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

I am victorious! All three FICO scores are above 800!

...

April fools!

So yeah, scores mostly stabilized compared to last month. I currently have no Eq or TU hard inquires on my reports again (thank God for bumpage). Ex still has 11 inquiries, which 3 are up to disappear in May.

Eq: 692, down from 697
Ex: 705, up from 696
TU: 689, down from 697

Household completed my combine cards request, and my 2% CashBack card is now $1000. I'm really hoping that within the next 6 months that other banks notice my Citi Professional's $10k limit and automatically up to match.

Just jump off a bridge, Diablo. No one wants to hear about your crappy credit scores, serial CC applications, and lack of self-control. I loathe you.

Actually, diablo, had you taken advantage of the citibank CLI on crack feature? Did that make any difference?

- Could you re-re-edit the OP to show what the initial credit lines were on the cards before the CLIs?

- What's your inquiry situation like right now, how many, and what age?

- I think the "code" (C) tag can work to do fixed-length formatting.

- Tentatively, I'd still let these accounts age some more and bask in the big credit limits, hold off on more inquiries, pay down balances, and then you could probably go for a real AOR.

For August:
Eq: 704
Ex: 701
TU: 700
PFICO: 704 (As of July 1st)

Inqs:
Eq: 1
Ex: 8 (1 to bump off by the end of this month)
TU: 1 (BUMPAGE WORKS AGAAAAAAAAIN!)

Average age of all cards: 12 months
Age of newest card: 5 months

Dear FW: When do you think the credit market will stop sucking? Tommorow? 6 months from now? 6 years from now? By the time I'm sending my grandchildren off to college?

Making more money isn't even an issue theoretically. I can lie about my HH income (except to AMEX since they actually will call people's bluffs). NOTE: NOT THAT I AM RECOMMENDING PEOPLE DO THIS, CONSULT A LAWYER AND YOUR RELIGIOUS OFFICIAL OF CHOICE BEFORE HAND.

I may just try a forever rolling AOR. Also, it seems the number of credit lines I have that are in $0 standing are really increasing my score, and I'm not entirely sure why... my total usage is below 20% and below 90% on any single card, so that shouldn't be kicking in that hard.

Hmm, interesting. Is this fixed math, or is it based on the number of lines you have?

Re: bumpage
I'm currently using NatCity, Chase ID Protection, and CreditKarma.

On Equifax, NatCity and Chase ID Protection have a slew of inqs going back to Feb (out of 96 total), and have bumped hards off.
On TU, CreditKarma and Chase ID Protection have only a few dozen inqs going back to July (out of 71 total), and I only see four from NatCity. Hards have bumped off.

I think based on this, I think NatCity is being canceled as TU is where I get the most hard inqs.

*cough* Actually the TU one left. Its just a lone Equifax one now.

Maybe soon. I wanna get balances back down (had to charge $4k lately) before I go for it. I'm afraid that if I go attack AMEX, BOA, Discover, and whoever else I don't already have cards with, they may just flat out deny me for a card or (for cards this is an option with) not give me a 12 or 15 month BT but just a 6 month BT.

Almo, you yourself sound like you haven't actually read this or the threads you mention. This thread is over a year old, and may be the longest AOR windup in history. Patience is something I have a lot of. The CLI thread (and dozens of others) clearly state Chase always hard inqs on CLI request, this is an unavoidable problem, however (before bumpage broke on TU products) it only took 2-3 months to bump a TU query off so it actually wasn't that big of a problem.

All my issuers except Chase, HSBC, and Citi do not allow requesting CLIs, and the majority of my hard inqs hae not been from CLI requests but from account open requests. If I didn't listen to the help as you state, I wouldn't have a $25k Citi card (thanks to whoever started the Citi CLI Is On Crack thread), which in turn caused Chase to automatically up both of my cards (without CLI request) to $10k each.

And, as per the help you state, its been proven that 2 or 3 hard inqs do not inhibit an AOR in any way, I'm just being overly cautious.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention, WAMU sent me a letter the other day, my WAMU Business has been upped to... $3000! How generous! No, seriously!

Or I can just report you to the admins for thread crapping an AOR thread. Which do you want more?

I started this thread with less than $5000 in credit and now am heading towards $70,000. I'm pretty sure FWF would agree that I'm heading in the right direction here.

I think I wrote "if you want me to thread crap..." and left you with a second option. I'm not sure what you'll be telling the Admins if you wanted me to reply in your thread.

I'm pretty sure FWF would have agreed you're heading in the right direction if you had made any money off your credit cards. You should've had a mini-AOR by now and should be planning to execute an actual AOR. BTW, people have gone from $50k -> $200k in credit limits from a single AOR.

Anyway, what was the point of you starting this thread? To list your credit history's life story or to get help? Or both?

This is an interesting thread on what not to do. To be honest, I don't think Diablo is much different from the higher rollers here who apply apply apply. It's all a game, and it feels good to succeed. The higher rollers just get thousands of money in balance transfer interest out of it while they're at it, and are more tactical about their credit safari. But the hunt is the same.

Otherwise, patience is a virtue.

I also believe the following post has a lot more general wisdom in it than snark:

Alimo said: Bro, it's been over a year and you STILL HAVEN'T HAD YOUR AOR. That doesn't tell you something?

Where do you (or any of us) want to be a year from now? When we look back, do we want to be satisfied with how far we've come, or agonizing over how we could have done things differently? When we're in the same place we were a year before, that's not progress. When we're only slightly better off than we were a year before, that's better, but it isn't the best.

I think the focus on App-O-Ramas here has distorted the credit picture for many people. There are people who can afford to make a game of credit chases. I'm not one of them.

Diablo, I thank you again for making this thread and keeping up with it for a year. I wish you continued success in your small business, so that it grows into a bigger business. I also thank everyone who has entered this thread with advice, whether it was taken by Diablo or not. Someone else reading it may have.

AMEX may want to see aged accounts, I don't know. For my mini-AOR, that was Discover's reason for denying me. My scores were 748/749/749 and a pretty HHI so I'm pretty sure when they told me they like to see 3 major credit cards with at least a year of history, it was correct (I only had 2 credit cards pre-AOR).

What was the point of getting your other CC's when they only give you $500 credit limits? You start somewhere with each company. If you want, apply for 2 BOA cards. IIRC, BOA is lenient when it comes to reallocating your lines. Check up on Citi and Chases's reallocation policies. You have decent lines with both. If you get a low limit, you can reallocate to them.

BTW, my recommendation was more for 1-2 months from now, but preferably sooner. Pay all your balances off ASAP and wait til the $0 balances report onto your credit reports. You can speeden the time up by contacting the bureaus. Make sure all your credit limits are reported. I think some cards report your credit limit as the highest amount you've ever put on the card.

You are looking to ABSOLUTELY MAXIMIZE your profit out of your first AOR. You'll just end up waiting and waiting. What if 6 months passes? That's 6 months of (less) profit gone to waste. Less profit > no profit. Start it sooner. Get your feet wet. Stop planning every last detail. If one minor detail doesn't go according to plan, you'll beat yourself up over it if everything doesn't go perfectly. What's the worse you can lose? You might get a couple hundred dollars less over a period of a year.

Anyway, it's your life, your credit, your money.

Alimo said: AMEX may want to see aged accounts, I don't know. For my mini-AOR, that was Discover's reason for denying me. My scores were 748/749/749 and a pretty HHI so I'm pretty sure when they told me they like to see 3 major credit cards with at least a year of history, it was correct (I only had 2 credit cards pre-AOR).

What was the point of getting your other CC's when they only give you $500 credit limits? You start somewhere with each company. If you want, apply for 2 BOA cards. IIRC, BOA is lenient when it comes to reallocating your lines. Check up on Citi and Chases's reallocation policies. You have decent lines with both. If you get a low limit, you can reallocate to them.

BTW, my recommendation was more for 1-2 months from now, but preferably sooner. Pay all your balances off ASAP and wait til the $0 balances report onto your credit reports. You can speeden the time up by contacting the bureaus. Make sure all your credit limits are reported. I think some cards report your credit limit as the highest amount you've ever put on the card.

You are looking to ABSOLUTELY MAXIMIZE your profit out of your first AOR. You'll just end up waiting and waiting. What if 6 months passes? That's 6 months of (less) profit gone to waste. Less profit > no profit. Start it sooner. Get your feet wet. Stop planning every last detail. If one minor detail doesn't go according to plan, you'll beat yourself up over it if everything doesn't go perfectly. What's the worse you can lose? You might get a couple hundred dollars less over a period of a year.

Anyway, it's your life, your credit, your money.Exactly - with a young, thin file such as yours, the profit from an A0R is in the signup bonuses, not BT money. Each day you delay taking step one is another day you have to wait to take step two (where the BT profit comes into play).

Well, I know AMEX ones can be shorted by calling up and canceling the card... shouldn't this also work with other banks? Also, I can just refuse to participate in the witchhunt, the worst they can do is just cancel the card and ask for the money back anyhow.

To be honest, there really aren't that many bonuses left out there. Almost every issuer out there has retracted their tendrils a fair bit due to the credit crunch. That said, through Cardselection alone I'd be making $205, the CitiBus TY is 15k TY points, the Citi PremierPass is 10k TY points, and the Discover Bus has a $100 bonus (after spending $1000); plus there is the no fee BT cards.

So real bonuses alone I'd automatically be making about ~$550. It may not be up to what other AoRers have done, but its $550 free dollars.

I think I'm going to add the Advanta 2.99% for life of BT card, but I remember people having problems with that company but I can't find anything now that I'm actually looking for it. Does anyone remember what the problem was?

Edit: The AMEX Starwood card has 10k Starwood points... are these useful for anything? I don't fly, and tons of cards have bonuses related to flying.