In my attempt in obtaining cash back credit cards, I now have the "too many inquiries stamp" when applying for new credit cards and thus getting declined. There is one late payment I had a year ago which I paid off right away but I do believe that the inquiries are what has been getting me. Anyway to get around this or is it a dead end for an MSer? The only cash back card I have is from my bank at $2000. Percentages are 3% gas, 2% restaurants and groceries, 1% everything else.

How many Hard Pulls do you have in the past 2 years?

Doing many inquiries in a short period of time to banks is a red flag of someone looking for credit all over that may not be able to repay all of the debt spread over the many cards/banks.

It will also sink your credit score. If you haven't you should request a free copy of your credit report from the big 3 agencies .

According to CreditKarma, I have 6 Hard Inquiries on my TransUnion credit report and 17 Hard inquiries on my Equifax credit report. CreditKarma doesn't seem to show Experian. Is there any reason for me to go get a free copy of my credit report from Experian? According to LifeLock it says the reason for my credit score are too many hard inquiries as well.

EDIT: I just used LifeLock to view a list of hard inquiries from August 15th 2014 til today. 24 hard inquiries. 9 in 2016, 9 in 2015, and 6 in 2014.

If LIfeLock is accurate, nothing you can do but wait.... and I mean wait a minimum of six to nine (6-9) months.

Of those pulls, how many times were you extended credit?

Good luck...

For credit cards that I accepted it was 8. There's a mix of CCs, Apartment Eligibility, Store Cards, Auto Loans, and Mortgage Eligibility inquiries.

Should I just request CL increases for the cash back/rewards cards I already have instead?

Bumpity.

Depends on the bank/card as some do hard pulls, soft pulls and some look at your payment history and grant it based off of that & your stated income. If they do a pull and see your recent history they might deny it or even review your card to consider your credit line.

Do you really need more than a $2k limit on your cash back card? Seems you should be able to just pay off the card when you need to free up your credit line. Unless you buy a ton of gas and food.

IMO the brick wall is real on multiple fronts

1) Creative MS spend methods are largely dead. For the effort/time/risk/stress/failure that comes with this, you are literally better off buying tickets/rooms out of pocket.

2) Bonuses are weak-ish. We don't see many 75k/100k MILE or convertible currency offers anymore. Not that many. And even if you did see them, the mileage charts are positioned in ways that you can't really redeem them for even 1 round trip business class ticket to Europe. The idea of trying to churn with 2 people requires two churners, or an even larger effort by the sole-churner in the household.

3) Card companies don't want our crappy business by and large. When you subtract the manufactured spend, many of us are worthless customers. We sign up for bonuses, never use the cards after we get what we want. A great deal of us put 90% of our spend on 3 cards or less, and yet we will hold half a dozen or even a dozen+. Card companies know this. They don't want to give out their products to risky borrowers - which means churners, as churners have more than 5 pulls most often. One of the first limits you might find yourself hitting, like myself, is the Chase 5/24 rule. 5 pulls per 24 month period, and no more Sapphire/Ink/etc cards.

If you are hitting this limit, the only thing you can do is cool off for 3-6 months while your credit improves and hopefully inquiries drop off. You may start looking at obscure products like Virgin Atlantic's card, or Club Carlson, or Lufthansa's card, etc. But you start to deal with lenders like US Bank who become even less churner friendly. In addition, have you ever tried to spend 95k Virgin Atlantic points? They suck. You will find yourself spending money you otherwise wouldn't, just to use your points. You definitely don't win by doing this.

I'm dealing with the same thing. I have a 750 Exp, but 20 inquiries in the last 24, 10+ in the last twelve, and no chase cards yet. Time to sit out for awhile?

That info doesn't give the whole picture but in general yeah you should take a break. It's more about how many you got approved for/denied, your overall credit limit, average age of account, your credit to debt ratio and of course your resources. I know people with 40+ credit cards but then again they have large incomes, assets and carry no balances.
If I were you I'd cool on the applications for a few months. Watch your credit score hopefully go up a little bit and when the number of new accounts/pulls in the last 12 months dips down below 4 or 5 then you can go for some Chase cards.

Yeah, income over 100, ratio <10%, no balances, under 50% remaining on student loans, more than 5 new accounts in the last 12 months, no mortgage or other types of credit in play, clean report.

There isn't much you can do expect wait and let some of the inquiries and new accounts age. Banks don't like to see aggressive credit seeking, and they are generally tightening up on people who are just chasing after the next bonus. They want long term, loyal customers -- not bonus chasers or people who "optimize" by using one card for groceries, one card for gas, etc. Amex for example would rather you get a BCE and use it for every purchase, including 1% spending - not spend across 10 other cards and never make them any money. Now, we don't have to agree with this, but it's no mystery what the banks want to see.

Be careful. As I've experienced first hand, too many inquires will not only give you an auto deny and sink your credit score, it is also much more likely that banks will restrict accounts, suspecting fraud.