Originally Posted by
PumpkinSmasher
With seemingly most of the banks tightening standards for new accounts, do they care more about the accounts open or the inquiries? Or does it depend on the bank? For some reason, in the most recent denials I have had, it seems like the banks have cared more about the inquiries as opposed to the accounts. And do banks really only care about inquiries or accounts opened in the last 24 months?
Yes, it does depend on the bank.
Chase will deny you for most its cards if you have
opened (more than) 5 cards in the past 24 months (by scouring your credit report and checking "opened on" dates for each card). They do not care whether those cards are still open or not:
Chase is counting opened cards, not open cards. While for the few remaining cards that are exempt from this "5/24 rule" they do also look at inquiries, the number of inquires you'd need for them to care is way more than the number of cards you need to have opened to be denied for those cards for which "5/24" does apply.
Barclay is the only other bank (with many miles/points cards) I can think of that seems to look at opened accounts, but their policy is not as drastic as Chase's but it's also not as clear as Chase's. They may look back only a short time (back in the last days of the US Airways card, people who held back on other card apps for a months after a Barclay denial for "too many accounts recently opened" would often then get a Barclay approval.)
So for most other banks, it's inquiries that count more, even though for Chase certainly and Barclay probably it's opened accounts.
Meantime, each bank may look at inquiries over a different period of time. Citi does care how many inquiries you had in the past 24 months, they only care how many you had in the past 6 months. (Remember, tho, that only inquiries shown on the bureau they pulled count.) It used to be no more than 6 inquiries (on the bureau they pull) in the past 6 months, but lately it's been reported to be more YMMV, in that some people are allowed a bit more than 6.
I don't think many banks put a count of currently-
open cards high up. If anything, they put a total of currently available credit (relative to your income) higher up than a count of currently-open cards. 5o 50 currently open cards with $1k credit limit each would not look as worrisome as 30 currently open cards with $30k credit limit each, if your income is $75k a year.