Originally Posted by
joer1212
As you may already know, American Express recently imposed a strict new rule on credit card applicants: you can now only get approved for the same Amex credit card once in your entire lifetime.
Only for personal cards:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...etime-usa.html (in the Amex forum)
Originally Posted by
joer1212
Previously, identical Amex products could be churned once every 12 months, allowing one to accumulate a boatload of Delta miles and/or Membership Rewards points.
And something very close to that is still possible with Amex business cards. I just got a targeted offer for 75k MR points on the Business Gold Rewards card, and no sooner had finished the minimum spend on that, when I was able to apply (and get approved) for
the business Delta Gold card for the limited time (through 6/30) 50k bonus. That's despite having had the personal Gold and personal Delta before. And unlike at Chase, applying for business cards at Amex without actually having a business is easy.
Originally Posted by
joer1212
I am now anxiously waiting to hear what Citibank has in store for us.
Citi came from a more linient place that either Chase or Amex was ever before (it used to allow 2 cards of the same type to be applied for on the same day, it used to not care about closing of its cards, etc). Now card after card (except where for now you can find a "zombie link") are moving to "no bonus if you either opened or closed the same card in the last 18 months".
Oh, and Citi used to not give you the card if it was not going to give you the bonus, and now it gives you the card anyway (even if it might not give you the bonus), and you have to figure out whether you're going to get the bonus or not.
So I don't necessarily expect any more shoes to drop at Citi soon, given that Citi was actually
first to do this tightening on churning, it's just that they did differently (and from a different starting point) than Amex and Chase later did.
Meanwhile, you have to keep in mind tthat this gone back and forth in history a few times. Some number of years ago, before Amex allowed you to get the same bonus after a year or two, Amex used to never give you the bonus if you had it before unless the new bonus was bigger and then they would give you only the difference between the old bonus and the new bonus for the new card. So Amex tightened, then loosened, then tightened again.
And Chase may have gone through cycles too, I'm less familiar with Chase churning rules over the years so I can't be as specific there.
And btw CIti has gone through cycles too. They used to allow "fast" churning of AA cards, then stopped it, then a few years ago started it again, then stopped it again.
Btw, BofA has tightened too, but again from a different starting point. Up until a few months ago, it was possible for some people to apply for 3, 4, 5, or 6 Alaska Airlines cards at the same time. Then some stupid bloggers started talking about it, BofA noticed, and now it's only one personal AS card every 3 months. Relative to every other bank, that may seem like free-wheeling churning, but relative to a few months ago, it's a big tightening.
Anyway, Chase is the
only one (other than longtimers like Barclay, of course) that is
counting other banks' cards against the new card you're trying to get. Amex is only locking you out of personal cards you had before, not locking you out of ones you didn't have. Citi is making you wait 18 months to repeat the same card, but no wait is needed for a card you didn't have before. BofA is (horrors!) making you wait 3 months to repeat the same card.