Similar situation and curious what the rules would be that apply to the following:

Grabbed my last Chase to enter into 5/24 jail for while so this was the time to go grab a bunch of cards that I had been holding back. In an effort to possibly get approvals before the app blitz hit the credit bureaus I applied for the cards on the same day or w/I short period of time. Got approved for a few cards cards and then, the safety Discover believe or not, was not approved for 'too many inquiries' and an unknown for one card (presume denied since no notice either way.)

Credit score, which has dropped a bit for the time being, remains quite high. How many hard inquiries are too many and in/over what period/s of time? There are a few more cards on the list grab. It has been about two weeks now of no activity.

I'm not sure about Discover, but for *me*, Discover AND Barclay's both pull Trans Union (which takes inquiries into account more heavily than the other 2 bureaus). Further, BOTH of them (Discover/Barclay) use that "weird" bureau : Sagestream and they're brutal. You get dinged for practically anything (I changed a phone # 14 years ago and they still have it as a negative on my "score" for them).

IF Discover is anything like Barclay, it's 2 or more inquiries in 6 months.

Discover was when I learned there were 'too many' yet also had a bank account app denied and from there just laying low yet itchy to get these other cards on the roadmap acquired and out of the way.
For discover I will wait and use their pre-approval tool in advance. It is the others and the less popular. 2+ inquires in 6 months, I am way over. Do I need to sit tight for the next year? Part of the rush is to go quiet again and exit the 5/24 jail in 24.

It’s infuriating and inappropriate that many issuers do a hard pull for an application which will be automatically and/or instantly and/or ultimately declined BEFORE the credit report is viewed or considered and/or WITHOUT ever viewing the credit report.

The purpose of the "hard" (reported) inquiry system is to document that you were applying for credit, which you were. This information is useful to other issuers. The outcome of the application is reported separately if a new account is opened.

I understand that. But it’s (probably) not a legal requirement. If it was “required” AmEx would do a hard pull for existing customers. My thought (fantasy) is that the many issuers I referred to would only do a hard pull when necessary and it’s certainly not necessary when an application is declined without looking at a credit report.

And regardless of the purpose, it’s still infuriating and also one aspect of the process that AmEx does better than anyone else. No hard pull for existing customers is a very user friendly procedure. Pop-up jail is annoying but at least we’re informed prior to the optional additional insult of an unnecessary hard pull so another way AmEx is more user friendly.