I have been toiling over whether to pay down my 14k Citi 0%-for-Life balance before my next AOR, and I think this might have convinced me not to. It's currently making me ~80% utilization on my Citi personal lines, but only about 5% on all personal accounts. I'll just continue to pay it down, and maybe apply for one Citi Biz card with a BT option.

I have to say, that I am beginning to wonder how necessary the App-O-Rama strategy even is, especially if you're not trying to "push to the edge." I have gotten 12 cards in the last year, which I guess is as many as you might get in a small or medium sized AOR. I have added about 80K in new debt, and after I added about 45K or so I thought I would not be able to get any more cards and would just get my wife to get new cards and leave off trying to get new ones myself. But then the Iowa thing showed up in July and I had to try it, it went through fine, I then got some new business cards, the Saks World Elite card, and the Starwood AMEX, no problem with any of them. Big long string of inquiries, stack of new accounts, significant new debt, nobody seems to bat an eyelash. With the Saks card, I only got a $2000 limit, maybe that was because of how much debt I already have, but it's an HSBC card and they're not known for big limits. Credit score has stayed quite high during all this, too.

And this way, I guess there's little chance of adverse action - they're not going to say, "we didn't know you were going to do this when we gave you the card," because when they gave me the card I had already done it.

Just moved the adverse action post to the quick summary for visibility......

kkerty,

Thank you for your honesty and thorough documentation. This has been a fascinating read and gives us all a good lesson in moderation and comes that much closer to drawing that line.

Along the topic of keeping a high balance before an AOR:
I have suspected for a little while that it may be better to have at least one decent size balance on a card (under 90% usage of course) to give creditors the idea that yes, you do have a balance to transfer. This is also less likely to spook an issuer that may personally look into your credit when you suddenly have a 20,000% increase in your overall usage.

In my own experience I did my first AOR 5 months ago and have since applied for two other nice 0% offers. To my surprise I received lines slightly higher than I had with anything I got during my first AOR. This leads me to suspect that carrying several decent sized balances really isn't as important as your credit score and the size of your existing lines.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences kkerty! Best of luck to you. It may seem bad right now, but really isn't something you can't recover from and you may end up laughing over it in a couple years from now when you are still raking in the interest money, albiet, hopefully a little more conservatively! Best of luck.

GroveStreetOG said:I have to say, that I am beginning to wonder how necessary the App-O-Rama strategy even is, especially if you're not trying to "push to the edge."
The AOR strategy makes more money than spreading the apps out over time. Is it necessary? Of course not. People have been doing various sorts of BT investing long before it was named or refined. Is it useful? Absolutely.

GroveStreetOG said:I have to say, that I am beginning to wonder how necessary the App-O-Rama strategy even is...
Look at it this way, kkerty got $250k of new credit, advanced a lot of money at zero percent, and even though he has gotten way worse than average adverse reaction, there's still a net increase in available credit.

By the way kkerty, you did get your money unfrozen from BofA, right?

kkerty89 said:
Still working on it, should be today. I've been calling every other day, by the third call they were so kind as to free up the $4xx.xx in my checking account, if I needed funds, **right away.** Even though I asked daily for them to not send me a check so I could run into a bank and get a cashiers check they cut a check and needed to cancel it. Should be able to get it today. They did pay interest through yesterday and they socked me a BS $60 research fee. Why not research until all the money's gone if they can just hit a customer with some fee for a service the customer didnt request? So anyway Mark, hopefully today, but I am very confident it will not be held for any significant (debilitating) length of time.
Do you know if/what BoA is going to report to ChexSystems, and if this will impair opening future bank accounts?

markkundinger said:GroveStreetOG said:I have to say, that I am beginning to wonder how necessary the App-O-Rama strategy even is...
Look at it this way, kkerty got $250k of new credit, advanced a lot of money at zero percent, and even though he has gotten way worse than average adverse reaction, there's still a net increase in available credit.

By the way kkerty, you did get your money unfrozen from BofA, right?

So BOA kicked me in the nuts one last time for good measure. They finally gave me the green light on Friday to get the funds out. I went to the bank at 1:45 (with 3:00 oclock being the magic time for depositing at cit ibank before the 3 day weekend. The first bank I go to I stop right in, first in line, right to business. Bank Manager "I cant sign for that much, you're going to need to go to the other branch at...." Fine, at least it only took 4 minutes for this to happen and the other branch is literally right across the street from where I want to deposit it. Other branch = busy. 4th in line for a personal banker, but to their credit they had 4 personal bankers..... I got there at about 1:55. Finally got to a personal banker (asst manager) at 2:15. "I need to call risk to get approval" -- your going to be on hold at least 20 minutes at the number you called then they are going to transfer you. -- She said thats ok I'll just fill the paperwork out while we wait, never heard of them closing accounts for the reason (honest one) I gave her. By 2:45 I basically said if I didnt have the check in hand in 5 minutes we were waiting till Tuesday. Risk finally picks up, she gets transferred, accidentally hangs up, lol (it was accidental she was nice). She calls some different number and gets transferred where she needs to. It's 3:05...... "Let's wait till Tuesday, so I dont get screwed" --- They say we have to close it now...

me -- 'or what?'

asst manager, "They mail you a check"

me -- "fine"

So I get cashiers check and I'm burning mad..... sat there over an hour and lost 3 days interest and was late for a 4 o'clock appointment.

One funny comment during the wait was the asst mgr asks me if I'd like to talk to the investment division. LMAO.....

"I dont think I can continue any relationship with your establishment given how I've been treated."

kherty - sorry to hear about your troubles with BofA, which as I see closely resemble mine, how do your closed accounts show on online access? Can you still see them or is there some indication that they are in fact closed?

jairocon said:kherty - sorry to hear about your troubles with BofA, which as I see closely resemble mine, how do your closed accounts show on online access? Can you still see them or is there some indication that they are in fact closed?
I could see them until the bank accounts were closed too. The true BOA ones did not show closed online. The FIA ones did. I can still see the FIA ones.