Bhupathi's First App-O-Rama 2006

First of all 'A BIG THANK YOU' to all the FW Community. I have learnt many life lessons on this forum for the last couple of months which I have not learnt in my dual Masters in Chemical and Computer Science.

And a special appreciation for 'SUCKISSTAPLES' and 'DAVE HANSON' for there 'PRICE LESS' threads which helped to increase my knowledge about finance in a great way.

Bhupathi App-O-Rama
Credit Scores:
FICO: 711
FAKO: EQUIFAX: 683 TRANSUNION: 670 EXPERIAN: 685 (from PRIVACY GUARD)

Current Credit Cards
1.AMEX BLUE $2000 December 2000
2.AMEX COSTCO $10000 August 2006
3.BANK OF AMERICA PLATINUM $12500 February 2003
4.BANK OF AMERICA ( GOLD OPTION LINE OF CREDIT) $40,000 December 2005 - Current Balance $33000
5.BANK OF AMERICA (MBNA USTA PLATINUM PLUS) $400 April 2001
6.CHASE CONTINENTAL $9500 April 2003
7.CHASE $10500 December 2005
8.CHASE Amazon $4500 MAY 2006
9.CITI BANK DIVIDEND PLATINUM SELECT $5000 JULY 2000
10.CITI BANK (Philips CONOCO) $500 NOVEMBER 2000
11.DISCOVER GOLD $10000 Febuary 2003 - Current Balance $7000
12.DISCOVER PLATINUM $10100 December 2000 - Current Balance $7000

TOTAL CURRENT CREDIT LINE: $115,000
TOTAL BALANCE :$47,000

SIS(Finance Genius) and other Experts,

I want to Apply a Mega App O Rama and since I would be able to do another APP-O-RAMA for a long time.I am targetting for atleast $200,000 in new credit with 0% APR offers. I have the following question

1. Do I need to apply for 1 or 2 business cards and then move balance on 4. BOFA ($33000) and 11.DISCOVER ($7000) and 12. DISCOVER ($7000) to the business card and then apply a Mega App-O-Rama

2. Or do I need to goahead and plan for the App-O-Rama without bothering about the balances? I am just worried about 82.5 % utilization on the Bofa(MBNA LOC) and 70% utilization on 2 discover cards.

3. I can pay off at $5000 per month for the next 3 months. So is it better to wait for 3 months and bring the % utilization and then target the APP-O-RAMA in MAY 2006?

Your advice is very valuable to me. Please help me plan my App-O-Rama. Thanks in Advance for your valuable time.

Thank you.
~Bhupathi~

New Personal Credit Cards to Apply(Still researching):


New Business Credit Cards to Apply(Still researching):
1.American Express Platinum Business Credit Card - 12 Months, 0% APR
2.Amercan Express Blue - 12 Months, 0% APR
3.Discover Business Card - 12 Months, 0% APR

Questions I am researching on:
1. How many cards to Apply?. Personal and Business?. For this I am working on the Summary and Statistics of recent AOR's
2. Which Daily Credit Monitoring service to subsrcibe?.
3. At what time to HIT the APP-O-RAMA
4. Quantify the maximum BONUS from cardoffers,Introductory Offers?.. I need to read the http://suckisstaples.com blog and digest the information
5. Quantify the maximum amount on 0% APR BT.

I'd say both numbers 1 and 3. Your utilzation is too high its depressing your FICO score. It will take a billing cycle or two for the lower utilzation to show on your credit report, you have a way to pull your report daily?

HI mhresidence,

Thanks for your time.

Regarding daily report: I have a subscription with EQUIFAX (but it updates once a month) and PRIVACY GUARD (it also updates the scores once a month)

Hi Scott,
Thanks for your time.

I can pay of at $5000 per month. So out of $47K how much should I pay off to get the maximum benefit. At the same time I cannot wait to do App-O-Rama for more then 6 months. Please advise

I really want to get atleast $200 k in new credit. My income is $110k per yer

Johns,

Any recommendations on which Business Card. I do not have a registered business but from SIS's business CC thread, it seems they do not ask any paper work/documents.

One more questions, will these ENQUIRIES effect my future AOR?

TIA
-B

TheGersh,

Thanks for your time and advice.
I am also thinking in the similar way to apply probably 2 or 3 business cards and PARK these balances before the MEGA APP-O-RAMA.

Is the Advanta's decision instant?. How much limit did you get and what was your FICO score at that point.

I am still waiting for SIS's suggestions and proceed for applying the business card.

Thanks once again
~Bhupathi~

Like everyone else, I agree that the current debt level (nearly 50% utilization) is lowering your scores, and is going to hurt your success. You should lower that some.

What's the story with the debt, how did you get it? If it was incurred by spending, then I'd like to preach for a moment: If it's difficult for you to pay down credit card balances, then you should not rapidly expand your available credit, it will get you in really bad trouble.

With that out of the way, I think lowering your reported debt is the way to go. Both pay it off AND get a few non-visible business lines to sponge it off on.

Cardjuggler, As per your suggestion I am working on the statistics of the current AOR success rate. Let me know if I need to include anything else:

Summary of Recent AOR's

P - Personal Card
B - Business Card

Name FICO SCORE TimeFrame TotalCardsApplied, Approved # Approved(%)
POLAR DUDE Q1-2007 Plan 150/200
FIRST NATIONAL 709 14th NOV 2006 54 (P) 11(B) 21 (P) 4(B) 39% (P) 36% (B)
DARCO067 756 24th DEC 2006 13 (P) 8(P) 61.5% (P)
THYTIMO 723 19th DEC 2006 8 (P) 5(B) 2 (P) 0(B) 25% (P)
FWF NOOB 787 22nd DEC 2006 17(P) 1(B) 11 (P) 1(B) 65% (P) 100%(B)
DARK SIDE HIGH 700 Q1-2007 13(P) 7(B)
HINDUSTHANI 771 11th DEC 2006 19(P) 16(P) 84% (P)

I will add the complete data in couple of hours...In the meantime if anyone has any suggestions please let me know

There are total 27 scenarios. I will try to update this thread in couple of days with all in few days

FW AOR SUMMARY AND STATISTICS

Name: FIRST NATIONAL
FICO and/or FAKO : 709
Applied # 54 (P) 11(B)
Approved # 21 (P) 4(B)
Approved % 39% (P) 36% (B)
TimeFrame: 14th NOV 2006
HouseHold Income: $230K
Reported Utilization Before: 32%
Total CreditLimit Before: $128K
New CreditLimit from AOR: $271,500
Total Credit limit after AOR: $399,500
Bonuses from AOR: $440
FICO and/or FAKO scored decreased: -30 points
Expected Income from money invested from AOR:


Name: DARCO067
FICO and/or FAKO : TU: 753 EXP: 754 EQ: 756 (Identity Monitor- Citibank)
Applied # 13 (P)
Approved # 8 (P)
Approved % 61.5% (P)
TimeFrame: 24th DEC 2006
HouseHold Income: 75k
Reported Utilization Before: 0 %
FICO and/or FAKO scored decreased: ization Before:
Total CreditLimit Before: $44.3 K + ($23K in CLI)
New CreditLimit from AOR: $72.3 K
Total Credit limit after AOR: $139.6 K
Bonuses from AOR: $700
Expected Income from money invested from AOR: Expects $40 k in 0% so at 5% = $2000

Name: THYTIMO
FICO and/or FAKO : Nov 11 &Dec 19,TransUnion 719---730,Experian --759---759,Equifax ---723---723
Applied # 8 (P) 5(B)
Approved # 2 (P) 0(B)
Approved % 25% (P)
TimeFrame: 19th DEC 2006
HouseHold Income: $85K
Reported Utilization Before:
Total CreditLimit Before: $23,300
New CreditLimit from AOR: $24,100
Total Credit limit after AOR: $47,400
Bonuses from AOR: $565
FICO and/or FAKO scored decreased: -11 Points
Expected Income from money invested from AOR:

Name: FWF NOOB
FICO and/or FAKO : CS/PG: Experian: 761/764,Equifax: 761/765,TransUnion: 761/773
FICO 787
Applied # 17(P) 1(B)
Approved # 11 (P) 1(B)
Approved % 65% (P) 100%(B)
TimeFrame: 22nd DEC 2006
HouseHold Income:
Reported Utilization Before: 0%
Total CreditLimit Before: $55,275
New CreditLimit from AOR: $59000 + some unknown
Total Credit limit after AOR: $114275
Bonuses from AOR: Not Reported
FICO and/or FAKO scored decreased: 22 Points
Expected Income from money invested from AOR: $8,900 ACH * 5.00% = $445

Mark, I updated with the changes mentioned

Thanks.

With 7 replys you brought this into 'Hot Thread' list. This ain't good. Obviously, you are trying to catch attention of all FWers for your thread !

Bhupathi said: HI mhresidence,

Thanks for your time.

Regarding daily report: I have a subscription with EQUIFAX (but it updates once a month) and PRIVACY GUARD (it also updates the scores once a month)


You really should get something that updates every day like truecredit Is worth the $15 to have for at least while your doing your AoR. You can see every day who is pulling from where and also I found some of my new accounts with CL's there before I was notified by issuers

Thanks Scott and Hindusthani for the pointers towards Daily Reports.

Please let me know if there is a thread on Credit Reports Monitoring with all the costs. If not I will dedicate this post to it.I will research and keep my notes here.

Good Comparision Chart
http://www.credit.com/products/credit_reports/cr-comparison-chart.jsp

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2.I also have MyFico.com and find the scores I get from TC to be more inline with my real FICO's.
3.CS does not show the dates that issuers report and that can be important if you want to show a zero balance on a card.
4.Also get alerts from TC before CS

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I have been using TrueCredit for a few years but recently got an AMEX card so gave Credit Secure I try. After the one month free trial I decided to pay for one month for daily pulls, Which you cannot do during the free trial. I plan on dropping Credit Secure. First CS uses a different scoring range and only goes to 830 instead of 850. I also have MyFico.com and find the scores I get from TC to be more inline with my real FICO's. CS does not show the dates that issuers report and that can be important if you want to show a zero balance on a card. Also get alerts from TC before CS. So in the end I think TC is worth a few extra bucks

Looking at the advanta site (and seeing another finance post) the 5% Cash Back doesn't exist, but you can still get 0% for 15 months. Got a 10K limit (around average compared to my other cards). My decision wasn't instant. I didn't do as much research as you did but from I remember my score was in the low 700s.

Bhupathi said: TheGersh,

Thanks for your time and advice.
I am also thinking in the similar way to apply probably 2 or 3 business cards and PARK these balances before the MEGA APP-O-RAMA.

Is the Advanta's decision instant?. How much limit did you get and what was your FICO score at that point.

I am still waiting for SIS's suggestions and proceed for applying the business card.

Thanks once again
~Bhupathi~

One tip for lowering utilization: Watch when your cards report. Truce credit gives a report date, and you can manually check back months. I use Bofa Privacy source for daily pulls, and just signed up for true credit, and AMEX credit secure for help bumping inqs, and just watching my reports. You can time a balance transfer so it will pay off/pay down some cards, but you do the AOR after your reports show the paid down card, but BEFORE the BT shows up on the card you BTd to.
Example.
AMEX is SLOW at reporting. If you have 13k in AMEX you can BT 13k off BofA. If the BofA reports on 12/21 you do the BT right before so when it reports, the balance is paid down or off. If the BT is electronic, like most, it should take less than 10 days to process. AMEX is typically slow in reporting, and usually a month behind, so you are safe BTing to AMEX normally.
If you have an empty BofA card that reports on say 12/15, and a maxed chase card that reports on 12/25, you do a BofA BT right before 12/15, say 12/13. Hopefully the chase will be paid by the statement date, and it will report a $0 balance, and so will the BofA since BofA won't report again until 2/15. You can repeat this process with more cards also, just make sure you finish your AoR well before 2/15 as some banks may not pull for 3-4 days. You do want your score as high as possible, I would say 800+ (even though I said before 770+ before) Since your score takes a big hit with all the inqs, after about the 30th inq, you will have about a 10% drop in score. If you have an 800 score, that brings you down to about 720. You need to stay about 690-710 to get approvals. Keep in mind some banks will deny outright after seeing so many inquiries. First National of Omaha Bank is stingy I hear. If your cards report at different times that would make it hard to time the BTs.. you could try to ask to change your statement date, although I haven't actually done this, banks may let you. You can do an Aor with a lower score, but if it is a MEGA App o rama, you may get alot more denials since your score will drop into the mid 600s, but if you ask for reconsideration, you can turn denials into approvals. My Mega AOR thread has a ton of banks on there, plus a link to alot of CUs. Also remember when doing the Mega AOR, you might have 50 inqs on EX, but only 6 or 7 on TU or EQ.. Thats why it pays to keep on going. Once the new accts start popping up, the new accts kill your score more, which is why you need to do this in just 2 or 3 days.

Some findings from What-if Simulator from privacyguard

Creditscrore Decrease for new Credit Card Enquires

1 Card - 4 Points
2 Cards - 9 Points
3 Cards - 13 Points
4 Cards - 18 Points
5 Cards - 22 Points
6 Cards - 27 Points
7 Cards - 31 Points
8 Cards - 35 Points
9 Cards - 39 Points
10 Cards - 43 Points
11 Cards - 47 Points
12 Cards - 51 Points
13 Cards to 25 Cards - 55 Points ( The score drop remained the same)


Using WHAT- IF Simulator to get max increase in Credit Score

1. If paid in full - 64 Points Increase

2. If Utilization reduced to less then 50% - 30 Points Increase

3. MBNA Hurting - 19 Points 1 Discover hurting - 12 Points 2 Discovers - 25 Points

Just relax,

I am 83% on my MBNA and 66% on my 2 discover cards.

I have seen many times in the forum by Finance Experts advising to keep the < 50%. I never took it serious.

When the Rating Model is coded using a programming languague I definitely see a IF ELSE loop for 50% utilization.