So this is my first true AOR. Since January, I jumped on offers as they came out (Sapphire Preferred, Freedom, Ink Bold, Citi AA Visa/Amex, BofA Alaska), but now have waited 4 months since my last application and was looking at doing them all on one day. I'm not so much worried about the minimum spends, because they are mostly reasonable with my spending habits, and this will probably be my last AOR for a while since I'll probably be buying a house in a year or so. I've built up a lot of UR/AA/Delta points, so I think I'm good on miles for a bit, so I wanted to stock up on hotel points and possibly grab the SW companion pass as we've been doing a lot of domestic US travel lately.

My credit scores are anywhere from 777-817 (used to be solid 820 before credit apps earlier this year) and I have a 12 year credit history, no late payments or bad marks.

I was just wondering if anyone thinks I'm going to get denied on a lot of these, and even if I don't, is it really going to dent my credit score. Also, if I should drop some, any recommendations?

9 cards:
50k SW points personal ($1k in 3 months, $69) - Equifax
50k SW points business ($1k in 3 months, $69) – Equifax
30k SPG points ($5k in 6 months, $0) - Experian
75k point Amex Gold Business for $2k spend in 4 mo (targeted) - Experian
40k pts Barclay US Airways (first use, $0) - Transunion
50k VA -> 100k Hilton BofA ($2.5k in 3 months, $90 fee) –Could pull any one
35k Hawaiian Air Bof HI ($1k in 4 months) – Experian?
2x50k HHonors Pts Citi Hilton ($1k in 4 months) two browser trick – Experian (maybe Equifax)


Spend:
In 3 months: $6.5
In 4 months: $3k
In 6 months: $5k

Any input would be greatly appreciated. The info on FT was invaluable in putting this together, so I figured it'd be worth throwing it out there to see if people had any guidance.

I don't really see any red flags, besides the large amount of spending required. You're doing a good job of spreading the apps across both banks and credit agencies. You might have to call reconsideration for a few of those, but you should be able to get approved in the end.

Despite all that, if you actually pull all of it off, I'd say it's a pretty epic app-o-rama!

As for your score, all those inquiries will probably drop your scores a bit, but they'll recover quickly enough, and you should be higher than you are now within a year.

Not too shabby!

I wouldn't say absurd since you want a true AOR. Might get a some denies, but you already expected that.

Only problem I see is, if you see nice house you really like within the next couple of months, you won't buy it?

I'm waiting for my fiance to graduate, and that probably won't be for at least 6 months to a year. Then it would be sometime after that for us to figure out where we're going to live, find a house, etc. So I'm figuring I have about year or so.

Also, I'd like to avoid any denials if at all possible. I'm not trying to bite off more than I can chew just to say I did it, so if anyone thinks they see any obvious denials, I'd be thankful for the input.

I probably have roughtly $35k each in credit line w/ Chase and Citi, $10k w/ a local credit union and another $5k or so w/ BofA.

I'm guessing I'll have to move credit limits around, which is more than fine with me since I don't need all that credit anyway.

When did you actually apply for the other cards? You've gotten 3 Chase cards since January (don't know the specific months) and you're going for another 2 now. You may not get denied, but I'd bet that you'll have to make phone calls for each. It may be as simple as reallocating your CLs like you stated.

One note of caution, Barclays is known to be very conservative. In this case it looks like you might have 6-7 new accounts report (since Chase and Amex do not report biz accounts), that might be a potential red flag for adverse action (lowering CL or account closure). It may not be a huge deal since the 40k is awarded on the 1st purchase but it's something to keep in mind.

Here's the basic outline:

1/16/12 � Applied for Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (instant approval)
3/4/12 � Applied for Chase Freedom (not instantly approved, approved after moving $5k from Sapphire(I've had the regular Sapphire for about 3 years now)
3/5/12 � Applied for Citi AA Visa/Amex (approved for both 3/6) -
3/9/12 � Experian score went from 822 to 808
4/4/12 � Applied for Chase Ink Bold Business (approved after call to reconsideration line and ?�s)
4/10/12 � Approved for BofA Alaska Airlines Visa Sig

Thanks for the guidance.

I agree with the plan of action, especially since you will be on the sidelines for awhile due to a future home loan. As said above I think it's an ambitious plan, but I think with your scores it's probably doable. Are those FICO scores?

I don't have much experience with BOA or BOH, but I think you'll be fine with Amex, probably a phone call or two with Chase, and with Citi it's probably 50/50. Hopefully it's instant with them because their recon is hardly similar to Chase. Barclays you will probably get with no issue, but as I said above be on the look out for AA.

Good luck!

Yep, Barclays is very conservative. They do look for recent accounts openings even from other issuers. If you opened too many new accounts, they might not give any credit. But since OP have an excellent score and have not had any card with Barclays, probably no issue to get the US Air card.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I was just reading on one of the blogs that supposedly the signup bonuses for the SW cards no longer count towards the companion pass. Anyone know if that's true?

Cause if that's the case I'll probably just go for the Chase United card.

Where did you see that? Usually the confusion is that they don't count as TQP but they do count as CPQP.

Saw it in the comments here: http://millionmilesecrets.com/2012/0...est-companion/

Looks like it might have just been confused people, but I wanted to make sure, because I don't normally fly Southwest, so the CP would really be my only reason for applying.

If you can get your credit score back to 820, that's worth more in terms of mortgage rate (and thus interest payments) than all the points you can conceive of earning.

I was reading into it today on a few different sites (Bankrate, a couple finance sites, etc), and they were basically saying that once you get to 760, you're probably not going to get a better rate for being at 790 or 810. That makes sense in a way, but if anyone has experienced otherwise, I'd love to hear any datapoints.

I think you did a great job of spreading the wealth. The only thing I can see would be the Hawaiian card. It is so closely joined to BofA. I know that other people on FT have apped and received both the BofA and BofH cards, but my wife applied for both and they would not give her both of them despite being her first app-o-rama with a score of 774. So, that would be the only one on your list that might be troublesome. She was able to snag 7 of 8 cards in that harvest.