Hi, new to all this, just tried applying for personal card. Despite excellent credit and no new credit cards in the past year, I was put into review status rather than approved. I did open a new bank account recently (not a loan) that threw a hard pull, so I guess that is why. The tickets I want to use the companion benefit for are rather time sensitive due to limited availability on the route I need. This would have been an issue even if I were instantly approved since I understand it could take a couple months to get the code credited. But now that the card looks unlikely I figured why risk losing the routing and went ahead and booked the tickets (still within 24 hours at this point). Of course I timed things poorly because recon is not open weekends. Here are my questions:

1) if I do manage to get the card after recon and qualify for the companion benefit, would it be a viable plan to cancel an existing booking (looks like cancel fee is just $125 per person) and rebook with the companion code? I would lose $250 but that is only a small fraction of the cost of the second ticket and it is important not to lose this routing. Just wondering if there were any issues with this plan.

2) if I call recon, and it seems like I am not going to get the signature card, is it possible to just withdraw my app at that point rather than risk being approved for the lesser card? Will doing this preserve the possibility of applying for the card in the future and getting the companion bonus? If I cannot cancel the app through recon, is there any other way? I don't want to wind up with a useless card with no benefits especially if it will make it harder to get other cards later.

Thanks for any thoughts.