destroebl's App-O-Rama - Launched! (Now with Adverse Action!)

App-O-Rama officially launched 4/4/07 - see below !!

One application submitted early (3/21/07) due to targeted offer deadline - see below
UPDATE (4/2/07): Revised the card list. A little leaner, a little more bonus oriented, and also modified in the wake of the cardoffers.com annoucement. See my most recent post for more details

Goals:
1. Acquire as much no/low fee 0% BT money as humanly possible for...
a. High Yield Savings
b. Pay my taxes at 0%, which should be $6-10k for 2006
2. Acquire new credit for the purpose of improving my long term credit profile
3. Accumulate statement credits / card offers / bonus cash / airline miles, etc.

I've been fascinated by the whole idea of the AOR since I stumbled onto it here at FWF a couple months ago. After taking my time reading through as much of the AOR and related threads and receiving a little bit of encouragement (thanks map174!) I've decided to take the plunge. Thanks, of course, to everyone here at FWF who have provided such an amazing source of information on AORs and finances in general - SIS, DH, everyone.

Personal Info:
Age: 25
HHI: 80000 (myself + girlfriend)
Rent: 810/mo

I likely won't be buying a house or a car for at least 14-15 months, so I'm not concerned about my credit in the meantime. On top of my full-time job as a teacher, I play poker as sort of a part-time job, which is why I will have the $6-10k taxes due. I could pay off the taxes in cash if I wanted, but I'd rather not just lose several thousand dollars in one fell swoop. Having a large cash bankroll when playing poker is a significant psychological advantage, and losing that much money would make me feel like I was playing somewhat underrolled. By paying off my taxes with BT money, I avoid the IRS interest fees and get to pay it off in chunks along with the rest of my AOR cards. This will cut into my AOR profits somewhat, but hopefully I can get enough to work with that 6-10k won't be a big deal.

Existing Credit History:

Current TC FAKOs (3/20/07): 754/752/752 TU/EX/EQ

Revolving Credit (age/limit):
Generic Chase Visa - 2yrs - $500 (attempted BT on app, but they only gave me $500? cmon)
Chase Buy.com Visa - 1.5yrs - $3500
Citi Verizon Visa - 7yrs - $3300 (being replaced by a Diamond Preferred Rewards AMEX at the end of March)
Dell Preferred Account - 1yr - $1500

All of these accounts currently have a $0 balance, although ~$1500 is still showing on TU reports.

Installment Accounts (age/balance):
Sallie Mae Student Loans - 1.5yr - $14500 (locked in at 3% AND deferred at the moment)
GMAC Auto Loan - 4mos - $22000

So, my current revolving credit isn't that impressive. I'm relatively young, but I still was clearly just not aware of how to really take advantage of credit opportunities for several years, applied for some dumb cards, and never requested any CLIs. Hopefully, the fact that my highest limit is $3500 won't hurt me too much. My credit scores seem to be pretty solid overall, though, which should help. By the time the balances are reported correctly to TU and EQ, my FAKOs should be around 775/755/755. For some reason my TU scores are always higher, even though almost all of my past inquiries are from TU (6/1/1). Also, I've been receiving tons of pretty decent to great targeted offers, which is encouraging. The fear is just that I get a ton of tiny lines that require a bunch of reallocating just to get a decent wad of BT cash. I haven't yet decided whether or not I'm going to go the 49% or 89% utilization route, and my results may impact which way I go.

Targeted Credit Cards List:
*subject to change, still under consideration*

American Express

AMEX Blue Instant Approval - $10,100 - Instant CLI to $23,500
*Targeted offer
*0% for 12 months (Yes, on BTs!), NO FEE

AMEX IN:Chicago Apply Instant Approval - $5,000 - Instant CLI to $20,000
*0% for 6 months, NO FEE
*$40 from cardoffers

Bank of America

Bank of America NEA Worldpoints Platinum Plus Mastercard: Apply Approved after phone call - $5,000, see below
*0% for 12 months, 2% fee with a max of $30
*I am teacher at the moment, and I applied for NEA, so I should actually qualify for this legitimately, as well as the BofA NEA MMA!

Bank of America Financial Rewards Platinum Plus Visa Apply Instant Approval - $5,600 - reallocate with NEA card?
*0% for 6 months, no fee

Bank of America Star Wars Platinum Plus Visa Apply Deferred - CSR called 2 hours later, said I was approved and offered $2500 and $2500 for this and the NEA card, I opted to merge both under NEA and discard this app
*0% for 12 months, 3% fee with a max of $75
*The only 0%/12 capped BofA card open to everyone?

Chase

Chase Platinum Mastercard Deferred - DENIED!!
*Targeted, pre-approved offer - April 18th deadline
*0% until 8/1/08 (~15mos!), NO FEE

Chase Sony Platinum Visa Apply Instantly Approved - $2,500 "temporary line," hopefully the real one is more!
*0% for 12 months, 3% fee with a max of $75
*$100 statement credit

Citibank

Citi Professional Mastercard Apply Deferred - Approved! - $6,000
*0% for 12 months, NO FEE
*15k TY Points ($150 value)

Citi Driver's Edge Platinum Select Mastercard Apply Deferred - Approved - $3,600
*0% for 12 months, NO FEE
*$28 from instantprofitz NEW

CitiBusiness Mastercard Apply Deferred, then approved! - $15,000
*0% for 12 months, NO FEE
*15k TY Points ($150 Value)

Discover

Discover Miles Card Apply Instantly Approved - $6,000
*0% for 12 months, NO FEE
*1k miles a month with any purchase
*$40 from instantprofitz NEW

The Other Guys

HSBC Platinum Mastercard Apply Instantly Approved - $5,750
*0% for 12 months, NO FEE
*If you go through the link above and look in the fine print, it says "There is no cash advance fee for balance transfers that post to your Account during the Introductory Period;" However, I haven't seen this listed anywhere else. I've always seen HSBC cards listed as 3%/$99.

Advanta Business Platinum Instant Denial!
*0% for 15 months, $75 max

CLIs
AMEX Blue - $10,100 -> requested $23,500, approved for $23,500
Chase Buy.com - $3,500 -> requested $10,000 approved for $15,000 - hard pull (I think?)
AMEX IN:Chicago - $5,000 -> requested $20,000 approved for $20,000

Condensed Results:
Advanta Platinum Business - Instant denial!
AMEX Blue - Instantly Approved - $10,100 -> $23,500 via CLI page
AMEX IN:Chicago - Instantly Approved - $5,000 -> $20,000
BofA Financial Rewards - Instantly Approved - $5,600
BofA NEA Worldpoints - Approved - $5,000 - Reallocate with FR card?
BofA Star Wars - deferred, then approved for $2,500 and discarded to create NEA CL
Chase Platinum - deferred - denied!
Chase Sony - Instantly Approved - $2,500 "temporary limit"
Citi Drivers Edge - deferred - Approved - $3,600
Citi Professional - deferred - Approved - $6,000
CitiBusiness - deferred - Approved - $15,000
Discover - Instantly Approved - $6,000
HSBC - Instantly Approved - $5,750

Cards applied for: 13
Final Results: 11 approvals (6 instant), 2 denials
New credit so far: $104,450 including CLIs

Final Total Credit: $113,250 - $98,250 Personal, $15,000 Business

Initial Reactions:
I knew I was somewhat pushing it with this AOR, and I was prepared for some degree of failure. I was not expecting 100% success rate on these, and was expecting several to be deferred. I was expecting mixed results, and it looks like that's what I have so far. What happens with the deferred cards will make a big difference, but I don't feel too bad about this overall. I ended up kind of whimping out on a couple of the Apps, like the National City and PNC, primarily because of the growing list of deferred results. I also added in the Advanta Platinum card in place of one of the FNBO Platinum.

Some quick comments:

* Instant Advanta denial, wow!
* Really disappointed by the Chase Platinum offer being deferred. Hopefully I can get it approved and do some reallocation with Chase to get the bulk of my credit on that card, but still keep the Sony for the $100 credit
* Is being approved without the initial line listed for HSBC and Discover normal?
* I plan on reallocating/merging the two BofA lines to get a decent $10,000ish line to work with. I'm not 100% on how willing BofA is to do that, but I'll look into it
* Not overly concerned about the Citi apps all being deferred, as I doubt I'm completely shutout. Hopefully I get one or two of those with a decent sized line. Plus I can always reallocate away from my existing Citi card.
* Still debating what to do with the IN:Chicago card. I don't want to press my luck too much, but the possibilities are enticing...
* I forgot to request a hard pull CLI for my existing Citi card... should I go ahead and try, and hope they don't pull again?
* More to come later...

Initial effects on Credit: (TU/EX/EQ)

Immediately prior to AOR (4/2/07):
TrueCredit FAKOs: 754 / 747 / 754
TrueCredit inquiries: 6 / 2 / 1

Immediately after AOR (4/4/07):
TrueCredit FAKOs: 743 / 740 / 748
TrueCredit inquiries: 11 / 5 / 2

Two Days Later:
TrueCredit FAKOs: 741/ 743 / 747
TrueCredit inquiries: 12 / 5 / 3

12 total new inquiries (including early AMEX app prior to 4/4/07)
New inquiries by CB: 6 / 3 / 2
Net effect on FAKOs: -13 / -4 / -7

New inquiries from AOR:
FIRST USA 04/05/2007 Equifax

BANK OF AMERICA 04/04/2007 Experian

HSBC NV 04/04/2007 Experian

AMEX 04/04/2007 Experian

DISCOVER 04/04/2007 Equifax

FIRST USA NA 04/04/2007 TransUnion First showed up on 4/5 report?

CITI 04/04/2007 TransUnion

FIRST USA NA 04/04/2007 TransUnion

ADVANTA BANK 04/04/2007 TransUnion

CITI/CBSD 04/04/2007 TransUnion

CITI 04/04/2007 TransUnion

AMEX 03/21/2007 Experian

So, the initial effects of the inquiries themselves don't appear to be that bad. 13 total apps went out, and one hard pull CLI, and 10 inquiries hit my report in all. The worst drop was from TU, where 5 new inquiries resulted in an 11 point drop in score. No big deal, really. When I start BTing and my utilization shoots up though, the effects will be MUCH greater, though.

Balance Transfer History:

AMEX Blue - $23,500 - $20,000 BT to HSBC debit card - complete
Citi Professional - $6000 - $5,300 BT to HSBC debit card - approved, not yet posted
CitiBusiness - $15,000 - $13,350 BT to HSBC debit card - pending
BofA NEA - $10,600 - $9,000 BT to checking by phone - not yet posted
Chase Sony - $14,500 - $8,600 BT via check - deposited, not yet posted

And after I make a purchase for the 1,000 miles:

Discover - $6,000 - $5,200 BT to HSBC debit card

Total BT Money: $61,450

Estimated interest (GMAC 5.30%APY) - BT Fees: ~$2,500
Signup bonuses/credits/etc: $508 IF I get all of the money from cardoffers and instantprofitz, not counting any Discover Miles

TrueCredit tracking (TU/EXP/EQ): (Pulling daily, but scores updated on this post only when there are changes)
04/02/07 - 754 747 754
04/04/07 - 743 740 748 - Two hours after AOR
04/06/07 - 741 743 747
04/09/07 - 741 730 747
04/10/07 - 741 730 751
04/11/07 - 741 736 751
04/14/07 - 741 736 735
04/20/07 - 751 736 735 - Now showing 6/5/3 inquiries - down from 12/5/3 ?? 6 TU inquiries bumped in one day?
04/25/07 - 751 736 737
05/02/07 - 751 736 717
05/03/07 - 751 711 717 - AMEX w/ 20k balance showed up on EX/EQ
05/07/07 - 731 722 717 - TU finally updated w/ AMEX etc, BofA account closed, balance showed up on Sony Card
05/08/07 - 731 699 686 - BofA balance shows up on EX/EQ, HSBC account shows up on EQ, other AMEX account still not there
05/10/07 - 725 699 686
05/17/07 - 702 678 688 - BofA, Sony balance now showing on all reports, and my first EQ inquiry is bumped!
05/29/07 - 720 695 691 - AMEX IN card finally shows up, small boost due to utilization
06/15/07 - 722 695 691 - One more TU inquiry bumped!
06/17/07 - 727 695 691 - Two more TU inquiries bumped!
06/19/07 - 730 695 691 - Another TU inquiry bumped!
06/22/07 - 735 695 691 - Yet another TU inquiry bumped! Current inquiries: 1 TU, 5 EX, 2 EQ
06/28/07 - 735 695 691 - Final TU inquiry bumped!

destroebl said: On top of my full-time job as a teacher, I play poker as sort of a part-time job, which is why I will have the $6-10k taxes due. I could pay off the taxes in cash if I wanted, but I'd rather not just lose several thousand dollars in one fell swoop. Having a large cash bankroll when playing poker is a significant psychological advantage, and losing that much money would make me feel like I was playing somewhat underrolled. You are essentially borrowing money at 0% to go play poker with, that is a terrible idea. If you can't afford to comfortably pay your income taxes, you are spending too much somewhere.

Chances are you won't get approved for three Discover cards. I would limit my applications with Discover to one to start off with.

Also, considering your current limits are on the low end, you can expect to get cards with relatively low limits (I had this problem with Chase before where they would only give me 3k - 4k per card, to little to do BT with).
You may instead want to focus on getting the big sign up bonuses, while letting the new accounts age and asking for more credit for your next AOR after this one. Especially the "free flight ticket" cards if miles are valuable to you.

delete

desaster waiting to happen, gambling with CC money. good luck anyway. by the way, I have been playing poker for 20 years.

Seeing how your current CLs are rather small, I'd scale this down considerably. I might only apply to a single Am.Ex. for example (but would yield to the CLI love temptation). If you go ahead, I'd expect a significant number of rejections and mostly small CLs - your current maximum CC CL is only $3.5k!

Have you tried Citi CLI button? If that doesn't give you any love, why do you think Citi would extend you more credit? From personal experience, I applied for a citi plat card, but because my total CL with CITI was sufficiently high, they only gave me $1k limit and told me I could reallocate.

Indeed, best bet would be to apply for that targeted AMEX, get that to $24.9k, have a couple of month to reflect on the credit report - then you'll have a better chance of qualifying for other cards with more useful limits. Do come back to share the results, whatever you end up doing

Economist said: Seeing how your current CLs are rather small, I'd scale this down considerably. I might only apply to a single Am.Ex. for example (but would yield to the CLI love temptation). If you go ahead, I'd expect a significant number of rejections and mostly small CLs - your current maximum CC CL is only $3.5k!

Have you tried Citi CLI button? If that doesn't give you any love, why do you think Citi would extend you more credit? From personal experience, I applied for a citi plat card, but because my total CL with CITI was sufficiently high, they only gave me $1k limit and told me I could reallocate.

Indeed, best bet would be to apply for that targeted AMEX, get that to $24.9k, have a couple of month to reflect on the credit report - then you'll have a better chance of qualifying for other cards with more useful limits. Do come back to share the results, whatever you end up doing

Thanks for the comments!

No, I haven't tried the CLI for Citi or Chase yet. I planned on doing that as part of the AOR to minimize the inquiries effect on the AOR, since both of them are definitely hard pulls. Overly cautious?

I have considered postponing for a month or so after the AMEX is reported - that DOES sound like a decent strategy. From what I had read, reallocation can make a situation like this reasonable. I assume you disagree?

destroebl said:
No, I haven't tried the CLI for Citi or Chase yet. I planned on doing that as part of the AOR to minimize the inquiries effect on the AOR, since both of them are definitely hard pulls. Overly cautious?

Repeating myself here, you want to increase your lines asap without hard pulls, wait for them to show on your credit report then do your AOR. There is a specific thread dedicated to CLI w/o hard pulls.

If you apply for 3 AMEX cards, request crack-CLIs, then do balance transfers, you're almost definitely going to get heat from AMEX. I wouldn't bother.

Also, it's already been mentioned, you probably aren't going to get big tradelines, just because of the somewhat limited size of your current ones. However, this may recommend a strategic reorientation of your AOR. I'm thinking that 0% investment isn't going to make you very much money, maybe you should consider weighting bonuses more heavily. For a data point, on my own AOR, I advanced $70,000 in 0% money. I estimate it will earn $2500-$3000 over the course of the year. However, I also got $2000 immediately by aggressively targeting card bonuses and bank/brokerage bonuses.

Is there an expiration date on either the AMEX or Chase targeted offers? They are pretty choice, but saving them might be more worthwhile.

Here are some specific recommendations per bank:

AMEX: I'd probably just apply for one card. If the targeted blue offer expires soon, I'd apply for that. If you can save it for 6 months or a year, I'd apply for one of the other ones.

Citi: 0% for life won't help on a small line, so I'd be tempted to skip on the for life card, and go after the hot signup bonuses. Citi Professional is a good one, maybe one of the CitiBusiness cards that can get you 15k points, and then maybe a purely personal card that also has 10k points (and a 0%/12 months). I recommend reallocating some credit from your old card to the new one with the 0%, though.

Chase: Multiple apps probably won't result in a greater total CL. Therefore, for 0% purposes, one card will do. (You can apply for multiple cards for bonuses though, I got three in mine). A 12mo Sony card with a $100 bonus may be more profitable 15mo 0% card without a bonus.

Discover: Is a pain in the butt. They don't let you reallocate credit between cards, and they all have near identical signup deals (0% purchase and BT, 12mo). Therefore, I only recommend applying for one a year. Pick the one that has the most appealing rewards structure to you like the most. Hopefully, next year's card will have an even bigger CL.

FNB Omaha: Other people's AORs report that FNBO rejects apps from AORs (too many inquiries, etc). Good luck.

State Farm: One FWFer had his State Farm app denied for too many inquiries. Not as harsh a track record as FNBO.

HSBC: Tends to give out crappy CL's on all their cards. When I applied for my aor, I did a GM flexcard only for the cardoffers bonus of like $40. In hindsight, this was pretty smart, because the CL was only $2500, and that seems pretty high to other FWFers. (It still had a 0% deal, too). The good news? You might be getting crappy CL's from everyone, so it won't feel as insulting.

And you know what, I may be overly pessimistic about the size of your new CL's. Compared to me, you've got similar FAKOs, smaller tradelines, but a larger reported HHI. It might well balance out. You might also get randomly high and low CLs.

Junior02 said: You need to be aware that going wild on that AMEX CLI request can cause you a lot of grief, namely a financial review.

If I were to apply for all 3, I would likely only do a BT on the targeted offer after boosting it to 24k. The other two will help with utilization, but I wouldn't push the CLI too high. I could consider a BT on the IN card, but it's not necessary. The $40 + utilization/credit benefits of having another easy large line is pretty good on it's own.


HappyGuy said: destroebl said:
No, I haven't tried the CLI for Citi or Chase yet. I planned on doing that as part of the AOR to minimize the inquiries effect on the AOR, since both of them are definitely hard pulls. Overly cautious?

Repeating myself here, you want to increase your lines asap without hard pulls, wait for them to show on your credit report then do your AOR. There is a specific thread dedicated to CLI w/o hard pulls.

I've read through that thread, and virtually every thing I read suggested that it was difficult or impossible to avoid the hard pulls with Chase and Citi. The online forms for both are definite hard pulls. I've called Citi, and the CSR said they could not do it without a hard pull. I haven't yet called Chase, but I suppose I can give that a shot before I do this. Again: do you think reallocation/consolidation will just not fly for me should I get a lot of small lines?

jason745 said: How are your poker "winnings" taxable? 6 - 10k for 2006? That seems like an awful lot.

I've played at the casino for years and have NEVER received a tax form from the poker room cashier.

I have for a slot win, but never a poker win.

As beckles said, poker winnings are most certainly taxable, like every other red cent you make in America. It's a complete pain to track and report these winnings properly, but it must be done unless you want to live in fear of an audit and the nightmares that would follow. I play poker, which technically is gambling... but I don't gamble THAT much.

Nope, don't be afraid of denials. That's how you know you're done applying for cards.

And I'm not recommending that you give up on the BT game. It's just it's fairly high maintenance, and the profit to be made on small BTs is, well, smaller.

In my AOR, I was going for the signup bonuses, applied for a ton of cards, and when I was done, found I had a bunch of 0% credit available, so I was certainly going to do it. While the ace in the hole was the existing Chase card with $20k CL that I could reallocate to the BT game, I didn't leave any rock unturned, even maxing out a 9 month 0% deal with only a $1000 BT. Heck, I had a $100 balance on a Sony card that I was stretching out payments on, just because it was 0%. Once the balance got amusingly small, I finally paid it.

Also, June '08 on a Discover card is pretty similar to what you'd get with a 12 month deal, so weigh the extra month of 5% vs. a probably $40 cardoffers bonus.

I've read through that thread, and virtually every thing I read suggested that it was difficult or impossible to avoid the hard pulls with Chase and Citi. The online forms for both are definite hard pulls. I've called Citi, and the CSR said they could not do it without a hard pull. I haven't yet called Chase, but I suppose I can give that a shot before I do this. Again: do you think reallocation/consolidation will just not fly for me should I get a lot of small lines?


This is not totally true. For Citi, you can request a CLI online and sometimes it will just give you an increase without a hard pull. If it brings up a form that you need to fill out, don't, because that will be a hard pull. But, sometimes it will just give you the increase without having to fill anything out, which does not require a hard pull. I usually try this about once a month. YMMV on how often it gives you an increase without the form.

destroebl said:

Small pre-AOR update: I applied for the AMEX Blue targeted offer, since the due date was earlier than I thought. It's just too sweet of a deal to pass up. The website confirmed that it was 0% for 12 months on purchases AND BTs, as well as the basic Blue rewards program. TrueCredit shows it was an Experian pull.

I got an instant approval, but it did not give me the size of the line... is that normal?

I'm going to tweak my list somewhat and refocus more towards signup bonuses and cardoffers and then update the OP to reflect that. More to come...

Update: Received my AMEX Blue, and was pleased to see a $10,100 initial limit, which I was able to instantly CLI to $23,500. I know AMEX is generous with CLIs, but their initial lines don't seem too out of whack with other creditors in recent AORs that I've been reviewing. So, I'm feeling like the $10k initial line is encouraging in that it may be a sign that other creditors would be willing to give me decent size lines, and with some reallocating, I could have a decent chunk of BT money. But...


Bad News: Cardoffers.com just dropped their rewards program down to 2 max rewards/year. PUKE. What a bunch of garbage. I was just about to readjust my list of targeted cards with more bonuses in mind and a lot of them relied on the cardoffers bonuses. So, this is kind of a blow to my plans. There are definitely bonuses out there aside from cardoffers, but it seems like it will definitely make things harder. At least I feel a little more confident about my chances for BT money.

UPDATE

Ok, in my OP you'll see I revised my list. I've trimmed it down a few cards, added one new card, and changed to instantprofitz.com for a couple bonuses now that cardoffers.com is only allowing 2 max and none at all for Discover or Citi. I decided I didn't want to deal with the 2 purchases a month for the Citi, and liked the CitiBusiness with 15k TY points better anyways. I removed the State Farm card after reading about multiple pulls and then denials HERE. Risking 3 pulls isn't worht 9mos at 0%! Also, I limited my Discover apps to one per advice here and in other threads, and I also limited my AMEX apps to two. I'm still planning on BTing a large chunk of that $23500 on the AMEX Blue, but I'm not positive what I will do with the AMEX IN:Chicago card. I'll reassess after the AOR is done and decide if I want to push it or not with a BT.

So, now my plan is to finally go for it this wednesday morning and see what happens barring any new developments!

destroebl said: Anyone have any input on the time of day for an AOR? It seems most agree tuesday or wednesday may be the best day, and some think monday is fine too. I don't see much on the actual time of day, though. I was planning for a 7am CST app barrage on wednesday, but is this too early, since many banks are not open at this time? Would 4pm be a better time?

In his FAQ, SIS recommends early in the morning during the beginning/middle of the week. It seems that most tend to start early in the morning. Recent AORs: Unbelieevable's AOR was on Wed. from 8:00-9:30 AM ET. Cyberkost's AOR on a Thursday morning. Pakaderm's AOR on a Tuesday morning.

I did my recent AOR on Wednesday morning, which was when I planned, but didn't start until around 11:00 AM ET. Due to work and other interuptions, I didn't finish the last application until ~1-2 PM ET. However, I was instantly approved for 8 of my 16 applications (and ultimately approved for all 16)....6 of the last 7 I applied for were instant approvals.

So, some time in the morning is probably best because, as SIS mentioned, you want as many same day pulls as possible. Even after starting later in the morning/afternoon, I still had 10 same day pulls and one two days later. I imagine that starting at 4:00 PM would cause pulls to come over the span of a couple days when they might not have if you'd started earlier.

Initial results are in! See the updated OP for details.

Initial comments from OP pasted here...

I knew I was somewhat pushing it with this AOR, and I was prepared for some degree of failure. I was not expecting 100% success rate on these, and was expecting several to be deferred. I was expecting mixed results, and it looks like that's what I have so far. What happens with the deferred cards will make a big difference, but I don't feel too bad about this overall. I ended up kind of whimping out on a couple of the Apps, like the National City and PNC, primarily because of the growing list of deferred results and the Advanta card. I also added in the Advanta Platinum card in place of one of the FNBO Platinum.

Some quick comments:

* Instant Advanta denial, wow!
* Really disappointed by the Chase Platinum offer being deferred. Hopefully I can get it approved and do some reallocation with Chase to get the bulk of my credit on that card, but still keep the Sony for the $100 credit
* Is being approved without the initial line listed for HSBC and Discover normal?
* I plan on reallocating/merging the two BofA lines to get a decent $10,000ish line to work with. I'm not 100% on how willing BofA is to do that, but I'll look into it
* Not overly concerned about the Citi apps all being deferred, as I doubt I'm completely shutout. Hopefully I get one or two of those with a decent sized line. Plus I can always reallocate away from my existing Citi card.
* Still debating what to do with the IN:Chicago card. I don't want to press my luck too much, but the possibilities are enticing...
* I forgot to request a hard pull CLI for my existing Citi card... should I go ahead and try, and hope they don't pull again?
* More to come later...

PolarDude said: Seemed more like a baby app o rama to me..
I am suprised about the advanta denial, though. Maybe because of all the TU inquiries. You should have bumped them all off prior the the AOR.
If you pull 7-9 times a day, you can get those off in a 2-3 weeks!

Well, hey, you gotta crawl before you can Mega-AOR your way to millions in credit! If this is reasonably successful, I'll probably be doing a followup AOR, which should be larger in scale and more successful.

All of those inquiries, except for the AMEX one just prior to the AOR, were pretty old, and I was under the impression those wouldn't effect things too much.

Instylex said: Is there a reason not to have your credit limit lifted over 24,900?

For AMEX? Yes. Conventional FWF belief, based on info from the various AMEX and AMEX CLI threads, is that $25,000 is the threshold where AMEX either definitely or very likely will serve you with the dreaded FR - Financial Review. See the AMEX CLI and related threads for more info. I'm not aware of $25,000 being a threshold for other issuers, though.

Two Small Updates:

First, I got a response on the Chase CLI I requested, which I actually filled out a couple hours after my apps were done this morning. I got an email at 2:20pm saying to check Chase's account mail service RE: Increase Credit Limit. I requested to boost my CL from $3,500 to $10,000 and they approved me... for $15,000! Nice! One concern: I hope this doesnt effect the results of the deferred Chase Platinum application with 0% for 15mos w/o fee. I wasn't expecting such a quick reply on the CLI at all, and hopefully a decision was made on the Platinum app before this CLI went through. I'm not sure how willing Chase is to reallocate lines.

Next, I requested a BT for $20,000 from the AMEX Blue account (putting me at about 85% util to start) on 04/03, and I got an email tonight at 8pm saying that it was approved! I requested the BT to my HSBC Debit Mastercard (via the Free Checking account discussed here based on advice from this thread, and it looks like it will be hitting my HSBC checking account soon. This HSBC debit looks like it will be very useful for the rest of my BTs.

I had the pre-approved Chase Platinum Mastercard offer too - the one that gives you a 0% no fee BT through 8/1/08 - right? I was deferred but granted $11,600 CL when it arrived. Higher HHI ($110K) but somewhat lower TC FAKO's than you. Came in about a week, I expect you'll get it as well.

destroebl said: alchemize said: I had the pre-approved Chase Platinum Mastercard offer too - the one that gives you a 0% no fee BT through 8/1/08 - right? I was deferred but granted $11,600 CL when it arrived. Higher HHI ($110K) but somewhat lower TC FAKO's than you. Came in about a week, I expect you'll get it as well.

Yeah, same offer - nice, huh? That's good to know, though, thanks. I'm still unsure how the $15,000 CLI on my other Chase card factors into this though. I'm worried it might result in a smaller line for the Platinum. It seems like Chase is ok with reallocation though, so maybe it's no big deal either way.I still think you're good. I had just picked up a Chase Sony with a 7K line that I increased to a 12,5 line in February, and BT'ed 11K to it in March. Didn't seem to impact this offer at all. Watch I'll get all my Chase accounts closed tomorrow

mhesidence said: destroebl said: I got a letter from Chase saying they're closing the puny $500 generic visa I've had sitting around for the last few years. The reasons they state are:

"Outstanding balances on revolving accounts are too high
Not enough credit history on file with the credit bureau"


When is the last time you used the card?

Probably over a year. You'd imagine that is a decent reason to close it right there, but the reasons they gave certainly seem to point towards AOR activities.