Point taken. And noted.

On citi AA, dad had a citi aa amex already (applied earlier this year together with the AA visa and AA business visa).At that time, only the AA Amex was approved. With that, a personal AA visa was not possible now (12-18 months have not passed since last approval). So I applied for AA Business again (90 days have passed) and a thank you premier (50K points, which is my minimum threshold). The BOA cards, I just want to get on the Alaska Air churn thing, 40K every 3 months is sort of nice because they have such a long list of partners. With VA, it was along the same lines.

The reason I write all this out, feel free to point more holes in the plan. That's how we learn.

Thanks!

I base the duplicate Alaska on FrugalTravelGuy getting a new one 90 days after last one still open. I've seen a lot of comments on US churns but they generally were longer periods since last application. I haven't tried the Citi biz yet but others have gotten it pretty soon after closing old one.

In summary all 3 will be risks but worth it. If they're not allowed there probably won't be any pulls.

People have reported getting 3 of these cards together? Or spaced out over months/years/historical. That makes a difference in selection of cards for sure. Otherwise, to me, it makes sense to get two 50K+ offers with the same bank so the inquiries would be merged into one. Further, MR points can only be transfered to Continental and BA. Continental relationship ends October I believe but I could be wrong. I really need more UA/Continental points compared to BA.

Why on what? On Visa Signatures? Lines are not reported as what is available. Your credit limit (for purposes of credit pull/report) is the highest number you have ever charged on that card. Some dumb logic about visa signatures having no preset spending limit. Anyway, the credit available on your visa signature card is not reported as available credit on your credit report. AMEX limits are reported. When available credit goes up and utilization stays low, credit scores usually go up. Usually, but not always. Which is why I said dad's scores might go up ...

Denial = inquiry
 

I'm just a few weeks into this and have been reading voraciously. I am certain that I read on either ThePointsGuy or FrugalTravelGuy that a denial does not result in a hard inquiry.

AKP

Only partially true. It is possible to be denied prior to an inquiry taking place, but also quite possible to be denied after inquiry has taken place.

That information on the Citi AA cards helped me not think your decision was so poor :)

Understandable on churning the Alaska air card. If the churning of that card stays available, then it's one of the few left that you can churn so quick/painlessly. I started my Alaska Air adventures in June.

You can look in the PR Gold personal thread, the PR Gold business thread, and Platinum 100k thread yourself, but there are lots of mixed reports. Some people get the bonuses first try, some 10th try, rarely people report they couldn't get the bonus. Some of them applied for 2 or 3 cards AT ONCE and cleared all bonuses, and some applied for them spaced out as they learned about offers and got the bonuses.

MR points are VERY valuable b/c they can be transferred to way more than just Continental & BA!
You can transfer to:
Delta, Aeromexico, Air Canada, Airtran, Alitalia, ANA, British Airways, El Al Israel Airlines, KLM/AirFrance, Frontier, Hawaiian, Iberia, Jetblue, Singapore, Virgin, & Continental.

I definitely have declines on my report from last year when I didn't realize what I was doing in the credit card game, and the inquiries are on my report. That's generally not good information.

It looks good on paper but there are a lot more to meet the eyes, especially once you start learning about the program details...

Of that long list, may be Aeroplan of Air Canada is useful because it belongs to Star A and can be used to redeem on Star A partners to avoid the horrendous YQ on AC metal (just as bad as BA). Virgin also has some partners one can use.

The Asian and European airlines charge hefty YQ. The YQ ANA charges may even make BA's not so terrible...

The rest of the names are pretty much useless unless you need to go to Israel... No one in his right mind should use it on Alitalia or AeroMexico which fell off OneWorld after its bankruptcy last year. I am not sure where the value lies with the AirTran, Frontier and JetBlue.

You could do a transfer to Hawaiian then to HHonor and may get a slightly better ratio than the 1 to 1.5 straight transfer to HHonor. I am not sure of the latest on this.

More likely: If the bank evaluated your credit history (after pulling your report) and decided to decline your application because of concerns in your credit report (missed payments, bankruptcy, charge-off etc.) then you most likely WILL get a hard inquiry on your credit report.

Less likely: But if you were declined for information you entered on your application (say your SSN shows that you applied for the card 1 month ago and the bank's policy is to decline such applications before the bank pulled your credit report) then you may not get a hard inquiry on your credit report.

In general, getting a denial will in most cases lead to a hard inquiry

So to say that a denial does not result in a hard inquiry is not quite true.
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Million Mile Secrets. Big Travel. Small Money

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The Alaska 40K was a limited / special offer. The usual Alaska offer is 30K. I'm not sure it's worth an inquiry for 30K unless you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, but it really depends on what agency they pull for you and how much room you have for another inquiry. If there's a 50-100K offer you qualify for you should using the inquiry for those offers. Sign up for a free credit reporting trial offer (one that checks all 3 agencies), find out what issuers pulled what agency for you and use that information next time to be more strategic about what you apply for. You really want to balance inquiries among the 3 agencies. This is something I think isn't emphasized enough.

How ca. You get US credit cards approved living in Bali !

that's what i was thinking. I guess he just has SSN when he was in US and uses his friends address as his? Would love to hear more on that. (on how to get CC without being US resident)

The forum is pretty much useless when it comes to credit information. 99% or more of the time when you apply for a CC it will result in a hard inquire. It does not matter if you were approved or declined!!!

Agreed. Do you (or anyone else) have a good recommendation for a trial offer that monitors all 3 credit bureaus? I've looked around, even at some of the recommended ones, and they only pull 2 instead of 3.