nmp0

I probably would have been approved if I did it second. I decided to reduce the list at the last minute and they did not make the cut. I will get Barclays and Cap1 next AOR since I now have 4 cards with Chase and 3 or 4 with Amex.

itchyfeet123

(Sorry this is quite long)

I would appreciate any suggestions people can offer. I have three goals with CC points:
1) Add to my United and AA stashes for some foreign travel in the summer.
2) Cover six nights in a hotel in Buenos Aires in March.
3) Be able to cover domestic roundtrip plus 3 nights in Boston in May without dipping into my United/AA points in case my school doesn't cover this trip.
4) Get some serious cashback through MS.

I currently have:
AMEX BCE (Nov 13)
Barclay Arrival, Hyatt, Citi AA (Sept 13)
Freedom, Citi Dividend (Aug 12)
Capital One Cash Rewards for Newcomers (~Sept 2011)
Visa from my credit union (~July 2011)

For Buenos Aires, my partner will be coming with me. He has no credit cards and good credit established through loans etc, although I don't know his exact score. I don't think he would be comfortable with a lot of MS and I'm not sure what, if any, cards he can get with no CC history that will be useful at this stage.

My tentative plan:
Mid Jan - (Goal 1) 50k United Explorer, 35k US Air; (Goal 2) ______; (Goal 4) Wells Fargo.
Mid-late March - (Goal 3) 20k? Jet Blue, 70k Marriott.

The Marriott card would still leave me one night out of pocket for Boston, but I could use my Arrival for that. Alternatively, SPG would cover the same 2/3 nights.

Hotels in Buenos Aires seem to be the problem. My thoughts are:
1) CSP for me and BF--> Hyatt. The fanciest hotel I have ever considered staying in (Palacio Duhau) is 18,000/night, so 2x55k would be perfect. But I don't know if my BF would be able to get approved for CSP with no previous cards.
2) CSP for my and Hyatt for him. As above, and I have some Freedom UR points to add towards the sixth night. Again, don't know how likely he is to be approved.
3) 80K IHG for me and BF. This would be more than enough for Holiday Inn Express, or for the Intercontinental with a little MS. I think this card would be more likely to be appoved for my partner than either CSP or Hyatt.
4) Arrival for him, use bonus for 3 or 4 nights at a local hotel, I MS on Arrival to pay the other 2 or 3 nights.
Edited to add
5) CSP for me, Freedom for him. We both max out Q1 Freedom bonus ASAP. He transfers his Freedom UR points to me, I combine UR from the two Freedom cards with signup UR bonus from CSP, and transfer to Hyatt. It works out perfectly in terms of points and the Freedom is a more likely approval for him. However, since we don't live together, I'm not sure if the first transfer would be allowed.

I know there are a lot of points on the table with Hilton cards, but I would prefer not to have to collect several cards for one trip.

Does anyone have either thoughts on my proposed cards in general or ideas on cards for BsAs hotels? I would be very grateful for any suggestions.

liftingbrosef

Alright, have been doing my homework and am considering the following AOR. My primary goal is to secure cheap travel from Portland to Southern California (Orange County or Long Beach) and begin to save for a big trip to Hawaii one day.

AOR (in this order):
Barclay US Airways (35K US Airways points, soon to be AA?)
Citi AA Personal (50K AA points)
Chase BA (100K Avios)
Chase Freedom (nice to use for bonus categories)
Discover IT (nice for cash back)

Currently Have:
Amex BCP
Chase Ink Plus
Fidelity 2% Amex
PenFed Cash Rewards Visa


Any advice to anything I could be missing in my AOR? I was thinking it would be nice to get an Amex card, but am not sure what I'd want or if there is anything worth it. Possibly SPG?

KennyBSAT

Try cardmatch.com and see if you have a 50K AMEX PRG offer. If San Diego works for you (maybe even if not), plan to add Southwest cards when 50K offers come back.

MDtR-Chicago

Which of these are for Hawaii and which for SoCal?

Depending on your answer, you may want to think about a Southwest card instead of the BA.

liftingbrosef

The BA was intended for either travel to SoCal or to Hawaii. I figured Avois for travel to Orange county from Portland was as good as I could do by redeeming on Alaska Airlines. AS goes direct to SNA. Southwest does not have a direct flight. I'm not opposed to having to make connecting flights if southwest is a much better redemption option.

MDtR-Chicago

Ah, you're probably right on that then. The BA card would be almost 7 trips. A 50k Southwest card would be ~$720 of flights. That means the Southwest flights would need to be less than ~$108 each, round trip, to make it worth more.

Key will be the availability on that non-stop flight on AS, tho. Have you checked typical dates to see how frequently you can get it?

Jetsfan

Responding to liftingbrosef, I agree that you should look into an AMEX Membership Rewards earning card. These are points you can transfer to BA often with a 20 or 30 percent bonus. So you may not need the BA card and can pick another Chase card. Good luck!

Desher

Just completed my first official AOR. I'm new-ish so this isn't sexy by an means. I applied for a few cards over the summer but those were spread out as you can see (rookie...).

Amex Blue Everyday 4/16/2008
Chase SP 7/6/2013
Chase Ink 7/6/2013
Amex Business Gold 7/19/2013
Amex SPG 8/13/2013
Amex Business SPG 8/29/2013
Chase Ink Bold 9/17/2013

on 12/20 I applied for:
Chase IGH - Instant Approval
Citi AA - Instant Approval
Barclays Arrival - Instant Approval
Amex Hilton Surpass - pending, approved 2 days later
US Bank Flexperks - pending, approved 3-4 days later.

I didn't have to call in any reconsideration lines, certainly a plus. I was leaning more towards cards that would help with domestic travel during this go around.

nmp0

UPDATE FROM 12/23 AOR:

Amex emailed that I was approved for Hilton (no AF) after the 5 day wait bringing me to 6 of 7.

TD Bank left a voicemail on 12/23 which I missed and I called today and answered some verification questions. They said 7-10 days for a decision.

KennyBSAT

Desher - welcome to Flyertalk! That's not a bad haul at all.

mayhem213

did an app o rama today with

united mileage explorer instantly approved
southwest premiere instantly approved
virgin atlantic

i wasnt instantly approved how long should i wait to call reconsideration

also experian says i have 8 inquires and has me in the high risk category is this really that bad my score is 735

ArmyFlyer05

Brand new here, but I have been reading a ton the last week.

Did an AOR this week, previously we were using our USAA MC for all spending and 2 Chase SW cards for our personal spending. New cards:

Amex Everyday Preferred
Amex Delta Gold: 100k Seattle offer
Amex Plat: 50k reward points
Chase Freedom: 20k
Chase Marriott Premier - 70k
Chase United Club Card - Fee waived
I also added a free military Chase Checking account

Wife got the Chase SP w/45k

I want to dump one of my Chase Southwest cards which will free up 16,800 in CL with Chase.

Any thoughts on what I should target for the next AOR? I am thinking AMEX SPG, the Chase SP for myself, and dumping the Marriott for Ritz card. Our current spending plan is to put our everyday purchases on the Freedom card, travel and dining on the Chase SP, and I am using the United Card for my personal spending.

I need to caveat that I don't pay fees at AMEX with the SCRA for military. Thanks for any help.

farwest101

Unless you're playing the game wrong, every churner SHOULD BE "high risk" based on the number of inquiries you get.

Go read up on what items are important to your credit score. Inquiries aren't that big of a deal (unless you are USBank or Barclays)

FlightNurse

Don't cancel your chase cards, if needed you can move credit around. Once you get up to about 10 chase cards, then you might have to move credit.

My two, go to cards are the CSP and Amex SPG. With these two I'm pretty much covered on what I need.

BTW, Why are you going after cards do aggressively? This game is a marathon, not a sprint.. You well get to a point with a lot of inquiries that banks wont give you a new card.