I know it's counter-intuitive, but AoA has very little to do with how soon you close accounts. Once you open a card, it stays on the CB file for 10 years, whether it's open or not. So if you applied for 2 cards 9 years ago, and they are both still open, your AoA is 9 years. And if you cancelled both of them after one month, your AoA is 9 years. Your AoA is determined by adding up your accounts opened in the last 10 years, and dividing that total by the average number of years they have been open.

The only exception could be if you have cards that have been open for over 10 years. I don't know for sure, but that may bring up AoA a bit. Then again of the eleventy-seven cards I've opened, only one has been open for more than 10 years, so it has little impact on my score.

We take a bit of a hit every time either of us closes a card. Despite having zero debt I find getting our scores much above 800 is a task and may be impossible without a mortgage, car or some other type of installment loan with monthly payments.

We swap off for 5/24 ( I'm not getting cards again until late 2019 when I will be below 5/24) so my wife will start closing cards soon and I can almost guarantee she is going to drop below 800 closing one card per month.

As I said if it works for you that's great for us not cancelling any cards for years and then one a month as they approach the AF works the best.

Hi,
Do we have any DPs on opening/churning a second card while still owing money on the first? I always pay off the full balance then lower the CL on existing cards before applying for new. But this one time, I'm unable to pay off my full balance on Card #1 for a few weeks, but I want to apply for #2 before the mailer expires. Card #1 has a CL of $6,000 and I owe $3,700, with $2,300 to spare.

Typically, they approve my opening CL for new cards around 11-17K. Thoughts? Thank you.

DP:
Had two cards with 60K/$3K offer; got email rejecting 75K match; just sent Chat message for 65K match....
Expecting it to be successful.

I do this all the time. Two weeks ago I applied and was approved for a new card while having a $1500ish balance on my previous one as I was still working on the spend.

Probably won't affect your approval/denial odds but you want to pay down that first card before the statement closes if possible. Credit utilization (amount of credit you are using compared to how much credit you have available) is a huge component of credit scores.

Got a snail mail reply today stating "As previously notified, you were not targeted blah blah blah..."

​​​​​​Haven't decided yet whether I want to let it go or try one more time by chat since I can no longer access backdoor SM.

Yes but in the past people who had 50k offers had reported requesting a match because they saw an offer for 75k and receiving 20k miles. In this case that request was rejected outright. Others have reported something similar in recent data points -- IIRC someone was rejected for a 60k->75k match, and subsequently approved for a 60k-65k match.

Again, if anyone gets a match on a personal card to more than 65k, please post that, because it's a useful data point.

I opened 3 with 30+ days in between each. By the time I got #3 I had some spend on #1 and no spend on #2 . (All are being used in rapid succession for remodeling.)

Yeah, not having finished the spend on a previous card has no effect on approval for another one. But if you are getting cards every 33 days, the cumulative CL with Citi could become a problem, especially if you are getting $16,500 per card. Remember to lower the CL to maybe $5K while doing the spend, and then down to $2K after you finish the spend. Having too high a Citi CL could cause problems on subsequent apps.

I had a problem with chat on friday and had to update java before it worked again.

Received my match denial letter asking me to send them the offer I had received... guess we still get unlimited ice cream sundae's but without the cherries on top.

Also, I hope I'll get another mailer soon. I'm down to one left again. Would like some of those $2k offers.

Has anybody had issues with cell phone verification? I've never had a problem using my cell phone number for verification over the phone when calling to get approved. This time they said my number couldn't be used. I tried my VoIP number and my wife's cell number and none of them could be used. Was able to get a family member's landline to be used. Just wondering if this has become an issue for anyone else? I asked how they determined if a phone number could be used for verification and they won't tell me how they use it.

Yes: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi...uspicious.html

closing CC
 

Chat say they can't close a CC, what is the easiest way? Calling is a pain. ( only had the card 60 days and it's my 10th this year.)