New accounts and inquiries are only 10% of your fico score. It can drop you at most 80 points or so. However, if you have short credit history or other blemishes on your credit such as high-credit card balances or late payments, this could make things worse. I have opened and closed several accounts lately. My score stays around 770 to 790. I do not have any credit blemishes and have reported credit card balances of less than 10% of my reported credit (on every card).

That is what I thought, but:


Note that she/he states or and not and. That post worries me a bit becuase I fit into the young category and my score is only in the very low 700s/690ish, but I have never had any credit issues and I have no debt.

Is this with every bank? So, just to clarify: all banks automatically decline you if you have had any inquiry at all from any bank within 60 days? but then various redeeming factors can persuade them to give you credit?

Thanks for explaining this stuff ^

If your score is already low because you have applied for a bunch of credit, it should not be affected too much. If your score is low for other reasons, it will drop. Inquiries and new credit is around 10% of the possible 850 points.

So, how do you know the exact day of approval? Do you call and ask?

Also, just to be really geeky about this....what exactly do we mean by 30 days then? Do there need to be 30 application-free days? or does the date your application was approved count as one of your days? and does the date that you apply on count as one of those days? So, depending on your interpretation of this, it could be anywhere from 29-31 days.

Again, I am just trying to perfect this art a bit based on some of the superb knowledge that us FTers have :D

I don't want to get into a argument over this and there are trade secrets that I cannot disclose by contract but I will tell you that if your score is 700 and you start to churn say goodbye to good apr's in the near future and mortgages will get expensive. 10% is not a set rule and it actually can depend on the model the bank uses. All credit card companies do not rely on the credit bureau score. All scores are not the same, since there are now 4 models in operation, one for each bureau and one that is hoped to be a standard (it is worse than the others IMHO) Also some cc's have their own and use it in conjunction with and/or without regard to the others. If you are in the 790+ range then it is about 10% of the score. If you are less, it is more. In the 600 pt range it amounts to about 10 pts +/- for each hit. The score grows over time without inquiries but NOT very fast. The score drops with inquiries and all factors play into the amount of drop. Do not think for one minute that I or anyone else that has actual knowledge of the program, will disclose enough details for you to figure it out as all have signed very strict documents about this. :(

Thanks for the info. very useful stuff.

Could I just press you to say a few words about the 60 days that you mentioned earlier though. That statement particuarly concerned me.
Just to clarify, my question was:

"Is this with every bank? So, just to clarify: all banks automatically decline you if you have had any inquiry at all from any bank within 60 days? but then various redeeming factors can persuade them to give you credit?"

As mentioned before there is no lack of "how to" information on churning any of and all of the possible cards here on FT but some things are intentionally left vague for fear that the card issuers correct obvious deficiencies in their own policies.

It's best if you take what information is already available here and start your own investigation. You'll be surprised at how much information the card issuers are willing to share with you if you take the time.

Yes, I do.

good info drbond. i certainly havent seen that kind of detail before on FT or elsewhere.

so you work for a financial group or something? :D

If your score is in the low 700/690 range, you should heed drbond's advice and proceed very cautiously about "churning" cards. There is a huge difference between someone has a high 700 score and someone has a low 700 score.

You would be better off in the long run, to try to figure out WHY you have such a low score (being young is not necessary the correct reason), before you try so hard and poke around to "perfect the art of churning". There is no hard and fast rules because as drbond already so kindly hinted, there are so many variables involved in the processing of each application, no one can tell you exactly what would work and what wouldn't.

But I thought that there are SOME hard and fast rules. e.g. Amex only allows one bonus per lifetime, you can apply with bank of america every 30 days etc. I understand what you are getting at, but I certinly think you are overstating the case. We should be trying to open up this black box instead of seeing it as some mystical bundle of forces.

You dont get it, do you?

Didn't drbond already tell you in his last post the last few sentences?

I'm sorry, I don't really understand your rather rude post. What exactly are you talking about? What is the "it" that I am not getting?

I understand exactly what drbond stated in his post. Yet, why should I not continue to maintain that there are certain elements that can be figured out while accepting that there are certain elements that cannot.

Let me try to state it this way.
People go to jail for printing what you are asking!
Now I am not saying that you can't get some information or that there is things that are going to cause an exact response. I did state earlier that No One in the know can give you enough information for you to recreate the scoring formulas. First its proprietary and Second would cause the fraudsters out there to be able to commit a lot more criminal activity that they already do. YMMV