Diablo's AOR [Stage 3: BT money now sitting in account]

The AOR is in motion! Please keep all hands inside the vehicle at all times.

My current scores: (no longer updating scores due to PFICO being discontinued and myFICO dropping Experian)

Equifax:    649, as of January 3rd
Experian:   604, as of January 3rd
Transunion: 644, as of January 3rd
PFICO:      640, as of December 1st

Equifax:    705, as of August 28th
Experian:   702, as of August 28th
Transunion: 701, as of August 28th
PFICO:      704, as of July 1st

Name                             CL        Balance       Opened @ CL
CapOne Platinum Visa              $1000    no balance    May 06,   $300
Chase Amazon Visa                $19500    no balance    Oct 06.   $500
Wamu Visa                          $500    no balance    Mar 07,   $500
Wamu Business Visa                $3000    $1744 used    Dec 07.  $2500
RevolutionCard*                   $1000    no balance    Dec 07.  $1000
Citi Preferred Diamond Rewards   $25000    PIF monthly   Feb 07.  $4000
Citi Professional                $10000    no balance    Feb 07. $10000
Household Bank Platinum 2% CB     $1000    PIF monthly   Feb 07.   $500

(* does not report to any credit agency)

Name                      CL@open   CL@max   CL@close   Opened   Closed   Notes
Household Bank Platinum      $500     $500         $0   Feb 07   Mar 08   Combined with Household 2% card
Chase Sony                  $2000   $10000       $500   May 07   Aug 08   Moved $9.5k to Amazon

Citi
CitiBusiness /w TY(12 mo 0%, no fee)
Citi Professional /w TY
Associated Bank (12mo 0%, no fee)
Citi PremierPass AMEX (15mo 0%, no max fee)
Bank of America
NEA (12mo 0%, $30 max fee @ 2%)
Platinum Plus (12mo 0%, no fee)
Discover
Discover More (12mo 0%, $75 max fee), Cardoffers and Cardselection both offer $40 reward
Discover Business (No useful BT offer) Cardselection offers $40 reward DID NOT APPLY FOR
Chase
Chase Business Rebate (12mo 0%, $99 max fee) Cardselection offers $40 reward
Chase Platinum Mastercard (12mo 0%, $75 max fee) Cardselection offer $25 reward
Chase Platinum Visa (12mo 0%, $99 max fee) Cardselection offers $25 reward
US Bank
Irish (12mo 0%, no fee)
Linux (12mo 0%, no fee with offer code 45248) DID NOT APPLY FOR
Cap1tal One
Business Platinum No Hassle Cash (13mo 0%, no maximum) CardSelection offers $35 reward
Am3x
Mail offer for Am3x Blue 0% $99 max fee BT for 12 months
HSBC
HSBC Platinum /w 12mo 0% BT $75 max fee

Name                         Outcome
BoA
BoA NEA                      Denied
BoA Platinum Visa            Approved, $5000
Citi
Citi Business                Denied
Citi Professional            Denied
Citi PremierPass Am3x        Denied
Citi Associated              Denied
Discover
Discover More                Denied
Chase
Chase Business               Denied
Chase Platinum Mastercard    Approved, $5000 
Chase Platinum Visa          Approved, $5000
Chase Amazon                 Not from AOR, $19500
US Bank
Irish                        Denied
Cap1tal One
Capital One Business Cash    Denied
Am3x
Am3x Blue                    Denied
HSBC
HSBC Platinum                Approved, $3500

Name                        BT+Fee   Current    Paid
Bank of America Visa         $4635     $3943    $692  (pay before October 2009 statement)
Chase Amazon Visa           $17363    $12495   $4868  (pay before July 2009 statement)
Chase Platinum Mastercard    $4575     $3456   $1119  (pay before August 2009 statement)
Chase Platinum Visa          $4599     $3456   $1143  (pay before August 2009 statement)
HSBC Platinum Mastercard     $3115     $2687    $428  (pay before September 2009 statement)

Name                       Minimum payment   Balance Transfer rate
Bank of America Visa       1% or $15         13.99%
Chase Amazon Visa          2% or $10         19.99%
Chase Platinum Mastercard  2% or $10         14.99%
Chase Platinum Visa        2% or $10         14.99%
HSBC Platinum Mastercard   1% or $15         12.99%

Changelog:
January 3rd: Updated Eq to 649 from 650, Ex to 604 from 622, TU to 644 from 631, PFICO to 640 from 608t
December 1st: Updated Eq to 650 from 629, Ex to 622 from 600, TU to 631 from 623, PFICO to 608 from 630
November 1st: Updated Eq to 629 from 637, Ex to 629 from 638, TU to 600 from 641, PFICO to 630 from 702
October 1st: Updated Eq to 673 from 698, Ex to 638 from 688, TU to 641 from 704, PFICO to 702 from 696
September 1st: Updated Eq to 698 from 704, Ex to 688 from 701, TU to 704 from 700, PFICO to 696 from 710
August 30th: Reformatted for easier viewing
August 28th: Stage 1 initiated.
August 1st: Updated information
July 5th: Updated information, see this post.
March 31st: Updated Eq to 692 from 697, Ex to 705 from 696, TU to 689 from 697, PFICO to 710 from 702
March 31st: Household combined old HH card with new 2% card, now $1000 limit
February 29th: Updated Eq to 697 from 713, Ex to 696 from 716, TU to 697 from 725, PFICO to 702 from 712
January 31st: Updated Eq to 713 from 721, Ex to 716 to 710, TU to 722 from 735, PFICO to 712 from 656.
January 31st: Household increased from $400 to $500.
January 18th: Chase added $500 to Amazon, moved $500 from Sony to Amazon; Amazon is $2k, Sony is $1k
December 31st: Updated Eq to 721 from 659, Ex to 716 from 633, TU to 735 from 675, PFICO to 656 from 609
December 09th: Added RevolutionCard at $1000.
November 30th: Added WaMu Business at $2500.
November 30th: Updated Eq to 659 from 639, Ex to 633 from 607, TU to 675 from 647, PFICO to 609 from 653
October 31st: CapOne increased CL to $1000 from $500
October 31st: Updated Eq to 639 from 649, Ex to 607 from 606, TU to 647 from 638, PFICO to 653 from 640
September 30th: Updated Eq to 649 from 656, Ex to 606 from 633, TU to 638 from 639, PFICO to 640 from 637
September 7th: Household increased CLI without request, from $300 to $400
August 31st: Updated Eq to 656 from 649, Ex to 633 from 628, TU to 639 from 650, PFICO to 637 from 632
July 22nd: Updated Eq to 649 from 638, Ex to 628 from 628, TU to 650 from 649, PFICO to 632 from 623,
June 28th: Updated Eq to 638 from 640, Ex to 628 from 638, TU to 649 from 635, PFICO to 623 from 571
May 30th: Updated Eq to 640 from 631, Ex to 638 from 622, TU to 635 from 581, PFICO to 571 from 672
May 23rd: Convinced Chase to transfer $500 from Sony to Amazon even though Sony card wasn't 6 months old yet. Amazon was $500 now $1000, Sony was $2000 now $1500.
May 16th: Original post

How long is your credit history and what income do you put down? From looking at your current cards and limits looks like not much history or income listed. I can't see you getting lines big enough to make any money from cash advances so looks like you could do a sign up bonus one. Truthfully I would wait a few years till you could get better CL's. You are just going to tank your score and have a bunch of low limit cards. That is going to make it even more difficult to do a successful AoR for awhile. I would suggest just keep using the cards you have to build a stronger file

My credit history is exactly one year long as of this month. CapOne may suck, but they were the only ones to give me a card (I applied to everyone I could find that had bad/no credit cards without annual fees). I put down $50k (although the number is slightly fudged, I think I could probably pass the famous AMEX financial review without major problems).

Honestly, this AOR isn't quite entirely for BT purposes (in fact, I may skip that step altogether, even though this is what AOR is invented for). I want to 'say hello' to a few banks as to gain their trust (especially Citi), and I've avoided BoA on purpose (shady business practices, severe customer info security breaches, bad customer service, monopoly held with the armed forces, etc etc).

Those two Citi cards I'm interested in purely for the rewards programs.

So yeah, I may skip out on all the little random cards, the Chase card, and just go for the Discover, the AMEX, and the two Citis; coincidently, this may be the shortest AOR ever if I do so.

At this point, I can only wait until my score untanks due to the Sony card.

D,

You need to STOP applying for a credit card every 2, 3 4 months... You are tripping over dollars reaching for dimes!

Wait for those inqs to clear, THEN and only then can you think AOR.

You will get denials if you try an AOR in the next 5 months or so, because of:
1. History too short
2. too many inqs

Things in your favor:
1. INDIVIDUAL utilization is low
2. OVERALL utilization is low

-Suggested course of action.
Wait 9 months to do AOR ---- OR----
Try and get 1 CC NOW, with a higher line (Such as BoA, Citi, Discover, or even HSBC). THEN, wait 1 YEAR and do AOR!

Maybe I'm mistaken, but credit score isn't the only factor looked at when issuing credit cards. I think just by having a credit card and "doing nothing" your score can be over 700 at a young age. It doesn't mean because you are at 750 they are going to give you a 20K card (or a card period)

I'm guessing they look at:
Age
HHI
Home Ownership
Length of employment

All of which they ask you on your application...and all of which are strikes against you.

markkundinger said: Your credit score is too low, with credit that is too low, to have an AOR be effective at all. I'm going to take a guess that your reported household income isn't particularly high.


Depends if you consider $50k high or not.

First, with that debt you're carrying on the Sony card... is it real debt? If so, how quickly do you think you could pay it off?

Its technically real debt because I intentionally ran up the cards I BT'd from to see if the BT on application form trick would work against Chase (it did as far as I can tell). I could pay virtually all of it off now if I wanted to, but that may not be in my best interest as the money to do so is sitting in an HSBC savings account (yay 5%).

If you think you've got a while that you're stuck with the debt, then applying for another card or two probably won't hurt. Forget about investing BT money, the lines will be too small. Go for the big signup bonuses, like as in over $100.

Being stuck with the debt is optional. Paying off minimum payments until the 0% APR term ends looks very useful atm. Yeah, unless I was going to get like $10k limits, I would be sorta screwed if I wanted to invest the BT money.

But probably, if you let the cards age a little more, go for no-hard-inquiry credit increases, and keep off the new inquiries for a while, and pay down some of that debt, then you should be in a position for an AOR (one in which I would still probably recommend targeting signup bonuses, unless HHI is very high).

So, right now, who has big signup bonuses? I already hit the Sony card for the $100, and I don't want to go after any other Chase cards for the time being. I literally can't find any (all the FWF favorites seem to have dried up recently).

markkundinger said: Also, I'm thinking the "running up the cards" might have caused more of a ding to your FICO than you'd expect. If you had four lines, and they were all maxed out... that would be pretty horrendous. 650 is a fairly dodgy score (not subprime, but not good either). Merely shifting it around the way you did may have helped it out a good deal.

Three were not quite maxed out. I BT'ed from three cards, the Amazon remained empty.

If you want to use a BT, and you don't have balances, you can either BT directly to your checking account (if they allow), or BT to a card that will get dumped to a credit balance, and then request a check (citibank cards are usually great for this, not sure about your current cards, though).

I know, but I cannot find sufficient information on if WaMu, CapOne, or HH will issue me a check for credit. Thus, I did it the slightly harder way.

Going just for bonuses, I'd probably lean towards a Citibank business card (either generic CitiBusiness, or PremierPass), with 15K TY points (equivalent to $150), or the PremierPass Elite link with 25k TY points (but the $75 annual fee charged up front). Plus, you don't have a citibank card yet. I'd also apply for an AMEX card (one of the hotel cards if you like hotel points, a gold card with 10k MR points if you don't).

I'm avoiding airline, car, and hotel cards because they are totally useless to me: I don't fly, I don't drive, I don't stay at hotels.

However... how many inquiries do you have on your credit report from this year... just two?

I believe 3 or 4 in the past 6 months.

If so, an AOR wouldn't be too bad, but you'd probably want to pay down the Sony card first, for maximum success.

Probably, but I'm not doing so until they send me my first statement. (Unless anyone thinks paying a payment before hand can improve things). I still haven't decided if the advice of just waiting is more optimum, thus, the money I'd be paying on the Sony card instead sits in my savings account.

And you probably just paid a $75 BT fee. Here's the rub: that BT will only pay $64 in interest over a year (before tax). So you could hang on for a while and earn a few bucks, or you could cancel it in the 50/50 hopes of getting a bunch of signup bonuses. (tough call).

Nope, didn't pay the BT fee. Called customer service, said I thought the deal was no fees, and they charges were reversed. I'm also not considering the Sony card for BT-invest fodder, as you noted, its too small. I wanted the bonus alone, the $2k CL is just additionally cool of Chase (and is going to be partially sent to my Amazon card in 6 months where it will be much more useful).

Personally I would rethink your thoughts on BOA. I don't like them either, but man lately they have been opening up their purse strings with me. In a short while I went from I think a cl of $9,000, acutally I don't remember what it was, but it's now at $17,500. The CSR wanted to put the whole thing in an external checking account. There was a fee capped at $90 but I think I could have pushed a bit harder and got out of it.

I say that because they sent me some letter saying I was pre approved for a personal loan of $25,000 so I figured I'd take it to 1)increase my overall credit utilization, and 2) to have another place to do a bank transfer to, to get the money out. Well I missed one small fine print, namely that any draw on the account incurs a 3% fee with no limit. Well I got into it with the CSR as she kept pushing me to take the money. I told her I didn't want the money, I'll take it when I need it. To make a long story short, she wanted to know why I wouldn't let her transfer the money into my account at that moment, and I told her because of the fee. Well she said she'd waive 75% percent of the fee, but she was mad. I told her no, that I would take it when I need it and that's all.

IMHO, that many INQs is too many to do ANY kind of AOR. What the heck have you been applying for? You have more RECENT INQs than you have open lines of credit (3x)!

23 INQs, 17 less than 6 months old.

Remember, a new cell phone account, some bank accounts, etc. can cause inqs... and if I were a lender and saw 17 recent inqs with ONLY 5 open lines, I would FEDEX a decline to you!

Research B*umpage, stop applying for stuff, Keep hounding your current lenders for CLI (Increases, w/ NO HARD PULL), then you MIGHT try an aor in 6 to 9 months... or beeeter, apply for 1 BoA and 1 Citi in 9 months... then wait 1 year and do AOR.

ON topic of BoA... I happen to like them... and you only hear the bad stories, not the good. If you don't screw something up with them, you con't have to deal w/CSR. 90% of the BoA horror stories include fault of the USER, although they will never admit it. Look at BoA CSR's like I look at APR for cc... it doesn't apply to me, because I don't carry a balance (or screw up stuff at BoA).

Good LUCK!

...I've avoided BoA on purpose...monopoly held with the armed forces

What the heck are you talking about? What the heck are USAA, PenFed, NFCU? Chopped liver?

Yeah, that's just an enormous amount of inquiries. I didn't even have half of that number of inquiries... AFTER I did my AOR. Also, I didn't notice before how all of your current accounts were kind of staggered over a few months, which also isn't very good. I felt before like it was possible to have a decent small AOR if you nuked your balances and pushed your score higher, but now I'm pretty sure you shouldn't even be considering an AOR for quite some time.

I'd start triple pulling to bump inquiries ASAP, wait a long time, and look into any possibilities of CLI without a hard pull with your current accounts. Chase will always hard pull on CLI requests, but I'm not sure on the rest. You could try the AMEX crack strategy I posted before, but I wouldn't do that until you've bumped a ton of those inquiries off.

DiabloD3 said: I'm not sure if its true or not, but I read somewhere here on FWF (I can't find it, and its been awhile) that if you're deployed overseas, you need a BoA account. I'm not sure if its the military won't pay you, or something else. Anyone here wanna chime in on this?

Why does that matter to you? Are you military? Are you deployed overseas?

not that your answers matter.... the RUMOR you were told is false...

BoA is an OPTION for those deployed... and they provide SERVICES like those found in US banks, because BoA is the current CONTRACTOR that supports these efforts. Before FURTHERING the rumor, you could have done a quick Google search... within the first few returns, you would have seen this:

Military Banking

As far as you keep calling it a Monoploy.... contracts are awarded after competition... appearently BoA had the best offer.

And now, since you keep changing the topic, and have not been too forthcoming with all your info, I am stepping out of the conversation... with 1 last fragment of advice:

Be patient, because TIME is the only thing that will help you in an AOR... your scores need to recover, your INQs need to drop off, and your current accounts need to AGE!

Tech
US ARMY (Retired)

Argh! Why does Citi tempt me /now/! They sent me an application for a credit card, and I know I'm going to be denied for it!

Hold up Technologist, at no point did I say I'm going to apply for it. Citi is tempting me, but I must say no. And its really hard too. BTW, Technologist, could you possibly answer my above question about bumping services? I'm finding conflicting information, and I'm not sure which ones still currently offer daily bumps.

Sorry Tech, I meant this question:

I want to confirm something: Experian is not effected by bumpage, and TrueCredit, PrivacyGuard, CreditKeeper, and PrivacySource all can generate daily bumps?

I don't mind paying for two or three of those for a few months if they allow me to daily bump, I'm just not sure which ones do it/still do it.

And its not that I hate BoA, its just that they look like a bank that I don't want to deal with. What really made me dislike them was when they lost customer information. Now, probably they've fixed those problems, but I still dunno.

If you guys still deal with them after all the problems they cause, then I may or may not consider them for a card, depending or not if they have any worth pursuing.

DiabloD3 said: I'm not sure if its true or not, but I read somewhere here on FWF (I can't find it, and its been awhile) that if you're deployed overseas, you need a BoA account. I'm not sure if its the military won't pay you, or something else. Anyone here wanna chime in on this?

That's sort of true.... They force everyone to have an illegal goverment travel card. Your employer can't legally force you to get a CC in your own name and currerntly it is DOD policy to do this with the Govt travel card. The flip side is that it isn't BOA policy rather a DOD one. I saw a story a year or so back in the AF times about a major and lt colonel that were forced out of the Air Force for refusing the goverment travel card.

chimeer said: DiabloD3 said: I'm not sure if its true or not, but I read somewhere here on FWF (I can't find it, and its been awhile) that if you're deployed overseas, you need a BoA account. I'm not sure if its the military won't pay you, or something else. Anyone here wanna chime in on this?

That's sort of true.... They force everyone to have an illegal goverment travel card. Your employer can't legally force you to get a CC in your own name and currerntly it is DOD policy to do this with the Govt travel card. The flip side is that it isn't BOA policy rather a DOD one. I saw a story a year or so back in the AF times about a major and lt colonel that were forced out of the Air Force for refusing the goverment travel card.

ummm, you have never been in the military, have you??

DoD Policy is the same as law... it is based on law, backed by CFR (code of Federal Regulations, etc.).

While REGULAR employers can't do certain things, DoD is exempt from some of those things... like OVERTIME! Could you imagine someone complaining that they haven't had a day off in 5 weeks, because they are in the middle of a WAR?

Your Regular employer can't hand you a weapon and tell you to go shoot at people... but the military can... does that make that illegal???

For more info on the travel card, and how BoA is the current contractor for this, go HERE!

There are all sorts of exemptions to the policy, to include someone's POOR finances...

Using this card actually HELPS young soldiers GET and KEEP good credit scores... BoA approves them easily, because they know the money is going to be repaid by DoD... it is almost as good a getting a secured CC. And DoD saves money, because they ONLY have one company to pay... cutting down on payment times and infrastructure costs...

Again, quit reading too much into the evil BoA... I happen to think they are pretty good, and have been banking with them (or predecessors) for 20+ years, without issue.

Update: I managed to convince Chase to move $500 from my Sony card to my Amazon card. This may or may not increase, decrease, or do nothing to my credit score. This was not AOR oriented, I just simply use my Amazon card more than my others due to the rewards. How I got past the 6 month age CL move rule I don't know.

charliek, its not that I didn't do my research, I'm just planning it a little early. I'm sitting and waiting until my scores climb back up, which may or may not be in 6 months.

Update: As of May 27th, myFICO ScoreWatch says my Eq score is 640, up from 631 the 20th.

Diablo has 693 posts...probably all in this worthless thread.