ShaneM's AOR or: Trashing my credit score for profit

So in line with myriad others in FWF, I have decided to temporarily trash my credit report for financial gain. I'm going to try to keep the wordiness in this post down as much as possible. I know people are getting tired of these threads, but to be honest, they help me because I like seeing the "data points" of how people's AOR's work out in accordance to their credit score, age, income, etc. Also, I like seeing what choices people make in terms of what cards to apply for, since the deals change quite regularly.

Me: 26 years old
FICO: 699 as of AOR, bumped to 745 two days later (according to MyFico..not sure what the applications saw)...bumped up to 751 2 weeks later.
Credit history: 8 years, except one authorized user account, 12 years.
Misc: I'm living abroad (in Korea). So specifically in my case, this had a few effects. One, I set up all my accounts to go to my parents address in the months prior so that is the address on my CR, and they received the cards for me. Also, I was unable to apply for any Advanta cards since they don't accept card applications from outside the country. I did the AOR from 11am to 3pm on a Sunday (9pm to 1am Saturday night EST). Unfortunately this was the only time I could do it. Also possibly looking at real estate purchase in the 9-12 month timeframe. Reported personal income, $100K. Reported household income, $150K.

Current Credit Lines:

Personal:

Starwood Preferred Guest AMEX ($10,000)
Chase Platinum MC ($500)
Chase Rewards MC ($30,000)
CitiBank Platinum Select MC ($7,900)
Charles Schwab VISA ($14,000)
Discover Classic Clear ($2,500)
CitiBank Sears MC ($13,000)
Dell Preferred Account, Express, etc ($2,500)

Business:

None

Total Existing Credit Line: $80,900 ($0 utilization)

Cards Applied For:

Personal:

1) Chase United Mileage Plus Visa....25K miles.......DECLINED
2) CitiBank Diamond Rewards AMEX...10K TY points = $100GC...0% APR BT with no BT fee until 12/1/2007.....PENDING as of 12/12 - Address verification underway
3) BOA WorldPoints Platinum Plus MC....75$ credit....0% BT for 12 months, 3% fee........APPROVED, $5K
4) CitiBank Diamond Preferred (Offer code F1K7)...0% BT for life with 3% BT and 2 purchases/month........APPROVED, $6.8K
5) CitiBank AT&T Universal Rewards MC...10K TY points =$100GC...0% APR BT with no BT fee 12 months.........APPROVED, $3.6K
6) BOA Visa Signature w/ Worldpoints MC...$50 credit....0% BT for 12 months, 3% fee.....APPROVED, $2.5K
7) Chase Marriot Rewards Visa....Free night + 15K points........APPROVED, $25K
8) Chase Priority Club Rewards Visa...15K points....0% BT for 6 months, 3% fee........APPROVED, $25K
9) Citi Drivers Edge MC...0% BT for 12 months, no BT fee.....DECLINED
10) Discover Miles Card...24K miles......APPROVED, $8K
11) HSBC Credit Card....0% BT for 6-12 months, no BT fee......PENDING
12) Omaha Rewards Adv Platinum Visa...0% BT for 12 months, 3% fee...........DECLINED
13) FIA Gold Points Visa...5K points...0% BT for 12 months, 3% fee...........APPROVED, $5K
14) AMEX Green Card........APPROVED

Business:

15) Chase United Miles Plus Visa Business...25K miles..........APPROVED, $25K
16) AMEX TigerDirect Gold Rewards Business...$150GC + 5K points + $100 credit........APPROVED
17) AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest Business...10K starpoints........APPROVED, $3K
18) Chase Amazon.com MC...$30.......DECLINED "applied to recently" - maybe my personal Amazon card???
19) Chase Business Card...0% BT for 12 months, 3% fee.....DECLINED "too many inquiries"
20) AMEX FreedomPass Business...5K points........APPROVED, $10.1K
21) CitiBank CitiBusiness card...0% BT for 12 months, 3% fee....APPROVED,$5K
22) CitiBank PremierPass Business...15K TY points = $150 GC....0% BT for 12 months within 1st year, no BT fee....APPROVED, $13.5K
****POST-AOR APPLICATIONS
23) Chase Sony Card (Personal) - $150 statement credit, 0% BT 12 months, 3% fee....APPROVED, $1K.

I applied for this card not only for the $150 but also because my only 0% Chase promotion was 6months. Since I have $80K with them, an extra 6 months is obviously a lot more money for me. So I applied, about 3 weeks after my AOR.

Results:

Instant Approvals: 0 (At this point I was getting worried...)
Instant Denials: 0

Deferred Approvals: 15 and counting
Deferred Rejections: 5 and counting

Total NEW Credit Line: $123.5K and counting

Results (++ = 'and counting')

$117.5K++ in new credit lines
$225++ in statement credit
$600++ in giftcards
Between 4-7 free hotel stays (depending on SPG/Marriot class level)
2++ plane tickets inside the US
10K AMEX points (worth at least $100 in giftcards/rewards)


Balance Transfers (r='reallocation,y='years')

CitiBank (Business): [($18.5K - $0.5K (r)] * 90% * 2y * 5%APY - 75$ BT FEE - $75 annual fee = $1470 interest earned
Chase (Pesonal): [$25K + $24.5K (r) + $29.5 (r)] * 90% * .5y * 5%APY - $75 BT FEE = $1702 interest earned
BOA: [$2.5K + $4.5K (r)] * 90% * 1y * 5%APY - $75 BT FEE = $240 interest earned (worth it??)
CitiBank (Personal): This one is complex, because I have the choice of 12 months with no fee, or life with 3% fee. Also, I am still waiting to hear about Applications #2 and #9, both CitiCards with their own BT offers. I'll wait on this one.

Logistics

Living abroad, I had to facilitate coordinating everything with my permanent address back home, which is luckily my parents address. I had everything shipped there. As for phone numbers, I use SkypeIn so I have a local number in the states that gets routed to my computer here abroad, and if I so choose, to my cell phone here as well. I had several of the companies call me to verify identity, etc, and this worked out just fine.

As for mail, everything was sent to my parents address, and they simply forward it to me abroad. I have a permanent address here (living for at least a year) so its not like I'm constantly moving around. Because I was curious, I did have my loving mother open all my mail to let me know about the few applications that I couldn't check over the phone, internet, etc.


Learned Lessons
...later...

"Also possibly looking at real estate purchase in the 9-12 month timeframe." Not anymore youre not, because your credit will probably not repair itself by then. Since you will have multiple cards at 0% for 12 months, I would not plan on purchasing anything until the vast majority of those are paid off.

If I was you, and I was thinking about buying real estate in teh near future, I would not have done this AOR.

dealhunter999 said: therivler1 said: "Also possibly looking at real estate purchase in the 9-12 month timeframe." Not anymore youre not, because your credit will probably not repair itself by then. Since you will have multiple cards at 0% for 12 months, I would not plan on purchasing anything until the vast majority of those are paid off.

If I was you, and I was thinking about buying real estate in teh near future, I would not have done this AOR.

What r u talking about?

someone didnt read the FAQ's do anything, just dont start a new thread...

therivler1 said:

If I was you, and I was thinking about buying real estate in teh near future, I would not have done this AOR.
Not always the case, I was having a cup of coffee with the manager of my bank last week and the loan officer happened to also be there. I was telling the manager about my AoR and since he knows I am rate wh#re he was not that shocked. So I asked the loan guy if my lower FICO would keep me from getting their best rate. He told me score is only one part and as long score was not down because of something negative in my file and I had the cash to cover the AoR money I would still qualify for best rates, Then like a true salesman he tried to push one on me

OP, I have a profile very similar to yours except that I am not abroad. I did my first AOR last week. I had planned on applying for 18 cards. However when I was applying, out of first 10 or so cards I applied for, I got instant approval for just 2 of them. So i got worried/panicked and cut back on my applications (final number 13 new applications). Now a week later, I have been approved for all the cards I applied for except for the one from EmigrantDirect (Juniper). It is not denied yet. They are saying that they need some information and have mailed me a letter.

I was talking to a girl at my credit union when I went there to apply for their credit card. she mentioned that decision on my application could take longer than usual because they were backed up due to increase in applications recently (upcoming holiday season??). After reading your post and from my experience, I am thinking that it could be one of the possible reasons for not getting instant approvals from other issuers as well.

BUKE said: OT, during my AOR, I used a pre-approved offer for BestBuy card from HSBC. They gave me a credit limit of 1000 only. Anyone knows if I close this account now (within a week of opening), is it still going to be on my credit report?
will stay on your report for at least the next 7 years

Xeon852 said:
There is a chance that if it hasn't shown up yet, and there hasn't been a statement yet, and you haven't put any charges on it, that it may not show up. This isn't guaranteed however, and since you've already taken the inquiry hit I would just leave it and let it develop history.
I don't think any of that matters. My new HSBC card showed up on my report about a week before I even got the card. Do you have any other HSBC cards? If you do maybe you could move the $1,000 there and then close it.

Updated existing utilization and card approvals.

An important issue would be: how do you plan to manage the physical cards and all the related correspondence?

g10ny said: An important issue would be: how do you plan to manage the physical cards and all the related correspondence?

Good point, I'll add that in the second post once I have a final action plan for BT's etc.

As for the rejections, I got two rejection letters from Chase. The letters had no information as to which application was declined, so I'm going to have to call them up and find out.

ShaneM said: How long does it take for your FICO scores to drop after an AOR? Its been 18 days since, and my score has gone up by 6 to 751.

The negative effect of the inquiries would be more or less immediate. The positive and negative effects of the new tradelines would be as soon as they are reported. And, of course, the negative impact of maxing out credit lines would be as soon as that balance is reported.

Many people report a brief transitory bump before the FICO drops when doing an AOR.

Big update. Updated the 2 rejections, and one more approval from Discover. Added up rewards and did a preliminary BT analysis on my current credit card profile. I'm having fun.

Hindustani said: Were the Citi Diamond rewards, Citi AT&T universal rewards and BofA worldpoints platinum plus card all targeted offers? The GC for citi cards and BofA card are all $50 only (instead of $100 and $75 respectively) according to their websites.No they were not targeted. They might have changed as I started researching all of this more than a month ago. Or I simply might be wrong about them. I applied for so many cards it was difficult to keep track of everything. If anything changes in terms of what I get, I'll be sure to update the list.

xerty said: Thanks for sharing OP. Did you ask for credit line increases on any of your existing cards? Sometimes that helps if you're planning to reallocate to a new card you're getting from the same issuer.
I did, but was told they would do hard credit pulls on all my major cards. I considered doing them over the phone the same day but living abroad in a different time zone on an early sunday morning made that difficult. That was in the original plan but cut it out for simplicity.