught me to calm down, research, and try to have some patience, which is still a little hard. but the more i read, the better this gets. anyway i will summarize my successes/failures as well as credit pulls to help anyone else that wants to read experiences like i have been.
chase UA explorer 2/16 instant approval, EX/EQ (55k miles)
AMEX gold 2/20 instant approval, EX (no points)
chase SW plus 2/21 approved by recon, EQ/EX (50k miles)
chase CSP 2/21 (denied! of course)
AMEX PRG 2/26 instant approval, EX (no blasted points!!)
chase SW premier 3/28, EQ approved by recon (had to try 3 times but got an awesome rep!) (caught it just before it ended, waiting for statement close but on activation they said i would get 50k miles)
then something strange happened, i was trying to clean up my EQ report and disputed incorrect addresses. a couple of weeks later, i found my credit report looked very different. the score was still above 700 but it was down to only 10 accounts, and 1 inquiry. it had been fairly high on inquries before, maybe 15 or so. never even knew that could happen but i read that perhaps any inquiry that was tied to an incorrect address had to be removed. it's good and bad because some of my older accounts are missing, even my car loan, so my AAOA has gone down. i was confused but also excited to have almost no inquiries! was wishing i could apply for CSP/Freedom combo but of course I will wait longer as I just got 3 cards from them in about 45 days and was not smart about this when i first started.
still, i wanted a 0% interested card in case i carry any balance ever(don't plan to) and i was looking for which cards pull from EQ. also i have limited inquiries on TU, so i researched TU pullers as well. i thought if i am going to apply for something might as well do a small AOR and had some cards picked out, but changed my mind when I realized how many of them pull Experian. I decided to have a tiny AOR day on 4/22. here are the results:
Barclay's US Air - 30k points - approved, TU
Citi AA Visa - 50k points, approved, EX
US Bank Club Carlson, denied, EQ. it was not instant, the application froze when i was submitting it and i called to make sure they got it. they same it was being reviewed for the amount, but they would let me know. i called to check status, it was denied. will need to see why. interesting that it happened on the EQ, maybe the AAOA or the new accounts I just got from Chase are what is stopping me.
not sure, just wanted to share in case it helps anyone else not start off too fast as a newbie. by the way i am in texas.