So after lurking here for a year or two and reading as much as I could on AOR's, I decided to jump on the bandwagon. This AOR was for several purposes - collect sign-up bonuses, get some 0% money, generally increase my available credit, and establish trade lines with issuers I did not already have a relationship with. So without further ado, here are the details of my AOR that was performed on 24 December 2006. I'll try to update as more approvals and CLs come in.

Me:
Age 24
Annual income 75k
No bankruptcies, late payments, etc.

Credit scores (obtained from Citi's Identity Monitor on 06 December 2006):
TU: 753
EXP: 754
EQ: 756
Very consistent!

Existing cards/loans/debts/etc, includes only credit that is currently open and not cards that have been closed:
(Name - limit/balance - age), number in [brackets] is new CL after CLI.
Overall utilization is ~0, with 2-3 cards used regularly ($4-500 balances, paid in full every month)

Credit Cards:
AMEX Blue Cash for Students - $1k [$7.5k] - 4.5 yrs
AMEX Blue Cash - $17.5k [$20k] - 2.5 yrs
Chase Cash Rewards - $5k [$8.5k] - 9 mos
Chase Amazon.com Platinum - $9k [$13k] - 3.5 yrs
Citi Simplicity Cash - $3.8k [10k] - 9 mos
Citi Dividend Platinum - $8k [10k] - 1.75 yrs

Store Cards:
JC Penney - $500 - 3.75 yrs
Pier 1 Imports - $1.8k - 1.5 yrs

Other Debt:
Car loan - $9k of $20k initial balance - opened 2 years ago
Mortgage - $206k of $208k initial balance - opened 10 mos ago

RESULTS:

Chase Disney Visa Rewards - 0% BT <=$50 link
APPROVED 6k
Inquiry: EQ

Chase SonyStyle - $150, 0% BT <= $75 link
APPROVED 7K
Inquiry: EQ

Discover Miles Card - 0% BT no fee link
APPROVED 8k
Inquiry: TU

BOA Rewards AMEX - $75 link
APPROVED 8.3K
Inquiry: EXP

Citi Professional w/TY - $150 link
APPROVED 11k
Inquiry: EQ

Advanta - 0% BT <=$50 link
APPROVED 10K
Inquiry: EQ

AMEX Business Gold Rewards - $250 GC link
APPROVED

BOA WP Platinum MC - $75 link
APPROVED 8.3K AFTER DEFERRAL
Inquiry: EQ

Chase United MP Business Visa - 25k miles link
APPROVED 5K AFTER DEFERRAL

Citi AT&T Universal Rewards - 0% BT no fee link
DEFERRED
Inquiry: EQ

GE Money - 0% BT <= $75 link
DEFERRED - DENIED BY MAIL - TOO MANY INQUIRIES
Inquiry: EQ

Chase United MP Visa - 25k miles link
DEFERRED, DENIED BY MAIL - TOO MANY INQUIRIES
Inquiry: EQ

Bank of Albuquerque Platinum Visa - 0% BT <=$75 link
DEFERRED, DENIED BY MAIL - TOO MANY INQUIRIES
Inquiry: EQ

Net (approved) results so far:
$700 in cash and gift cards
$31k+ in 0% money (some limits remain unknown until receive approval in mail, should be closer to $40k)
$88.3k+ in total new credit, including CLIs

Lessons:
Next time, save the CLIs for last. I did all of the web-based CLIs I could before submitting new applications, and I think this is what caused my denials. Rookie mistake.
Do more research into which issuers will allow reallocation instead of consolidation. I may not be able to effectively use all of my available credit simply because the actively use some of the cards with high limits and don't want to close them to increase the new 0% line. Options: consolidate and invest a large amount of 0% BT money and just replace the closed card in a few months, or invest what I have now and age/CLI the card so that I can consolidate it during the next AOR.

So I know I probably did some things wrong, but I don't see anything that is actually detrimental, I just didn't everything right in order to maximize results. I'll chalk it up as a learning experience, take my (somewhat reduced) profits, and do better next time! If you have any observations or suggestions please feel free to share them Hopefully this information can help out someone else on their first (or additional!) AORs.

UPDATES:

Post-AOR credit scores (obtained from Citi's Identity Monitor on 06 January 2006):
TU: 756
EXP: 756
EQ: 754
New scores were obtained prior to any BTs, and likely do not include new several trade lines that haven't reported to the bureaus yet.

Giving green for a clear and concise post.

I do wish you posted your AOR stuff before actually doing the AOR, though, as there are lots of very knowledgeable folks on here that would've given you pointers (as you stated yourself).

Oh well, next time, in 6 or 7 months when your scores heal a bit, you should be able to go at it again.

By the way, were your CLI requests hard or soft? I'm assuming hard just based on what you said - in which case yes, you should've waited until the end of your AOR since you already have the cards and if the CLI is denied, then no biggie. Soft pull CLI's, however, should definitely be done before the AOR, in fact, long before so that they report the new limit to the CRA's. High reported limits (esp. on old accounts) usually result in creditors granting you higher limits on new cards too.

markkundinger said:What struck me was how successful your CLI's were. You got one on each card! It might have been worth waiting an extra cycle to lets those CLI's get reported, to increase the chance of getting bigger limits on other cards.

As far as the CLIs go, I think one of the Citi increases was soft, and the AMEXs should have been soft as well. The rest were hard, I -think-. When I did the requests at Chase, they asked how much credit I wanted and I made a modest request, like an extra $2-3k per card. I got messages back from customer service saying that because I was so awesome they were giving me more than I asked for, and if I wanted them to be reduced later then they would do so at my request

Well, I too am lurking here about the app-o-ramas.

I do have a few questions.

[1] You pay off your credit card bills every month. So do I. Why would you then apply for credit limit increases? Is the primary reason because you want to create competition among credit card issuers for your business (which might increase the chances of getting approved)?

[2] Now, I know this is personal but you posted the information. What do you do for a living that at age 24 you earn $75K? Good for you! I'm just curious.

[3] Also, and again, I'm just wondering. I regularly wonder myself about whether rebates and serious bargain chasing is worth my time (bargain chasing is always good but there probsably is a limit where I'd earn more doing work on something some one would pay me for). Does this ever hit you too?

Thanks for the info and enlightenment.

Credit scores (obtained from Citi's Identity Monitor on 06 December 2006):
TU: 753
EXP: 754
EQ: 756
Very consistent!



Can you post your new scores.

Just let you know that from I can see, Advanta is no longer no fee BT.
Of course you have targeted offer, then that is a different story.

Draco

Thanks for "keeping it real" here. Too many here sugar coat and lie. Aors will HAVE to result in some denials after some period. You can't get 55 credit cards - these ain't yokels.

I appreciate your candor and have received some real wisdom re AOR from it.

peace

Hey great post! Green for putting it out there and giving us the detail.

Be sure you are including all of your gross income, including bonuses, per diem, whatever. Everything counts.

Don't be shy about asking for CLI's. I got a lot of small intitial CL's on my AOR, but often (especially from AMEX) got an INSTANT web-requested CLI. Now I always ask for $100K. I don't think there is a downside to asking for a large CL. Your experience in getting more than you requested is rare, based on what I've read here and elsewhere.

New credit scores (obtained from Citi's Identity Monitor on 06 January 2006):
TU: 756
EXP: 756
EQ: 754

So this is odd. My scores practically didn't move. I've not done any BTs yet, so my overall utilization must have gone down, thus offsetting the score hits for new inquiries? Very likely there are still some new cards that not reported to the bureaus yet, as I've only seen two new accounts show up so far.

Unfortunately, I may not have the opportunity to take advantage of the 0% offers (can't have the high balances showing up on my report for some rather unique reasons), so it looks like this AOR may end up being simply for signup bonuses and new trade lines. I'll post new scores next month after the rest of the accounts have reported in.