cashtinkerer

Had an interesting situation which I can't find any similar posts about elsewhere. I decided to get into CC & bank-bonus churning as a means for some additional income and because I enjoy tinkering with money (keeps my investment accounts unmolested; I am one of those rare people that likes this stuff).

I applied for ~10 cards over 24 hours (maybe excessive) including 4 cards from Chase. I was auto-approved for the first two; Chase Saphire Preferred & Chase Freedom. Today the rep called me to let me know the Saphire Preferred will have to be taken back due to excess applications, but nicely gave me the option to swap this out and give up the Freedom instead, which I agreed to. Is this a new thing?

What I applied for:
Chase SP, Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, and I believe United Explorer (last 2 rejected or unclear if UE went through)
BarclayCard Arrival Plus (rejected)
CapOne Venture (rejected) and Savor (pending)
Amex Bluecash Prefrerred (approved)
Wells Propel Amex (pending; they called for more info)
Couple of BoA cards (both rejected)

Wanted to say hello, hear if my Chase situation is a common occurrence, and get any input into how to better situate myself to be approved for more cards, especially on this first batch (after this I'd probably settle into 3-4 a year and focus on largest rewards). Once the dust settles I also plan to do some targeted recon calls.

What I had:
760 credit score
Capital One VentureOne & Quicksilver (haven't used in months, may explain)
Citi DoubleCash (use monthly) and Simplicity (haven't used in months)
Wells Fargo Platinum (my oldest card, haven't used in years)
Barclay Uber Card (just got this recently and use monthly)

84fiero

Welcome to FT!

No it's not new and sometimes happens, although not always for the same reasons. Looks like Chase explained the reasoning. The days of big "app-o-ramas" like you did here, are mostly gone especially depending on which bureaus were pulled for you by the applicable banks. Slow down and plan strategically so as to account for some of the anti-churning rules that impact the timing and sequence of apps for some banks, as well.

cashtinkerer

Appreciate it. Any good resources you'd recommend for understanding the best patterns to ensure high acceptance rate?

sdsearch

For starters, you need to learn the anti-churning rules at each bank, and keep up with them (because they keep changing).

For starters and very obvious here, Chase will deny you for most of its cards if you have 5 or more bank cards (from any banks) with "opened on" dates in the past 24 months showing on your credit report. So you're already frozen out of most Chase applications for the next 2 years if you do nothing more, and you'll continue to be frozen out of Chase even longer if you continue to apply for personal cards. (Business cards from most banks, with the exceptions of Discover and Cap One, don't show up on EQ/EX/TU credit reports as long as the cards are in "good standing", and so they are "invisible" to Chase.)

Barclay and BofA seems to have something a bit similar, but the exact parameters are not known.

Amex has a once-in-a-lifetime rule for each card, plus if you don't use your existing Amex cards "enough" (no one knows what "enough" means), and/or you close some, they may give you a popup when you apply saying essentially "you don't qualify for a signup bonus because of your past Amex activity, do you want to proceed with the application anyway despite that?".

Citi denies you the signup bonus if you opened or closed a card in the same card group in the past 24 months, but if you held onto the card and still have it open, that's no problem. (Some types of Citi mailers , in case you get any, are exempt from this rule.)

Diplomatico

OP may want to google "Chase 5/24 rule". SMH.

OATS09

Also, why would you want so many cards at once? It seems your plan for churning was to spend $50,000 in the first three months in order to be able to get all the signup bonuses. It'd be wise to pick one card, get the bonus, then do the next. I don't sign up for cards unless I have big purchases coming up; right now I have two large and one small airline tickets to purchase and two cruises to pay off (one December 2019 and one May 2020).

Diplomatico

An excellent point, self. OP might also want to google "bust out credit fraud".

84fiero

There are dedicated sub-forums here for Chase, Citi, and AMEX, in addition to the one where this was posted for basically all other credit cards. There are threads in each with important info that you'll want to digest to learn the known rules and best practices (which are often in flux so keep coming back to remain informed).

Doctor of Credit website has a good collection of info about most of the major card issuers, lessons learned, etc. That would be another good source for education.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/

949

maybe apply 2 to 4 cards each year.. certainly, not 10.

cashtinkerer

I have a $8K trip that would fill 2-3 larger cards. Many of the ones I am evaluating only require $500-$1000 over 3 months, and I projected them out to easily pay using my ~$2400/month spend.

Appreciate all the notes. I had researched the 5/24 rule but thought rapid applications was the usual means to bypass this initially as each application would be blind to the others. I see now that is not the case.

I was most interested in posting here to see if I was a first/rarity to have an approval revoked, appreciate the note that that isn't super uncommon. I'll keep learning/reading and keep my pace more modest in the future. Enjoying some bank bonuses as we speak whilst waiting to see how the CC's pan out. If any of the larger ones I was counting on fall through (Cap1 Savor is a great value for my lifestyle and a great bonus) I'll consider recon.

Thanks!

OATS09

Fair enough, that's a valid rebuttal. Best of luck going forward!

RedSun

You are not the rarity at all. Some people do like what you did, what they called application spree. Some even promote this as a good CC strategy. But to your credit, this is credit suicidal. CC companies monitor credit almost real time. They can certain take the credit back.

mikesyr18

Maybe excessive? That's extremely excessive. Most people don't even apply for 10 cards over the course of 30 years. You did it in 24 hours.

Why are you surprised Chase revoked one of your cards? You're lucky they even gave you the option to keep either of them.

84fiero

Chase didn't withdraw approval on those cards due to 5/24, they did it because of too many applications (based on what you conveyed from Chase). When you apply, each creditor can see other previous hard pulls from the same credit bureau(s) that they are pulling for your app with them - the hard pulls show up almost instantly in most cases. Some issuers pull more than one (Capital One pulls all 3 major bureaus). Sometimes Chase will also pull a second bureau a short time after approval. The bank won't see hard pulls from a bureau that it doesn't itself pull from for your application, so that's something you can use to your advantage - you will want to know which credit bureau each bank is going to query for your location, and factor that into your application strategy. Many of us have a spreadsheet tracking all of our applications, what bureau(s) were used, etc.

5/24 is based on new accounts as they show up on the relevant credit report(s), not hard pulls on the credit report(s). So no, Chase wouldn't see your newly-approved accounts from other banks that just got approved the same day (though of course Chase obviously can see what new accounts they're giving you). But that didn't matter since they dinged you for too many applications. Thread on Chase applications, including more detailed 5/24 explanations:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...17-onward.html

BugsyPal

CC lenders can see more than that am sure.

Was approved for a BofA card that came with a good balance transfer offer, but didn't take that action at time of application/instant approval process. Telephoned CS several hours later to see if offer was still valid and was told "yes". Great I replied, let me get the cards so can give account numbers. BofA rep said there was no need, just tell her which of my accounts and amount wanted to transfer. She then proceeded to read off every single one of my open CC accounts and could see total amounts owed.

Thus not only did BofA do a hard pull for a "pre-approved offer", but kept a record of what they found.

Am thinking other CC companies do this as well, and or at least keep records of each hard pull on a customer's account. Know more than a few people who had various Citi cards see their limits dropped (sometimes dramatically) overnight. Online and later via letter they were informed action was taken because they "no longer met standards of credit worthiness". When people checked their credit reports sure enough CitiCards had recently done a hard pull, and took action (often same day) based upon what they found contained wherein.