Go Back  FlyerTalk Forums > Miles&Points > Credit, Debit and Prepaid Card Programs > Chase | Ultimate Rewards
Reload this Page >

Archived: Applying for Chase Credit Cards- May 2015- Jan 2017

Old Sep 4, 2015, 8:47 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: beltway
This thread is now archived. For ongoing discussion and the current/updated wiki, see Applying for Chase Credit Cards, 2017 onward. For the archived predecessor thread, see Applying for Chase Credit Cards- Archived 2008-5/2015
Print Wikipost

Archived: Applying for Chase Credit Cards- May 2015- Jan 2017

Old Jun 21, 2015, 2:38 pm
  #556  
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NYC
Posts: 581
Originally Posted by swy
My utilization would still be <5% though. So I am not too worried about that.
Your FICO scores will still drop. You're also likely to get smaller limits as you are now demonstrating an ability to responsibly handle credit at a reduced level.
NYCRuss is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 3:07 pm
  #557  
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold
Posts: 3,677
Originally Posted by NYCRuss
Your FICO scores will still drop. You're also likely to get smaller limits as you are now demonstrating an ability to responsibly handle credit at a reduced level.
Not true. We have been doing this with every bank for over a year. Before we lowered our CLs, we were getting CLs of $5K to $8K with Citi and Chase, and typically had to call Recon to get approved.

We now get instant approvals in the $18K to $23K range with Citi and Chase. And Citi lists my EXP CR as 830, despite my @15 apps per year.
Brugge is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 3:10 pm
  #558  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, MLife Gold, Marriott Gold, HHonors Gold, Caesars Diamond, Amex Plat
Posts: 5,891
Querying on behalf of spouse. Have 4 new cards opened in the last 2 years (one is closed as of today). Only Chase product I have is Chase Ink Bold (other new cards are Amex Biz Gold, Barclay USair/AA, and Delta Amex, which is the one that I just closed). I am an AU on several new cards in last 2 years for spouse. It seems that AU doesn't affect my <5 new cards in 2 years status (but please correct me if I'm wrong). I am an AU on 2 of spouse's Chase products: Freedom and Chase Ink Plus. FICO is 820.

Moving forward, I would eventually like to get Freedom (or possibly Sapphire) and Southwest Personal and Business (though I'm thinking to do this at the end of calendar year in 2015 or 2016 to maximize CP opp). Spouse has "referred" me for Freedom. On this list the SW cards would be my #1 goal.

What order should I do these in? I don't need the UR bonuses now but would like them in future, so I could wait. I really only need Bold or CSP, not both, and I don't want to pay AF on both, but I would like the CSP bonus. I'm wondering if it's really worth it to get the Freedom, even with referral bonuses, when I'm an AU on spouse card. This is all only for MS and churning purposes basically. Any thoughts?
Stgermainparis is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 3:12 pm
  #559  
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NYC
Posts: 581
Originally Posted by Brugge
Not true. We have been doing this with every bank for over a year. Before we lowered our CLs, we were getting CLs of $5K to $8K with Citi and Chase, and typically had to call Recon to get approved.

We now get instant approvals in the $18K to $23K range with Citi and Chase. And Citi lists my EXP CR as 830, despite my @15 apps per year.
That's a specific situation with limits from the same bank as the card application. Lowering limits with Citi won't help with Chase approvals. It might help with Citi approvals, but not with Chase approvals.

Unless you've controlled the CLDs, and it doesn't sound like you have, you can't establish utility in CLDs with other institutions.

The credit analysts that I've read on this subject back it up.
NYCRuss is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 3:41 pm
  #560  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 6,574
Originally Posted by Brugge
Now I'm confused. I thought your earlier post demonstrated that one can still be instantly approved for co-branded cards, despite recent churning. And that your conclusion was that having low CLs with Chase was more important than how many accts opened (for co-brand cards).

So why the forced choice between forgetting the CP or cutting off other apps? I'd think one would just wait until less than 3 months before the end of the year, and apply for the first SW card. Then wait a couple of months and apply for the other. Finish the spend on both just after the beginning of the new year, and get the CP.

We all now understand those apps aren't automatic any more, but your recent posts were making me hopeful about the prospects.
I think we were approved for one card each ( since the new rules took place because we had lowered the $50K in Chase credit to $9k) going forward I wouldn't count on being approved for 2 chase cards to get CP in a 12 month period if you are still churning.

My thinking is that this 5/24 deal with Chase is new and instant approvals get around it ( do you think if I went to recon with 20 apps I would have been approved ? ) but as time goes on ( November 2016 for 2017) CP Chase may have shored up it's system a bit.

So our New Cp will expire 12/31/16..............if I have to wait until July 2017 ( or later) to get Cp for 17/18 than I already lost 3 CP flights

To me it's a no brainer..........I'll keep churning and if I get CP I get it if not I will have miles from other airlines to use

Last edited by flyer4512; Jun 21, 2015 at 4:47 pm
flyer4512 is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 3:44 pm
  #561  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 6,574
Originally Posted by RNE
Lowering your credit limits with other banks would increase your credit utilization (unless it's zero, which is not good either) and that could negatively impact your Chase approval via human and (possible) automatic too.

Yea..............in real life it doesn't work that way........Do you even churn heavy ?

Ask Happy or Brugge about lowering credit limits

Originally Posted by NYCRuss
Your FICO scores will still drop. You're also likely to get smaller limits as you are now demonstrating an ability to responsibly handle credit at a reduced level.
Not true............do you have real life experience to back that statement up ?

My facts show the only difference lowering credit limits make ( on cards you don't use) is instant approval.................my last ~25 apps were all instant approval and I lower my CL to $2k on every card I get ( over 20 in the past 2 years) after I make the spend

Last edited by flyer4512; Jun 21, 2015 at 3:49 pm
flyer4512 is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 3:51 pm
  #562  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 6,574
Originally Posted by Brugge
Not true. We have been doing this with every bank for over a year. Before we lowered our CLs, we were getting CLs of $5K to $8K with Citi and Chase, and typically had to call Recon to get approved.

We now get instant approvals in the $18K to $23K range with Citi and Chase. And Citi lists my EXP CR as 830, despite my @15 apps per year.
Why do people who don't churn heavy like us feel the need to make statements based on what they hear to be true ?
flyer4512 is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 6:28 pm
  #563  
RNE
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: JZRO
Posts: 9,169
Originally Posted by flyer4512
Yea..............in real life it doesn't work that way........Do you even churn heavy? Not true............do you have real life experience to back that statement up? My facts show the only difference lowering credit limits make ( on cards you don't use) is instant approval.................my last ~25 apps were all instant approval and I lower my CL to $2k on every card I get ( over 20 in the past 2 years) after I make the spend
I'm in awe of your credit-card-acquiring prowess.

RNE, not really.

P.S. Are you aware there are people in the world who don't have enough ellipses, and here you go squandering so many. Tsk, tsk.
RNE is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 6:37 pm
  #564  
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NYC
Posts: 581
Originally Posted by flyer4512
Not true............do you have real life experience to back that statement up ?
Yes I do with the FICO scores. On multiple occasions. FICO 08 has also been reversed engineered to the point where not much guess work is needed.

Originally Posted by flyer4512
My facts show the only difference lowering credit limits make ( on cards you don't use) is instant approval.................my last ~25 apps were all instant approval and I lower my CL to $2k on every card I get ( over 20 in the past 2 years) after I make the spend
Pay attention. I was responding to swy who asked if lowering limits on cards at banks other than Chase will help with applications at Chase. Where is the controlled evidence that it will? If you lowered limits at other banks AND lowered limits at Chase, then there is no control for the data to address this inquiry.
NYCRuss is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 7:49 pm
  #565  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, MLife Gold, Marriott Gold, HHonors Gold, Caesars Diamond, Amex Plat
Posts: 5,891
Asked a convoluted question earlier (on behalf of spouse). Simplifying now:

What combo would you guys say is better for UR earning/bonuses and lowest AFs? (I realize this is subjective, but just throw something at me)

Chase Ink Bold + Freedom
Chase Ink Bold + Sapphire
Chase Sapphire only

Currently have Bold (only chase product ever). I'm AU on spouse's Chase Ink Plus and Freedom, so can use those cards for 5x at office supplies and for category bonuses if necessary (though I realize Freedom has limits). I'd like to keep my apps down to 1 now and can't decide between the above scenarios of new card and/or canceling Bold.

2nd question: Are the Southwest visa products considered "branded" when it comes to the recent >5 new cards rule? I'd like to do Pers and Biz later this year but don't want to blow my new card record now if it will hurt me later. Thanks.
Stgermainparis is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 8:24 pm
  #566  
 
Join Date: Jun 2015
Programs: No Rewards Program
Posts: 21
deleted

Last edited by dagganit; Jun 25, 2015 at 3:49 pm
dagganit is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 9:19 pm
  #567  
 
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Florida
Posts: 10
Just providing my "data point".

After not applying for anything since 2009 (added as AU on spouse's Freedom March '15, April '15 FICO ~770), I was auto-approved for Amex Plat (personal) and CSP ($21k) on April 8th. I applied for Amex SPG (personal), Chase Freedom, and Chase Ink Plus on the evening of June 14th. SPG (5k) & Freedom (3.5k) were auto approved, but Ink Plus was "received".

After some preliminary reading, I called recon the next morning and was told I was denied for Ink Plus due to two applications in a single day. After advocating my position, I was denied for too new of a business (landlord since '12) / too low business revenue ($2X,XXX). I called back late that night and advocated in greater depth and was told after 30 minutes of back-and-forth that I was recommended for approval for 5k. I finally received email confirmation of Ink Plus approval (5K) on June 18th.

Based on additional reading, I strongly believe that I would have been approved after a few days had I not called recon. Nonetheless, it all worked out for me. I hope this helps someone.
wiroly is offline  
Old Jun 21, 2015, 11:09 pm
  #568  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
Originally Posted by wiroly
Just providing my "data point".

After not applying for anything since 2009 (added as AU on spouse's Freedom March '15, April '15 FICO ~770), I was auto-approved for Amex Plat (personal) and CSP ($21k) on April 8th. I applied for Amex SPG (personal), Chase Freedom, and Chase Ink Plus on the evening of June 14th. SPG (5k) & Freedom (3.5k) were auto approved, but Ink Plus was "received".

After some preliminary reading, I called recon the next morning and was told I was denied for Ink Plus due to two applications in a single day. After advocating my position, I was denied for too new of a business (landlord since '12) / too low business revenue ($2X,XXX). I called back late that night and advocated in greater depth and was told after 30 minutes of back-and-forth that I was recommended for approval for 5k. I finally received email confirmation of Ink Plus approval (5K) on June 18th.

Based on additional reading, I strongly believe that I would have been approved after a few days had I not called recon. Nonetheless, it all worked out for me. I hope this helps someone.
Your CSP at 21K is way too high. Chase has a tendency to approve a card with high limit when you have no or very low credit limit with the bank, versus your stated income could qualify.

Your Freedom card got only 3.5K is an evidence of the above.

The fact that you have not had much of a history with Chase also does not help things.

Should you lower your CSP limit to a 10 to 15K, then your Ink Plus might get either an auto approval or a delayed approval without the need to call multiple times and escalated 3 times, with 5 to 10K limit. That would be my assessment.
Happy is offline  
Old Jun 22, 2015, 12:03 am
  #569  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
Originally Posted by RNE
Lowering your credit limits with other banks would increase your credit utilization (unless it's zero, which is not good either) and that could negatively impact your Chase approval via human and (possible) automatic too.
Not true according to Real Life experiences.

Originally Posted by swy
My utilization would still be <5% though. So I am not too worried about that.
You have nothing to worry about.

Originally Posted by NYCRuss
Your FICO scores will still drop. You're also likely to get smaller limits as you are now demonstrating an ability to responsibly handle credit at a reduced level.
Not true according to Real Life experiences.

Originally Posted by Brugge
Not true. We have been doing this with every bank for over a year. Before we lowered our CLs, we were getting CLs of $5K to $8K with Citi and Chase, and typically had to call Recon to get approved.

We now get instant approvals in the $18K to $23K range with Citi and Chase. And Citi lists my EXP CR as 830, despite my @15 apps per year.
Yup, before lowering CLs we had the similar experiences as you.

Then we started to lower the excessive CLs on existing cards to make rooms for new cards which then came in as instant approvals with much larger credit lines.

For the past 8 or 9 Citi cards, husband has received instant approval of an identical 15K CL. We lower the credit lines to 10K at activation because all it needs to see is $1K spend for the most part as we are not chasing Exec cards. Once spend is met, bonus posted, we further lower it to 5K, later to 2K in preparation to X it in coming months. They are gone between 3 to 6 months. However we plan to keep at least one, may be two cards at 15K for product conversion when time comes.

We do not apply as many cards with Chase as they cannot be repeated as quickly as Citi (zombie links). Also the pool of cards we are interested in, is quite small. For example, many here the Southwest cards have high appeal due to the CP. We do not do domestic travel, never fly WN in the past and probably would not either in the future. We just got one Hyatt card because we prefer points over certs but we might be able to use it next Spring so we decide to finally get it when it has an enhanced offer not seen before. So it takes out at least several cards from the Chase pool, further limited our Chase apps which generally are 3 to 4 a year.

Starting in late 2013 we stopped hoarding Chase CLs at card cancellations. We then noticed the rate of instant approvals went up. Husband has gotten 5 instant approvals straight. In contrast, I still have too many Chase cards so my total credit lines are still at the 60K+ zone which means for each card applied I had to call recon - the only time I did not call yet the card was approved on the next day was an Ink Plus last Spring. Read about people being grilled in length I decided not to call business recon when doing a double app of a personal Marriott and the Ink Plus. Besides I was out of the country at that time. I only dealt with the Marriott recon. Once again the nice lady told me the SOLE reason my app was not instantly approved was because my total credit line was over 60K (at almost 63K). Chase actually took 5K from my 20K Freedom to give to Ink Plus and made Ink Plus a 10K CL card. So instead of maintaining the same line, I wound up getting another 5K. I eventually lowered the CL on IHG to get rid of the excess because IHG only saw a few hundreds a year but had 12K line.

Of course when I applied the UA personal on 06/02, I had to call - Rep told me Yup, you had to reallocate credit line - whether moved or swapped out a card, it did not matter, did whatever you wanted. He was curt but accommodating. At first I thought this would be a good way to cancel the Marriott card that has run its course but then changed my mind as I wanted another 5K retention offer from it. So I took 5K from Freedom to open the UA personal. Now Freedom is down to 10K.

Husband on the other hand, got his Hyatt card instantly approved with 11K line a week later. His total line is approaching 45K and we will trim down the Hyatt 3 or 4 months later as we intend to earn the certs in the 2nd or 3rd month for intended usage in late June / early July 2016.

I have been told by at least 3 Chase recon reps on the threshold of 60K. Of course there would always be some folks have high 6 figures stated income, and the 60K would not apply.

In coming months I will "lose" about 20K when 3 cards will go. Hopefully by then the Chase policy would be a bit more lenient - I am already eligible again for a CSP bonus (but chose UA personal instead), as well as another BA very soon. We will see.

Frankly, some of the credit lines doled out are ridiculous. For all the intent and purposes, most of us here only need a line good enough to easily meet the spend requirement.

Originally Posted by NYCRuss
That's a specific situation with limits from the same bank as the card application. Lowering limits with Citi won't help with Chase approvals. It might help with Citi approvals, but not with Chase approvals.

Unless you've controlled the CLDs, and it doesn't sound like you have, you can't establish utility in CLDs with other institutions.

The credit analysts that I've read on this subject back it up.
We probably are the only people here that do NOT care for FICO, never subscribe any credit monitoring service, nor know what our FICOs are. Good thing now some banks actually provide it to you even you are not getting a worse offer (mostly the APR I assume). BofA is one of such. OTOH, neither Chase nor Citi would provide such info unless you are getting a worse offer. Since we never see such info from them, we blissfully assume our FICOs are good enough for what we do.

Whatever academic studies or analysis or whatever, are meaningless to me who despite the former life has a lot to do with the related fields, now only cares for the EMPIRICAL DATA - Because what matters the most, is the RESULTS. We do not have any clue how banks' risk assessment models work - i dont think anyone posts here, bankers or not, would know the intrigue details either. All we can go by is What works and what not and that also seems to be bank-specific - so we go along in order to achieve the desired outcome - Isn't that is the most important thing?

Last edited by Happy; Jun 22, 2015 at 12:14 am
Happy is offline  
Old Jun 22, 2015, 12:19 am
  #570  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,731
Originally Posted by flyer4512
Why do people who don't churn heavy like us feel the need to make statements based on what they hear to be true ?
The need to babble. The need to provoke others to get self-satisfaction.

In all cases, it does not affect you and me and Brugge, other than waste some of our time. However it would confuse the heck out of those far less experienced. Therefore, such act is extremely selfish and totally disrespectful.

Last edited by Happy; Jun 22, 2015 at 1:41 pm
Happy is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.