Do you factor non-CC inquiries into your app cycles once the inquiry has posted?
 

Just curious on everyone's experiences as I'm just approaching the end of my first year of CC apps. I've been getting a few cards every 3-4 months but have a new car loan thrown in as well as a refinance on my mortgage. Now I made sure to hold off on new credit apps for several months before the car loan and refinance. But do you all hold off on the new apps AFTER a non-CC inquiry such as a loan, basically counting it as if you had done a round of apps?

For example, this year I got a new car loan mid-February, applied for and got the SPG AMEX mid-March, and refinanced mid-June. I'd like to do an application round now, as it's been ~4 months since my last CC. But would you all count the refinance in place of an application round, and wait another 3 months?

Edit: just realized this should probably be in the CC forum. I thought I was in that forum but I think I started this in another tab :eek:

Did you shop around for your refinance? If I only have one, maybe two inquires for a non cc loan I usually go ahead and apply. It would obviously make a difference if a dealership or mortgage broker submitted your app to multiple lenders. Supposedly multiple inquires for non cc loans are scored as one, but they still show up separately on a credit report.

It was only one inquiry (to all 3 bureaus). And I think the auto loan was just a single bureau. Credit score is still high, in the 770+ range so I'm not so worried about that. When considering past inquiries and waiting 3+ months, is the sole reasoning just to allow your score to recover?

That's the main reason, there's also the chance that you could be declined for too many recent inquiries. With your case though, one on all three for the refi and one for the auto, I wouldn't worry about it. Even if you did have to make a call, that's an easy explanation. It also helps that your score is so high, mine is similar and I wouldn't worry about it.

Well said! It is a risk when we play this game.

My circumstances were different but has happened to me too with a Citi Business AA card (extra credit pull), but the 75K miles I received for it eased the pain a "lil.;)

You might be ok, depending on how many credit cards you want to apply to. I refinanced my mortgage in May but did shop around and have 3 credit inquiries with all three credit bureaus. My score is 780.
I am usually very conservative and have applied for 1 or 2 credit cards at a time.
In July I decided to apply for 4 credit cards (amex, bank of america, bank of hawaii and citi). citi did not approve me instantly. The reason: too many recent inquires. I am still trying to see if they can approve me (have sent them a letter).
But you are four months out so you might be ok.

Moderator action
 

Thread moved to Credit Card Programs forum to comply with this guideline:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...opics-523.html

Debating When Hard Pulls Hit Your Credit Report
 

So I am curious when hard pulls hit your credit report and there seems to be a lack of definitive information. This information could be useful as it would help to decide whether an app-o-rama of 6 cards in one day has a greater or lesser impact on the likelihood of approval versus a one card per month for 6 months method.

From a recent blog post (One Mile at a Time):
"As savvy credit card 'churners' know, there’s some strategy to applying for credit cards. For example, it makes sense to apply for multiple cards in a day, as credit inquiries aren’t usually reported to the agencies more than once a day."

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard information such as this. The most common theory seems to be to apply for multiple cards on one day because the issuers won’t see all the inquiries (this is aside from the few situations were multiple pulls from the same issuer can be combined). But the next post on the same blog states:
“There’s definitely some strategy to this for me, and in the past I’ve even gone so far as to 'abort' a few planned applications after not getting instant approvals on several cards in a row. If you don’t get instant approval and the card issuer doesn’t have a phone number where you can contact them to seek approval on the spot, it can often take one to two weeks for a decision to be made, and it’s possible that the inquiries from the previous applications are on your report by then, which may not be a good thing."

This muddies the water a bit. Sure, it is possible that if not instantly approved, the issuer could pull your report again a few days later when talking with them on the phone. On the other hand, it may also be possible that the lack of instant approvals was due to the issuer seeing the hard pulls from that same day.

To add my own anecdotal experience to this, in March I applied for my first app-o-rama. My last previous hard pull came in July of the previous year. I applied for 5 total cards. The first three were all easily approved. The last two were both Citi Hilton Hhonors cards (two-browsers and the only Citi cards I applied for at the time). Both applications were pending. I did not call reconsideration. Within a week, I was notified that one Hilton card was approved and another card was denied for too many recent inquiries. Having never called reconsideration, I doubt Citi pulled my credit again after the initial application (though it’s still possible). Also, many FTers frequently are able to get two of these cards on the same day without issues, so I doubt my second one was denied due to having applied for two. However, a possible explanation is that the credit pull for the second Citi card showed 4 other inquiries earlier that day and therefore they chose to deny. Again, this is only meant as anecdotal evidence, not proof as there are other possible explanations.

The gist of my question is: Do we have real evidence as to whether the credit bureaus update in real-time or only once per day? Does anyone know for a fact one way or the other? Barring that, is there any other evidence that would indicate they update in real-time as opposed to the generally accepted once per day theory? With better information here, we can better plan our future applications.

the inquiries report immediately. The "expert" you reference does not know what he or she is talking about.

+1
This is correct. Anyone can verify it by applying for a card, and then immediately pulling their credit reports. You should see a new inquiry on one of them. I always do this. Once in a while a creditor does not pull immediately, but most pull when you click on "submit" on the application page.

The hit is real-time.

I have applied for a card and refreshed my report 5 minutes later (literally) and the new hit is there. And have verified this on multiple occasions with different banks.

Rarely the hit isn't real-time when the system 'blocks' the application (ie: applying for 2 Chase cards at once, the first will go through just fine and the second will be auto-rejected for 'duplicate' application. In this case the reconsideration line will pull the report once you call-in. This has been my experience.)

Thanks for the responses. This is what I suspected.

Wait... if the hard pull is in real-time, what is the logic/advantage of App-o-Rama by applying everything on the same day?

The only logic behind it is that the inquires and new accounts will be grouped together. There's also always the chance that the banks would pull different agencies, for instance a new chase inquiry (experian) wouldn't see the barclay's inquiry (transunion). Obvioulsy credit pulls will vary on your location.

Hard inquiries are not "reported" to the credit reporting agencies. Rather, each time a financial institution pulls your credit report, the agency (on its own) simply records an inquiry (hard or soft). There's no reporting involved.

It's *possible* that there's a slight lag within the credit report agency's systems before the new inquiry shows up in subsequent pulls. But if so, the time window seems to be very small--for Experian, I've seen new hard inquiries show up on my credit report within just a few minutes.