There is no Definite Answer as the Rules are Changing
 

Things are not the same as they were 6 months ago and really not even the same as 3 months ago. Note we are now seeing larger bonuses.

I have had over 90 credit cards and very seldom get a denial and almost always get the denials reversed.

1. I spread my applications and inquiries evenly between the three reporting agencies. I currently show 10, 11 and 14 inquiries on the 3 agencies.

2. I always pay on time. Always.

3. My credit utilization is under 40% on any one card at any one time and overall way under that (0%) I carry no balances.

4. I keep my oldest cards with no plans to ever close them. Newer cards last one year or two years if I get a retention bonus worth more than the renewal fee. If not, I cancel except for my SPG card (well worth the $45 renewal).

5. Denials are always countered with a phone call to the credit analyst if I can find a phone number or a written snail mail letter that highlights he following info: Steady Income, homeowner status, NEVER Late on a payment, current
score that shows I know my stuff and what constitutes Good credit, and my offer to close an existing account with the issuer or to lower my credit limit on an existing card.

In ten years of churning the only denials I have not resolved are "not a first time cardmember" and "you have the maximum cards we allow" when I was not willing to give up a card to make room for the new one.

Your statement balance is generally what is reported. If you make a 10K charge and pay it off prior to your statement closing date then it will show the zero balance. If you make a 10K charge and it shows on your statement, then it will show on your credit report even if you are paying the balance off every month and never paying interest.

Last october, I applied,

charles schwab, delta gold, aa advantage visa and mc in the same dat.Got approved all. In december , applied chase freedom, approved. BUT then applied for BA in feb , got rejected. Now cooling my heels.


Credit history is only less than 4 years. Never been late .

Things may have changed after feb this year.

Could you explain a little further? It almost sounds like you are saying this could have a negative effect on your credit score.

I believe the idea behind this is that a lender might see you as a poor credit risk if you have too much open credit because theoretically you could go and max it all out tomorrow if you wanted to. It's hard to say what a lender would view as "too much" available credit, though.

Does this mean your credit report shows 90 accounts some open and some closed??? That's a very long list of accounts showing in the report. I'm sure this wouldn't be a problem for you, but for others, i.e., younger people who will need to get mortgage in few years, does having cluttered (too many closed accounts) report affect the loan decision negatively? This is the reason I only go for the big bonuses and of course, always pay in full. I hope I'm wrong, though.
btw, thank you for your amazing website!

It shouldn't "almost" sound like - that's exactly what I'm saying. JB5150 states it pretty well - if you have $300,000 of available credit, credit card companies may not want to take you on because you could be $300,000 in debt tomorrow.

Now, it may be a little more insidious as well. AT&T used this as a reason (or more accurately an excuse) to cancel my 20-year-old Universal Card. I'm sure the real reason is that I didn't use it for 15 years and they were just trying to clean out old accounts, but it may not have been legal for them to close it for the real reason.

However, having the ability to be $300,000 in debt, but yet having only a few thousand dollars in balances reported, shows a good deal of restraint and responsibility. That's all the more true if the person has never paid late, filed bankruptcy, etc.

Did you even read what I said? I am talking about a negative effect on your credit score. It will not have a NEGATIVE effect on your score.

If all you care about is your credit score, you're missing more than half the picture.

You seem pretty sure of yourself, yet you provide nothing to back it up. Do you have proof of this statement? Since nobody outside the credit bureaus knows how credit scores are calculated, nobody on this forum can make such statements.

And that's why credit is such a confusing subject. The same data can be used for opposite effect by different people.

too many does hurt
 

My wife an I get our credit report for free once a year, use this www.annualcreditreport.com or call 1-877-322-8228 you get 1 free a year and in some states 2 free from each of the 3 big agencies, they will show your accounts (even if you close them) for many years....the main factor is paying ontime, then credit history and utilization.
The credit scores you have to pay for and they are more informative along with them they will tell you why your score is not higher...we found this information when a mortgage broker showed us the detailed report he got before we refinanced in 2002 and again last week. My wife has a credit rating of 837, 821, and 817 with the 3 big companies right now which is great considering 850 is max...listed as negatives were " accounts opened too short of a time" and "not enough history on some accounts" which mean the same thing....not major dings but it does hurt until accounts are opened a year+ ...the funny thing was she hadnt applied for any credit cards in a year, so the account they were talking about must have been the chase checking account with CO debit card.
I also have proof that too many accounts are a NEGATIVE as this was noted by all 3 agencies before our refinance in 2002, my wife had 38 accounts, some of which she opened 20+ years ago in her maiden name, most were retail store accounts...they said this was a risk because there was too much liability in having that many active accounts, like another poster said the ability to go nuts and max out all your accounts is a negative, expecially if the total credit available is more than your annual income. Even though she was NEVER late on any accounts they cut 20-40 points off her score for that....so we closed all the unused old store accounts and now she is in the 800's.....any credit score over 720 is good and you can have negatives and still be approved for whatever you want......we needed it extra high to refinance and now she will get a few cards, be dinged 5 points for each hard pull and a few points until those accounts have sufficient history but even still she will have high 700's and after a year those cards will be a + and she will go back to where she is now.

you are correct on this one. i will make one caveat to this though and that being you can cancel that oldest card as long as u replace it with a card from the same bank. my first cc card was a citi card. i called to cancel it and the csr advised me doing so could hurt my credit and she talked me into a citi dividend card and advised that way i would still continue to have the long history with Citi show up on my credit report. i just very recently decided to move my spending to ff cards. i am looking at opening a citi alaska card to replace my dividend card. i will talk to citi before cancelling the dividend card though to make sure things haven't changed in the past few years on this.

Many of them are closed now but I still have probably 15 open. I only go for big bonuses as well. As far as clutter, it does not seem to impact my ability to generate more card approvals. From my past experience in mortgage banking (although 15 years ago) I never considered closed by the borrower "paid as agreed" accounts a negative when underwriting a home loan. But again, that was 15 years ago. It is almost all computer scored now.

applying to different programs with same bank is a problem.. i wish different (airline) programs would consider wht all other programs one credit card is offering already before agreeing to offer their program to the cards..

in October I applied for Airtran Card and its thru Barclays.. couple weeks ago I applied for US Airways and thats thru Barclays too.. and Barclays was very firm that they cannot allow 2 cards meaning I can only have 1 airline program.. luckily am able to apply for a business account and that solved the problem, but still my creditline was affected based on the airtran card I already have.. but I was able to reduce the CL on one and increase the other..

so if you absolutely need two cards from 1 bank becoming a business customer is the way to go.. that is if you can become a business customer.. ^

The amount of misinformation about credit scores posted here is staggering. Most of you need to visit Creditboards or MyFico forums before you post such information. Just a few of things:
1) Increasing your CL’s will only help your score not hurt it. By increasing your CL’s you will lower your utilization.
2) Closing an account has little to no effect on your score. It will not affect your AAoA until it falls off in 7 – 10 years if at all. It will affect your utilization depending on how much debt you have outstanding.
3) I have never seen where to many accounts actually hurt your score. Counting closed accounts I have more than 50 on my report.
4) Not even the credit bureaus know exactly how your score is figured. FICO is the only one that knows there own algorithm.
5) The comments you receive with your score do not come from FICO. They are put there by the servicing company that pulled your score and are pretty much worthless.
6) Most important, don’t take my word for it. Take a few minutes to visit the sites I mentioned and find out for yourself.