jerryhze

Used the 1st one in the "50K Offers WITH Explicit Churning Restrictions" section because of the landing page

Approved instantly, was told Equifax 725 on the final page(nice touch of Citi)

VegasGambler

Never. My first Citi card was the AA plat (applied Dec 17; instant approval). My 2nd was the AA gold (applied today; instant approval).

I'm aware of the 8/65 day rule; I'm well within it. I can't apply for another citi card until 2/20, and then not again until 3/16.

VegasGambler

The restrictions are different. They are less restrictive in some senses. See my previous post about getting Gold and Plat simultaneously.

The answer to question 1 in the wiki's FAQ needs to be changed, but I'm hesitant to do it. I think that the answer is that there is no single answer -- you have to read the T&C for the particular application that you are using, since they are all different. The apps currently on the citi page treat exec, plat, and gold as seperate products with seperate 18-month clocks (which is why I was able to get the Plat and Gold 21 days apart)

One good thing is that is seems that the T&C in the application pages are very precise and followed exactly. As soon as they changed the wording from excluding any AA cards to excluding the same type of AA card (gold, plat, exec) I was immediately able to get approval for a gold despite having recently gotten a plat.

I agree with this. I suspect that they are slowly migrating all the applications to use the new wording (no opening or closing of the same card type within the past 18 months) but I guess we have to wait and see to be sure.

Until this happens, the FAQ in the wiki can't really give any better answers than "carefully read the T&C to be sure".

Edit: I was going to edit question 1 in the wiki but I couldn't. I guess I don't have enought FT tenure (either that or I can't find the edit button). But someone should change it; the answer is wrong.

beltway

I revised FAQ #1 & 2 earlier this afternoon & I think the advice remains valid if you use the older offer links. Maybe I'm missing something, but I think we're in a Rumsfeldian world of unknown unknowns.

Specifically: if the old personal links stay alive for a long time, people are better off ignoring the Gold cards (& the new T&C, which are both more & less restrictive in different ways than old ofers) & focusing on legacy 50K Plat offers. OTOH, if the old personal links dry up soon, the smart move is to go ahead & start churning Gold cards on a separate cycle. The problem is that we have no way of knowing which of these scenarios will ultimately play out over the next year or so. (I'm guessing all old offer links will die after that point, if not before.)

Dear Lord, I'm not sure this could possibly get any more complex.

VegasGambler

I think it's smart to start getting the Gold ones anyway.

Eg: Apply for a Plat. 8 days later apply for a Gold.

Even if the old Plat links stay up forever (unlikely) all this has done is move your time until your next Plat forward by 8 days. That is a small price to pay for 25k miles.

Using the new links you can get 75k miles per 18 months (not counting Exec). With the old links, the max is 50k every "12-26 months". At best, this is the same as the new links (50k every 12 is the same as 75k every 18). At worst, it's far, far worse. The only other issue is the extra hard pull (it's 4 pulls per 150k miles instead of 3).

Overall, I think that the new links are better. The really nice thing is that they are more clear (you know EXACTLY what the rules are and you know exactly, to the day, when you can safely apply again. None of this 12-26 month guesswork). Also, I think it's more likely that the new rules will be around in the near future than that the old ones will be, which makes planning easier.

traveler9020

I thought I understood. Now I'm thoroughly confused. I'll need some time to figure this one out.

sdsearch

I think that's just sloppy wording on their part. I bet what they really mean is:
Someone in a department which doesn't know the real rules wrote the above paragraph, and something got "lost in translation" when they tried to "simplify" it.

"Simplification", often mandated by managers for "ease of understating by the public", often leads to incorrectness, when the correct information was more complicated. I run into the same thing at my company, where I write up something for technical correctness and then non-technical above me want to "simplify" it but introduce some incorrectness in the process, because it cannot be completely correct when simplified that much.

Having said that, their goal is not be completely correct, their goal is to cover their asses. And if they overstate the rules as being more harsh than they really are, they've covered their asses.

Please note that AA has a historical habit of overstating the rules in print. (Data points for years have proved that. I'll take data points over Citi wording any day of the week.)

VegasGambler

I don't think that we have any data points. They've just changed the rules. This is not simply a re-wording of the same rules, because in the past there was one "clock" combined for gold and platinum; now there are two. Since they have certainy changed some things, I think it would be a mistake to assume that nothing else has changed. So I think that data points from the old rules are not helpful here.

Your interpretation may very well be correct. But until someone tests it we won't know.

Brugge

^

And I think another data point that may no longer apply is the idea that if you don't qualify for a bonus, Citi will simply deny your app, and not even do a HP. This has proven to no longer be the case with the EXEC card, where people who unknowingly used the new link that states 'not in the last 18 months', did in fact get the card issued to them. But the approval letter did not have the usual promise of a sign up bonus, and when they completed the spend, they did not get any bonus miles at all.

Will they do the same thing with Gold and Plat cards? No way to know until several people who don't qualify apply and post their results.

VegasGambler

I didn't realize this. In that case I'll have to wait until I get my bonus to be sure that the clocks really are different.

As long as I get my plat bonus (which is the card I applied for first) I won't be too upset. The Gold is only $750 spend so it won't be costing me too much if I don't get it.

Superorb

Just applied for the Biz card and got pending. It says they need more info from me. What do they normally need? My business is legit, and it's my sole source of income. I'm actually surprised I didn't get an instant approval, I've been in business for over 7 years with healthy revenues.

Brugge

In which case, approval should be easy peasy. You have a legitimate app, so I wouldn't sweat it at all. Just call in and confirm whatever they need you to confirm.

IkeEsq

From my own limited experience, it is easier to get a card for a sole proprietorship with no revenues than it is for an ongoing business with an EIN.

The message you got was generic and they not need anything. You can call and find out or wait and they will likely approve the App, especially if you got to Step 5.

sdsearch

At least on personal cards, something they sometimes need from you (which is time consuming) is a signed 4506-T form where you authorize them to pull your tax records (from the IRS) to verify your income.

(It's time consuming because they have to send you a form they filled out, you have to sign it and send it back, they have to send it to the IRS, and the IRS has to send your tax info back to them.)

I don't know if they do this or something else on business cards.

Superorb

Ughh... Approved, but only with a paltry $1,000 limit. She said she could not move credit from personal cards to business cards unfortunately. I do have $28,700 in credit already with Citi, so that's probably why. I'll lower the limits on the other cards I hardly use to help future HHonors approvals and cross my fingers that they release the credit back into the pool earlier than 6 months.

Any problems with cycling my limit several times in a single month?