Background: FICO 685 (TU 715), 4 accounts opened in last 2 years, 5% or less Utilization, income $150,000+, current cards: AMEX Blue Cash, Discover It card, Visa through my local credit union.

Options: I'm pre-approved for Delta AMEX (50,000 bonus) and thinking about applying for the AA Aviator Red (40,000 bonus for 1st purchase and paying annual fee of $95).

I've been grooming my profile for the CSR but not sure if it's worth the wait. I mainly fly AA and Delta. But weighing the options because I don't want to lock myself out of CSR due to 5/24 if I get other cards.

Should I go for the other cards now or hold off til my credit improves and apply for the CSR?

Something in your background does not add up. My guess is you either have a judgment against you, or you have a history of late payment.

It is up to you what you want to do. But at this moment, given the reduced bonus for CSR, it may be best to hold off for now. Or you can choose CSP instead.

I presume you are referring my relatively low FICO to my relatively high income?

One 30 day late 20 months ago and 1 collection 29 months ago (and that's another story for a different thread...)

Welcome to FlyerTalk, d3vi0uz.

Be aware that business cards from most banks (Capital One being the best known exception) don't show up on your credit report, and thus business cards (at least other than Chase) don't affect your 5/24 status (because 5/24 is determined by Chase counting the number of cards on your credit report that show an "opened on" date in the past 24 months).

So if you switch to applying for only business cards for a while, you can get signup bonuses and still stay (or get to) below 5/24.

And you don't have to have a real business to apply for a business card. Just say the business name is your name, the business address is your address, the business phone number is your phone number, it's a sole proprietorship, 0 years in business, no business income to date, minimum employees (typically 0 is not allowed so 1, I guess meaning yourself).

To that end, you might find these two threads helpful:
Btw, there are indications there will likely be a Barclay AA Aviator business card sometime this year, but we don't know more specifically when:

Thanks! I didn't realize biz cards wouldn't report for the most part.

I've read through the links, and is it safe to say:

Biz cards from Chase will affect your 5/24 when applying for personal cards through Chase

If so, then I should not get Biz cards from Chase if I want to get the CSR since the Chase Biz card will be known to Chase?

It's not clear at all. It's very hard to figure out from datapoints, because 4/24 is easy approval, while 6/24 is certain death, but 5/24 (without factoring in business cards) is YMMV (some people get approved while others get denied for "5/24" reasons).

So to be a valid datapoint, we would need someone who applied for at least 2 business cards from Chase in the past 2 years, and is at exactly 4/24 if those are not counted, but is at 6/24 or higher if those are counted. That is the only kind of datapoint which would start to "prove" it one way or the other (but if this too is YMMV, one or datapoints may not be enough for "proof" that it "always works" or "always fails"). But at least it would be a start. But in the "applying for Chase cards" thread we're still waiting for the first datapoints of this sort. (Some people in that thread hope to be able to provide such datapoints in the coming months.)

So I would say that if you want to be as safe as possible, assume that biz cards from Chase might count toward 5/24 until and unless perhaps you start hearing of "hard proof" that they don't count (at least for some people).

For someone "risk averse", I would suggest focusing on business cards from banks other than Chase (for the reason above) and other than Cap One (because it does report to credit bureaus). That still leaves you Amex, Barclay, BofA, Citi, and US Bank, among others.

Thanks!



Good news... I applied for the SPG Business Amex and was instantly approved for $5,000.

Glad I got approved for the sake of the sign up bonus, just hope it won't show up on my personal report.

And I also applied for the Delta Gold Business Amex right after the SPG but got the "will notify via mail within 14 business days".

Any chance I would qualify for the Delta Gold Business Amex or did I push my luck trying to get both the same day?

Thanks

This type of question best researched in American Express forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-same-day.html

Got it.

I also called this morning and the CSR repeated what was discussed in the thread - have to wait 4 business days before they can make a decision on another credit card.