After having this forum suggested by my son I would like to come up with something like the 200k miles he scored last week.

I have RTFFed what I could find but did not come up with an answer. The pre-qualified app for US Airways Premier World card states "include all sources of income or assets available to you that you would like considered as a basis for repaying this obligation." Is this pretty much what they all want? Looking at the Citi American card their app is a little bit different.

Retired with Pension, Real Estate, 401k, Money Market and the usual savings, checking etc., what should I include in the number they want?
Do they sometimes, always, never, verify income as reported??

How important is INCOME and Credit Score on their evaluation and what kind of numbers do they want for the better bonuses? Anybody know the algorithm?

A newbie that thinks this could be fun.

In my experience, they NEVER verify income, but it's not something you should lie about obviously. What they consider to be household income is rather liberal. I believe they consider your credit score when deciding whether to issue you credit or not and consider your income and existing debts when deciding how much credit to issue you. That said both Visa Signature cards and World Mastercards are "no preset spending limit" cards and generally require that you qualify for at least a $5,000 credit line.

Welcome to FT!

There are only two possible outcomes: either the credit card company verifies or it doesn't. Accurately stating your income sources means you don't need to worry about the effect of either outcome.

Card issuers are required to consider an applicant's income and assets by the terms of the C.A.R.D. Act of 2009, but this does not necessarily mean they will contact you or your employer. See this article for an explanation:

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-ca...check-1282.php

American Express has a procedure called a Financial Review in which they may freeze your cards until you produce a transcript of your US Federal income tax return (form 4506-T) or a copy of the return (form 4506).

In one instance Citibank asked me to prove that I held a certain amount of financial assets. I submitted copies of bank statements.

Thanks to all.
Mia, that article is right on the mark to answer my question. I am not interested in any falsification but I also do not want to court rejection based on under reporting my assets. I don't see it to my benefit to report all of my assets but the liquid portion should represent what they are interested in, ie. debt to income ratio.
In this case I am not concerned with the amount of credit they give me, just the amount of miles. I already have all of the credit I "need".

If you have a credit history, they may also simply compare it against previous reports of your income (from you or others).

So at the very least, you need to be reasonably consistent, if doing more than one credit app per decade. They'll be suspicious if your income is totally out of line (on the high side) of what was previously reported, especially if the previous report was relatively recent. In this economy, they'll of course be less suspicious if your reported income suddenly falls, but in that case suspicion is not your main concern.

And, again, even if only one in every X credit apps actually verifies with the employer somehow, once it does, that goes into your credit report, and is then used on subsequent apps.

It's thus definitely simplest if you give something that reasonably matches what your employer might report and is reasonably consistent over all credit apps. I presume, for example, there can be legitimate nebulousness over stuff like your income before vs after 401k deductions...

And welcome to FT, hopefuljack!