Well, it depends. Do you have 9 inquiries with the SAME credit bureau? If that's the case, it may be considered too high, especially if many of the inquiries were in the last 6 months (or 12 months), depending on the issuer.

As an example, I had 5 inquiries within 6 months on my EQ credit profile, and I was denied for Chase credit card for "too many inquiries" despite having a 790 credit score, great history and utilization, NO debt, and already being a Chase credit card holder. I had to call Chase to be reconsidered, and was eventually approved for the card after explaining that a number of inquiries were due to auto loan shopping.

My personal feeling is that you can typically ask for reconsideration--with companies such as Chase, Citi, and PenFed--if you have many recent inquiries due to auto loan/mortgage shopping. But if you've have a lot of recent inquiries due to credit card sign-ups, issuers will be less inclined to let you slide. YMMV.

Is there a definite way of knowing which one of the 3 reports will be pulled by a particular creditor? The Creditpulls database on Creditboards has some info but is either old and/or not consistent with my personal experience.

Since I am getting involved in this miles game and will be applying for more cards in the near future, I want to make sure that I distribute the credit pulls equally between the three so as to minimize the risk of denial. I have a good credit score and low % credit usage. I have not been denied a card in the past 3 years but I have only applied for 4-5 cards in that period.

Thanks
Ron

Creditpulls still has the most data on the subject that I have seen.

Some banks pull the same report for everyone (AMEX pulls Experian) while others pull depending on regional area (Citi always pulls Experian for Dallas addresses but not for some other parts of the country).

So you need to learn which reports the banks pull in your region.

In my opinion and experience, no. Provided I am getting paid enough (miles/points/ect) per new account, and my credit will allow me to get most of the cards I apply for, it is well worth applying for several cards at once.

Your income, credit history, credit utilization, etc all come into play. There is no one size fits all answer.