Should I close BoA cards to make room for more?
 

I have three open BoA cards currently. I want to do an application for 3 more travel award cards to offset some upcoming travel spend (Ill be applying for the Arrival+ too). Ive seen the DP's about shutdowns after having more than four open cards with BoA. Should I proactively close two of my current cards?

Probably, but even more importantly:

Make sure you reduce the credit limit on those existing BofA cards (at least a few days) before you close them.

Credit limit that's reduced while the card is still open is made available to new applications within a few months.

But credit limit which remains on a BofA card after it's closed is "tied up" for over a year :eek:!

So if you haven't done that already, start by reducing the credit limit as much as you can on the cards you're likely to close, while waiting to see if you get more input about how many you should close.

Could I just transfer to the card I intend to keep open for the same result?

No. The result you want is to reduce the bank's total exposure to you. Then the bank can give you back the credit line reduction when you apply for the new card -- and they'll still be at the same risk level, where they were comfortable before.

I'm in the same boat. I closed 1 personal Alaska card and 1 business Alaska card in the past week or 2, I made sure to lower my total available credit on those a few days before closing. I also lowered my total available credit on the rest of my cards.

I have 4 active BoA cards. 2 Alaska Cards that haven't had an AF hit yet, as well as one Asiana airlines card with the same deal. I also have a travel rewards card that was downgraded from an Alaska card a couple years ago.

I'm looking to get another Asiana and Alaska Personal in one HP & possibly an Alaska Biz.

Thoughts on closing down any of the active cards that haven't had an AF hit yet since I have 4 active accounts? BoA seems to be cracking down based on some DP's I've seen.

I have been denied 2x for the BoA Merril card back in Jan and again in March of this year for too much credit, and too many accounts, but I understand that card to be a little harder to get approved for.

BofA is cracking not just on the count of their card you have, but also the types of their cards you have!

In this thread:
you'll plenty of reports about people (in recent months) being denied a new Alaska personal card if they still have just one Alaska personal card open. And you have two open and want to apply for another one? :eek:

And perhaps the same applies to the Asiana card? I don't know, since I'm not interested in that card, and so haven't followed the thread about it.

Question: why reduce the available credit amount? My understanding is that your utilization (%) affects your credit score. Assume your spend does not change significantly and continue to make on-time payments, your utilization would decrease with a higher combined credit limits. Generally, the lower the %, the more favorable.

OP, if the card you are considering to close has a long credit history, and has no annual fee, I think you should leave it open.

The why is covered above. Utilization is a consideration but so is exposure with a given creditor when seeking more cards from that creditor.

when can I apply for a new BOA card after reducing CL?
 

I have two open BOA credit cards and plan to get one more.
So I called in to reduce the CL on one of the existing cards.
I was told that this is effective immediately but I haven't seen it reflected in my online account.
But can I apply the new card now or have to wait for (how long)? :confused: Anybody has experience with this?
I plan to apply two different BOA credit cards on the same day and hope to get at least one. But will this lower my chance to get one since they will see that I have two applications (though for different cards)?

Thanks

At the very least, wait until it is reflected in your account. You never know if they forgot to do it or something, and you can't verify that until it's reflected in your account.

It depends which BofA cards you're applying for. The ibiggest danger is not being denied outright; the biggest danger is with those cards where you get approved for a Visa Platinum (with a much tinier signup bonus) if you don't qualify for enough credit limit for a Visa Signature. So don't be so busy trying to combine pulls by applying for two in one day that you get approved but for a card level you don't want, and thus totally waste your pull. Better to be approved for one card you do want, than two cards you don't want, right? :confused:

Very few other banks do this trick where they approve you for a lower level card with a "crippled" bonus. But because BofA does that (at least for some cards), you want to make sure you get approved with BofA with a good credit limit on each card, not just that you get approved with BofA.

does BofA transfer CL during application process
 

My SO is going to apply for the Merrill+ card before mid-sept. He has a 21K CL on an AL card. He hates to phone in anything and the Merrill app requires a call, so trying to reduce the number of calls he has to make.

If he doesn't call to reduce the AL limit beforehand, does BofA consider reallocating credit during the application process? Given the Merrill card is a phone app, seems like that would be an easy conversation if his CL is a problem and they allow transfers...

Wife and I both apped in the last week for the ML+. Both went to pending, and CLs were automatically adjusted on cards for approval. We don't have but 2 BOA cards each, and don't do any sort of activities, e.g. MS, on them. YMMV.

I've never heard of it with Alaska cards from BofA. If you have too much CL on other cards, they just deny you (or approve you with teeny tiny CL on the new card which with some BofA cards means you get a much smaller bonus).

So that's why with BofA everyone who's in the know calls to reduce credit limit ASAP. (It can take weeks or maybe months for the reduced credit limit to be available to new cards, so do it as soon as you can, rather than waiting until you're about to apply for a new card).

thx for the dp. Did you apply via phone?

Phone only apps now. This is an excellent sign up bonus if you can maximize. With it supposedly going away, run don't walk.

Although I didn't have a great experience trying to redeem tickets this summer. Tried booking a series of one ways but kept erroring out. Turns out redemptions were blocked by points fraud department.

Ah well :)