jimbaum

Did call Citi to find out. As TTT103 mentioned, they told us about the business card (see my previous post for the application dates), and that it counted towards the 60 days as well. Due to this, I was thinking that I would have to wait another 60 days, but Citi told us to wait just 30 more days and then apply again (after the Business card met the time requirement)

j3brooklyn

If it is the case that the business card now counts towards the personal 60 day total rather than its own 90 day count, what would be the point of getting the business card? What it really means is that our yearly earning potential just dropped by 100,000 (25,000 every 90 days) or by 200,000 if you've got a spouse in the game. I'm due to apply for both business and personal tomorrow, so I'll report my findings. Not pleased about this development.

forextrader

I tend to use the "approval date" rather than the application date to calculate my 60 or 90 day cycle.

Your Amex was apporved on Feb 14, so I calculate:

14 days (Feb 15-28) + 31 days (March) + 19 days (April 1 - 19) = 64 days since your Amex application.

So really on April 20 when you applied your FEB 14 application should have already been "out of the 60 day cycle" and only your Mar 9 Business card in the current 60 day cycle (assuming what they told you about the Business card counting in the personal cycle is now true).

At the very least they should have approved ONE of your new personal cards.

I would give Citi another call (nothing to lose) - go through the above time calculation with them, and just say that you dont understand why atleast ONE CARD is not approved.

Let us know how you got on - good luck

jimbaum

It is unfortunate, by my wife will not be calling Citi again. She was very hesitant to call them the first time, but I insisted that I had good information from the forum and that Citi screwed up, and made her call anyways. I don't want to put her thru the mess again neither.
Without any redemptions to date, she has become very skeptic now so we'll probably have to chill on this one until the fog clears. Sorry

j3brooklyn

Just applied online and was approved for the Citi AA MC for 30,000 miles. My previous Citi AA cards were approved on 2/22/09 (65 days) and 4/19/09 (9 days). I also applied for a the Citi Business AA MC online and received a "pending" notice, though I was given a number to call and my application #. This has never happened in my many years of churning. I called the number, was placed on hold for a while, and then approved.

There are two explanations for this. Either the Business and Personal cards are still on separate calendars (60 and 90 days), or I'm allowed 3 in a 60 day period. I didn't ask the phone rep as I didn't want to tip my hand. Anyone else with a similar experience?

Marathon Man

ok so to keep churning citi mastercards, one should get the bonus miles and then close them out at some point, wait 60 days and repeat.

I tend to use the cards and leave them open a while and then close them when they have a $0 bal.

Well, I got the 25k miles on 3 cards and was prepared to close them all now. I had thought I closed 1 of them already but citi said it was still open and they had sent out new cards to me to replace old ones with new numbers for security purposes. The CSR I talked to convinced me to leave the old card open and if I did so I would receive an extra 1000 bonus miles. He said these would post to AA by next billing statement cycle and if I still wanted to close it, I could still do that before the annual fee date comes up!

The same went for the other 2 cards I was about to close. 1000 more miles for each!

So I will receive 3,000 more AA miles just to leave these open a bit longer, and can still close them before any ann fees post or before my next 60 day churn cycle needs to be!

Woo hoo

This, plus the new 30,000 card will make for an easier jump to the mil mile mark. Im at just under 900k.

MM

MichaelColey

The last ones I called to cancel, they offered me three different incentives (one at a time) to keep it open. I think they offered me 1k miles first, then double miles (up to 3k), then finally they offered 3k miles just for keeping it open. They posted within a month. Time to call and cancel again.

yosithezet

In the past month I've applied for 2 personal and 1 business. The first personal AMEX went through with no problem. they did call to ask if I'd like to move credit line from one card to that card. I declined. The second personal resulted in a letter requesting permission to have the IRS send Citibank some records. The subsequent business M/C under the new 30K promo resulted in an email confirming approval within a week of the application. It seems like I could just wait for the letter to expire (30 days) and reapply or something similar. Any opinions?

biggestbopper

A friend got a similar letter from Citi when applying for an AA biz card. Was asked to send in copy of tax return which was done.

Got the card.

Personally, I'd just as soon not send anyone a copy of my tax return. Letting 'em get info from IRS seems just about as bad.

On the other hand, 30K miles ....

Marathon Man

dayum,

sounds like I shoulda coulda held out to get 3k per card or 9k milez

oh well.

biggestbopper

Only, sometimes, Citi offers nothing when you call to cancel.

How much effort is a couple of thousand maybe miles worth?

About the same amount of effort as filling out a new credit card application?

Cheapskate Travels

Yep. Gotta learn the old hem & haw:

"Aw, geez, I don't knoooow, you better still canc-"

"What if I were to offer you 3000 miles just for keeping it open?"

"Oh, what the heck. You're very persuasive and that's such a generous offer...I have to accept."

CandymanJim

I personally hate to deal with the CSR in the retention department. They suck the life out of you and really take up too much of my time. I just stick to the regular rotations and cancel by mail. Someone mentioned dealing with their wife on this. I have it easy, I just apply for her, activate the card when it gets entered into the online Citi site, then let her know she hit the $750 and take the old card, hand her a new one (in her name) then send a letter off to Citi after the bonus posted to cancel. The really easy way to track the dates is to use Microsoft Excel. Once you put a date in a field, you can just select a new field and add 60.

So, if date in B1 is 5/1/2009 select b2 and type =b1+60 or whatever date period you want. This will take into account the number of days in each calender month and keeps track of each card and dates.

Jim

Marathon Man

I actually did that for a card my wife had.

Marathon Man

see now what I SHOULD do is call BACK to cancel and get the 3k AND keep the pending 1k!
I may be out of practice but Im an old fekker