Brugge

You EACH have 12 or 13 HPs in 6 months, meaning a total of around 25 HPs between you, with less than a years experience of churning, and you are still getting approvals? Wow, you don't need to ask me for advice, I need to ask you for advice.

I don't know anything about HPs with B of A, only Citi. The usual theory for Citi is that they start taking note of your HPs at number 6. Which is all they allow for those with no history with them. With a solid credit history, and long term payment history with Citi, you can usually get away with 8 or 9 HPs in 6 months. The first time Citi turned me down, after more than a decade of history with them, was with 11 HPs in 6 months. I've read someone say they got approved with 12 HPs/6, but I'm guessing most of those were with Citi itself. My Recon call mentioned "new accounts opened that were not with us", meaning Citi couldn't keep track of my spending on the non-Citi cards.

What you've done in 12 months doesn't matter. When I got turned down by Citi for 11 HPs in 6 months, I stopped applying with anyone for 3 months, so that my 6 month HP count went down to 4, but my 12 month total was still probably around 20, and I was instantly approved for an AA EXEC.

You have to remember though, it's not your total number of HPs, just your total number of HPs with a single Credit Bureau that counts. If you had excellent credit, and 6 HPs with each of the 3 CBs, for a total of 18 you would be fine. My problem is that everyone except Barclays pulls EXP for me (Barclays pulls TU) so all of my apps with Citi, Chase, US, B of A, and AMEX are on the same CB. If you are lucky enough to have your pulls split between CBs you can get away with a larger total.

Barclays and US are reluctant to approve you if you've recently been churning, unless you have quite a history with them, and especially in Barclays case have been doing quite a lot of spend on whatever cards you already have or recently have had with them.

So while some say to apply for cards in the order of "which cards you want the most", any card I'm applying for is a card I really want. So I apply in the order of who will be most worried about my number of new accounts. So US Bank would be my first app in an AoR, followed by Barclays, Citi, Chase, AMEX, and finally B of A. Not necessarily anything I have lots of hard date points on, just in my experience that order seems to work best.

frudd38

Switching from Plat to Sig, did you double dip on the $100 credit offer? Or is that a one time thing. Did they ever want to re-pull the app to make the switch?

Brugge

The $100 statement credit is after $1K in spend, and I'm not doing any spend of the Plat, I'm just waiting on the change over to the Sig. I'm not sure if the statement credit is even available with the Plat.

And no, they didn't re-do the HP, they say they have all the information they need from the first pull. Besides, Recon upped my CL to $5K the day I made the app. So they don't need to do an inquiry, since they aren't raising my CL anymore, just giving me a card with better benefits with the same CL.

sdsearch

Checking and savings are not credit. I'm not sure if that helps as much as having a long and/or steady credit relationship with the bank.

In my case, I have a BofA no-AF credit card that I've had for a decade or so (it started out as a Choice Hotels card before BofA kicked no-AF hotel cards out and converted it to a generic BofA card). I've kept it around exactly in the chances that it will help me as an "anchor" for any future BofA credit, and BofA gives me Signature every time with about $18k CL. I am only one anecdote, so I can't swear that it's my long continuous credit relationship with BofA that's helping me and your only-intermittent credit relationship with them that's hurting. That's just a hypothesis I propose which needs more datapoints to go much beyond a guess.

I've not bothered with multiple checking/savings accounts. It so happens my only checking/savings accounts are with Wells Fargo, who has no credit cards that interest me. It doesn't bother me. I have no-AF "anchor" cards at Citi (AT&T Universal, 2+ decades), Chase (Amtrak, a decade or so), US Bank (no-AF version of FlexPerks, converted from no-AF version of NW airline card), Barclay (Best Western, over a decade), and Amex (Blue, over a decade), among the main banks that I also might sign up for bonus offer cards at.

frudd38

OK thanks, I guess I'm in a different situation since I was auto approved for $1k on 2bm. Called the Spanish line and was transferred to the credit analyst, who was insistent on another hardpull since he cannot access the original. Another bonehead move on my end of not confirming the 25k before he re-pulled and he came back saying I would not get the 25k bonus, so I had him stop there before doing the 2nd card. 3 HP's for 10k miles lol.. I guess the major issue is I was auto approved and the account was already created.

Such a noob mistake of not lowering my existing credit lines has cost me 40k AS miles, lesson learned.

Brugge

Several mistakes, but not the ones you think. First of all, did you HUCA, when the CSR said he couldn't use the original HP? All 3 times they have used the first HP for me. In the long run, it doesn't really matter, all it tells me is that CSR isn't really experienced in his job. So I'd just say "ok, but no thanks", then HUCA.

You don't really have to worry about multiple HPs, assuming you called Recon the same day you first applied. Those HPs get considered "duplicate" copies, and just record as one HP. After my 2BM app, the credit analyst foolishly had me use the phone app CSR to re-apply for me, which of course only got me another Plat, since that person has no authority to control the app process. All she did was take 20+ minutes to read me all of the T/Cs out loud, then submitted the app just the way I would have done online in 2 minutes. So 3 apps in one day, only one HP recorded by EXP.

I'm not sure the Spanish line is the best one to call. Yes, they did quickly give me a Sig approval on my pending app, but said they couldn't do anything about the Plat, since it was "already approved". Later after the phone app fiasco, I called the English Recon line and got a great CSR, who
raised my Plat CL to $5K so I would qualify for a Sig. Then told me she would file a request to the Customer Service Department to re-issue my card as a Sig with full Sig sign up bonus features. 2 days later I got a call from the CSD telling me that I had been approved for replacing (upgrading will not work, it has to be replaced with a new card and number) my Plat with a Sig. Of course, that will take 6 weeks, but I will be getting my $25K and $100, so in the end it's all good.

Brugge

So my question then becomes, do you do much spend on these long standing no-fee cards? Spend on them won't really get you much, except if it facilitates future approvals. Is it enough to just keep the cards, or do you spend on them, and if so how much and how often?

frudd38

Thank you for this detailed explanation. I guess I should attempt to call back for my 2nd card today to see if I can do it without a pull.

I feel I'm a seasoned app-er and still made the colossal mistake of forgetting to lower my credit line as well as freezing Experian so they would be forced to pull Equifax/Transunion when I call it in. Exactly what I've done the last 3 rounds and it totally slipped my mind this time. I guess this happens when managing year round app o rama's for 8 people, le sigh.

Edit: Well just did 4 HUACA's and got the same explanation as my first time. One interesting note was one of the analysts told me that any credit inquiry within 30 days would be dismissed and they would use the original one. This is likely BS as another analyst said the opposite. He also said his "department" only has access to approved accounts and when they do a line increase, it'll be a pull from another bureau. Lovely, but we'll see. All in all, out 40k AS miles, but will be going for a 3bm 75k the next go around. Happy Friday the 13th to me.

Happy

Nope. The only spend on the AS card is to pay for the AS award booking. I almost used A+ to pay today when booking a CX FRA-HKG J award but remembered husband still has one AS card and used that instead.

Have a checking account that is established 2 banks ago before it is BofA. (A regional bank bought by Nations bank which eventually bought BofA and kept BofA's name ditched the lesser known Nations bank - our checkbook being used so infrequently, still are Nations Bank's checks). I am sure the long history of the checking account helps a lot at least in the amount of MOs being dumped in it. (maxed out 100K AS miles annual cap on AS debit card x 2 each year until the program terminated in May 2014 - Hint: $2 earned 1 mile.)

I have a FIA that is barely one year old, and a 123 that was involuntarily converted from Schwab 2x when Schwab sold its cards to BofA. That card is probably no more than 4 years old. FIA is heavily used for MS, 123 is used very often but very small amount each transaction - grocery purchases at WMT for example when I am happened to be there. BTW 123 freaked out on a $400 load at Target a few days ago.

However I DONT think the above 2 cards help me anything. Au Contraire, since I got the FIA card my AS app is no longer instant approved. My husband has NO BofA card other than the AS cards which are open/closed on schedule. He gets more instant approvals than me.

I am thankful for those who experimented the 2bm and 3bm. Just think about this, if one can get 2x 25K every 4 months, or some aggressive souls get 3x 25K every 4 months ... all with the $100 statement credit - that is better than any of the mileage cards out there. AFAIK it is the only mileage card that you can have multiples in short intervals. AA EXEC notwithstanding. Besides, AA miles are junk miles these days. Its only saving grace is the still good (if you are very flexible to travel in short notice) CX premium cabins. Everything else are hard.

The AS miles are the most valuable miles in my book. Today's J award is 42.5K miles versus AA's 55K and UA's 70K (on partner) AS does not charge change fee or cancellation fee up to 60 days before departure. (after that it is $150 per, pretty much standard).

AS allows a stopover on one-way international award that involves US. AS can get you the Bling airline if you dont mind to pay the price.

sdsearch

With the exception of the Best Western card at Barclay (which I use for all my dozen or two cheap Best Western stays a year), all the other "anchor" no-AF cards I mentioned I only do an occasional small spend to keep them alive. Except: On the no-fee BofA card, I had a promotional-rate balance transfer on that card for a couple years, fully paid off about 14 months ago.)

Carl Christensen

Thank you Brugge for your response. My credit history is about 20 years old of a credit card, discover open for that entire time so that probably helps. Plus both my and my wife's credit score right now is 830 ish. We did 1-2 no fee 0% bt cards per year for about 5-7 years and once paid off they sit open in our credit history contributing to age of credit. Plus, of course, six figure income helps a bit too probably. Maybe we will start churning these Alaska cards. Problem is, my wants exceed the hps available and easy spend. I want to sign both her and I up for the 100k Amex bus plat with 10k spend this week and then ... The list goes on:-)

Brugge

Yeah, I agree with everything you said here. And I'm starting to think my excessive interest in EXEC cards, given the dearth of AA Premium Saver awards lately, is misplaced. A single R/T FC TATL award on AA metal at Anytime costs 5 to 6 EXEC sign up bonus miles. On some dates, even more than that.

And the flexibility of AS awards, especially the stop overs, is fabulous. So getting 3 of these every 4 months sounds like the way to go. BUT I'm still trying to figure out how to get Sig awards instead of Plats. Not only is it a hassle to get the Plats changed over, I'm somewhat doubtful that Customer Care is going to do that for me for 12 cards a year.

So far the posts above seem to have eliminated doing substantial spend on B of A cards as the answer. It's kind of unclear whether having an open B of A card helps or not. Obviously my banking relationship with B of A isn't helping at all.

One crazy idea, based on my last 2 BM app, where one app went instant Plat, and the other to pending, is to do a 4BM app.

Hoping that the first one goes Plat, and the other 3 go pending. Then call in and get the other 3 approved as Sig, and just cancel the Plat since the bonus isn't worth the AF.

If anyone has any ideas on how to get Sig approvals instead of Plat approvals, I'm all ears.

Lumpylump76

How about applying for 1 AS card every 6 months, and use the one you have for everyday spend? Cancel the first card after the second Sig card is approved.

Haven't gotten a platinum yet.

Happy

OT on your millions of AA miles

Instead of trying the hard to get Saaver TATL without YQ, go the other direction - i.e. go East, visit Asia, then from Asia to Europe and back.

True, you use one extra ticket but that gets you to visit new places, and almost always you get quality partner flights - JL via Japan the easiest with CX a bit harder but availability is reasonable 6 to 8 months out or 2 weeks out. Far better than the crumby BA with YQ or the illusive AA Saaver.

Brugge

I hear you. We leave on Wednesday for Singapore, going Suites Class 3 days there, then using Avios for Cathay Bus Class to Bkk. 5 days later CX J again to Hong Kong. After 3 days there, CX J to NRT, where we change to one of those mythical AA 777 Saver FC flights to LAX. No idea how in the world I managed to score that AA flight, especially that worked in connection with the SQ flight, but somehow I did.

First trip to Asia, and already had next Summer booked AA FC TATl, and LH FC back, when I booked this, so fairly short for such long flights, but once having done that I'm sure next time we'll make it longer.

If you don't see much posting from me for the next two weeks or so, that's why.