My second stuff-o-rama (Month 13: FICO denouement)

Greetings.

It's been just over a year since I did my first App-O-Rama (documented in painful detail in this thread). I thought the AOR was quite a success. So I'm launching a bigger, badder, and much more rama-riffic AOR. Let's get crackin!

Goals:

1) Increase amount of 0% money available (by a lot)
2) "Diversify" credit with new lenders
3) Increase use of business credit
4) Signup bonuses!
5) Increase credit limits on extant lines
6) Improve on AOR technical execution compared to my noob AOR
7) See how effectively I can shrink the turnaround time between AOR 1 and 2.
6) Profit!

(I'm not emphasizing signup bonuses are much this time, partly because I used up many of the good bank/brokerage bonuses on my first AOR)

Personal Info:

Reported HHI: $82,800 ($47,000 salary, $35,800 other)
AMEX reported income: $56675 (from my 2006 taxes)
Reported business income: about $3,000
TrueCredit FAKO scores: TU 799, EX 779, EQ 784 (7/13/07)
WAMU pFICO: 744 (7/13, after some inquiries)

Beginning Credit Lines:

Personal:

AMEX Hilton, 2006, $23800
BofA (ex-MBNA) NY Jets, 2006, $2000
Citibank mtvU, 2006, $1000
Citibank Diamond Pref Rewards, 2006, $5400
Chase Cash Plus, 1997, $1000
Chase Cash Plus, 2006, $27600
Discover, 1998, $8000
Discover Gas, 2006, $9000
(FIA) Charles Schwab, 2005, $16500
(FIA) Fidelity, 2006, $4000
HSBC GM Flex Earnings, 2006, $2000
RBS Platinum, 2006, $5000
USAA, 2006, $26000
Wells Fargo, 2006, $9000

Citibank overdraft line of credit, 2006, $500

Business:

Advanta, 2006, $2500
Citibank CitiBusiness, 2006, $8700.

No mortgages, car loans, student loans, etc. About $2500 balance scattered across several cards.

Total Personal Credit: $139.8k
Total Business Credit: $11.2k

Preparation:

1) At least 2 months prior to AOR, closed "unnecessary" cards (unused or annual fee) and consolidate their CLs with other cards from same lender.
2) At least 1 month prior to AOR, request credit line increases when it would not result in a hard inquiry. (This allows enough time for the increase to appear on credit report).
3) Pay off all AOR credit cards.
4) For the Citibank, Chase, and FIA cards, reallocate all "loose" credit to a single card, from whence I can hopefully reallocate to a new 0% offer.
5) Wait for cards' statement cycles, pull and check credit reports/scores.
6) Apps away! (all over course of one evening (7/12/07))

Pre-AOR Jitters:

1) I think Chase might be touchy. They were the only bank that took adverse action in my previous AOR (twice reducing CL). Also, an attempt to consolidate cards one month ago required talking to a special credit department instead of a regular CSR.

2) AMEX. Infamous for Financial Reviews. I'm going to go for it anyway, and see what happens.

3) Citibank. Reallocating credit has reportedly become much more difficult with personal cards. This could hurt my profit potential, since I expect newly-granted CLs to be fairly small.

3) Too much 0% money (?!). Yes, this may seem to be a perverse problem! However, since this AOR is very heavily weighted towards 0% money, if I get a lot of approvals, and am successful with reallocation on existing lines, and really ambitiously max out the 0% deals, I might have a frightening level of utilization on my credit report. My credit score tanked dramatically on my previous AOR (170 points!)... can I top it?

4) Market risk. Some of my BT money is going to be in something riskier than a savings account (see Investment details below). Ironically, I'm not even optimistic on the outlook for stocks and bonds over the next year, I just really, really, want to do it for scientific experiment purposes, and the advancement of AOR knowledge. Regardless, if the market goes flooey, it could hamper the investment profits (an outright loss is unlikely)

Cards applied for (in order) (7/12/07):

Notes: (CS) denotes a cardselection.com application
TYP = Thank You Points
MRP = Membership Reward Points
(TU) = TransUnion pulled
(EX) = Experian pulled
(EQ) = Equifax pulled
(--) = None pulled
(??) = Can't tell

#1 - Citibank Professional w/ TYP (15k TYP, 12mo 0% no fee) - approved 7/28, $9,000 (TU instant)

#2 - US Bank Platinum (targeted offer) (15mo 0% no fee) - approved 7/14, $7,000 (EX instant)

#3 - Chase Sony ($100 credit, 0%) ($100 credit, 12mo 0% $75 fee) - approved 7/18, $3,500 (EX 7/13)

#4 - Citibank CitiBusiness PremierPass (15kTYP, 12mo 0%, no fee) - approved 7/15, $10,000 (TU instant)

#5 - (Barclays) Bank Atlantic Rewards BusinessCard (15mo 0%, $75 fee) - insta-approved $14,000 (TU instant)

#6 - (FNBO) Union Bank of California Bucksback ($20 bonus, 12mo 0%, $75 fee) - denied 7/17 (EX 7/13)

#7 - BofA Generic Visa (12mo 0%, no fee) - approved 7/25, $8,000 (TU instant)

#8 - Am.ex Business Gold Rewards (25k MRP) (CS) - approved 7/14 (--)

#9 - Am.ex SimplyCash Business (0% purchases) (CS) - approved 7/14, zero net CL (--)

#10 - Citibank PremierPass Elite (25k TYP, $75 annual fee) - insta-approved, $12,000 (TU instant)

#11 - WAMU Platinum (9mo 0% $75 fee) - insta-approved, $3,000 (EX instant)

#12 - BofA Iowa Alumni ($250 in Worldpoints) - approved 7/26, $500 (re-use pull)

#13 - Chase Business Cash Rewards (12mo 0%, $75 fee) - approved 7/27, $8,000 (EX 7/13)

#14 - RBS Kroger 123 (12mo 0%, $75 fee) - received 7/28, $6,500

#15 - Discover Miles (12,000 miles, 12mo 0%, $75 fee) (CS) - approved 7/14, $6,000 (EX 7/13, EQ 7/15)

#16 - Capone Platinum Prestige (no deal) - insta-approved $2,000 (TU,EX,EQ instant)
---> (requested $20k BT with app, automatically canceled due to insufficient credit line)

#17 (Elan) Woodforest Bank Select Rewards (6mo 0%, no fee) - received 7/20, $5,000 (EX 7/13)

#18 - Barclays I Fly America ($15 credit, 12mo 0%, $50 fee) - insta-approved $7,500 (TU instant)

#19 - National City Visa (6mo 0% no fee) - denied 7/17
---> (requested $25k BT with app)

#20 - UMB Platinum (6mo 0%, $50) - denied 7/20

#21 - Citibank CitiBusiness w/ TYP (15k TYP, 12mo 0% no fee) - accepted 7/16, 15,000 (TU instant)

#22 - Citibank Diamond Preferred Rewards (10 TYP, 12mo 0%, no fee) - approved 7/26, $6,300 (TU instant)

#23 - Am.ex IN:LA (6mo 0% no fee) (CS) - approved 7/13, $10,000 (TU instant)

#24 - Chase Business United Mileage Plus (25k UA miles w/ $250 spend) - approved 7/27, $8,000 (no known pull)

#25 - HSBC Platinum w/ Cash (12mo 0%, $99 fee) - insta-approved $600 (EX)
---> card canceled on 8/3

#26 - (Infibank/FNBO) Principal Bank Low Rate (12mo 0%, $75 fee) - denied on 8/14

#27 - (Chase) Lasalle Bank Platinum (12mo 0%, $75 fee) - approved 7/17, $3,500

#28 - Wachovia Platinum (telephone app) (6mo 0%, $75 fee) - denied 7/13 (EQ 7/13)

#29 - (7/20) BofA Platinum Plus Business Rewards (9mo 0%, unknown fee) - approved 7/27, $8,000 (EX instant)

Random Notes:

1) I was still a bit tentative in applying for business credit. However, since I don't have a real business, I'm not too worried about it.

2) I am fairly dependent on being able to reallocate credit among my Citibank, Chase, and Bofa/FIA credit lines in order to get the most 0% value possible. I kept a careful eye on recent FWF reports of reallocation success in advance of the AOR.

3) The only card I applied for that I desired as a regular spender was the AMEX SimplyCash.

4) I was very reluctant to request BTs at the time of application, mainly because I enjoy the flexibility of doing the transfer after I know the rest of my credit situation. My only in-app BT requests were with Capone (because of many comments that they care about that) and National City (was unsure if I could dodge fee without it).

Post-AOR CLI Requests:

After waiting a few days, I will request credit line increases from banks which would only do them with hard pulls:

- Citibank overdraft LOC (denied)
- Wells Fargo (approved, $9k -> $10.8k)
- Issuers that didn't grant me new cards (none)

General Investment Plan:

More details to flesh out once total BT amounts become apparant. Most money will be spent rate-chasing bank accounts yielding ~6%. A chunk will be invested in more aggressive mutual funds.

Bank/Brokerage Bonuses

BofA Checking ($100 bonus) (applied 7/30/07)
Wells Fargo Checking ($50 targeted bonus)(Apr 2008)
TD Ameritrade (targeted golf clubs) (aborted)
Citibank Ultimate Savings (20k TYP) (May 2008)
US Bank $100 checking promo (targeted) (July 2008)
WTDirect $250 promo (Aug 2008)

Okay, it took like 4-5 hours to slog through all the apps and do this writeup. Whew!

Out of 27 apps, 5 were instantly approved. I'm glad I knew from my previous AOR that instants approvals were rare. But the real irony is that the five instants almost matched my starting credit line before I started my first AOR. My oh my how times have changed.

It appears my attempt at a huge BT request from Capone did not trick them into granting me a large CL. But at least I got an acceptance, I'd hate to have spent the three inquiries on nothing!

I will be updating the OP with details on which bureau was pulled where, and application results. I'll probably figure out some sort of useful purpose for the quick summary, too.

Hindustani said: Excellent post, congrats markkundinger. I have bookmarked your post and will use it as a template for my second AOR later this year

I noticed you applied again for Chase Sony card and Citi diamond preferred card. Did you close these cards after your previous AOR?

There is no need to close your old Chase Sony card. We have multiple Chase Sony cards. You may just get a call from Chase.

Thanks for adding the links with your list...very helpful...

this will be interesting...bookmarked.

what's the story when Big Bank A handles the cc operations for Little Bank B? For example, Chase with LaSalle and Elan with Woodforest.

do these accounts factor into your Total Exposure with the big banks?

1) i would assume not, because i would assume the little banks are funding the cards; they've merely outsourced servicing. if this is true, it might be worth hitting a bunch in the same AOR. for example, there seem to be countless Elan 0% 6 month BT deals with a bunch of tiny banks.

2) let's say these accounts DO count toward Total Exposure - can you reallocate, say from your LaSalle line to a Chase-proper line?

this might make a good thread topic.

Great post. I actually just did a AoR monday for my mom and will later update her results when they are in (she applied for most of the cards you did).

I will give you one bit of advice from my perspective though; you mentioned investing in mutual funds. I would honestly NOT do this unelss you are ok possibly loosing 15-20% of your investment in a very short time. I've been watching the stock markets lately and they seem very unstable right now. Yesterday was the largest single day gain in four years (+288) b/c of good retail earnings, and this put us at an ALL time DJIA high. However, there are lots of fears about inflation, rising interest rates, declining housing issues that will bring this bull to a hault. Regardless of this info, my main point is that as of today, we are at an all time stock market high. You do not want buy stocks on margin (with credit card comanies money) at a high like this and risk losing much in a market recession. Take the FDIC guaranteed 6% return. You will sleep much easier at night.

If you want to invest in stocks, do it with your own money and for at least a two year investment horizon (more is better). Make sure you will be ok if you lose that money or can't get it back soon. Thats just my two sense.

Technologist said: Okay Mark, watching with interest....

chair: Check!
Popcorn: check!
Beer: Check!

Also interested in biz side of this... am starting to think about adding Biz cards to QUICKLY approaching AOR of my own!
I would highly recommend adding business cards (ask lhendricks too ). They are great as they don't report on your credit report and you can get some solid limits with some of the best BT periods (such as advanta 15 months and barclays bank atlantic 15 month). They also drastically increase the number of good BT deals you can find for an AoR.

elleve said: becareful with the AMEX app along with the aor.


they will approve u, then two weeks later give you a call up for "financial review"

This is exactly what happened to us. No big deal.. Just give them what they want and you will be just fine.

MikeR397 said: If you want to invest in stocks, do it with your own money and for at least a two year investment horizon (more is better). Make sure you will be ok if you lose that money or can't get it back soon. Thats just my two sense.The way I combined an AOR with stock investing is relatively safe. I used AOR money to invest in equities to the extent that I would be able to repay all borrowed money at the end of the promotional term with cash. So, basically, I increased my equity exposure to 100% of my own money plus the money I knew I would save over the next 12 month period. That gave me more exposure to stocks without getting to the point where I would have to sell investments at the end of the term to pay down debt. Having to liquidate positions at a specified time, especially in a short-time frame like 1 year, is less than optimal and I try to avoid that.

PS: I can't predict the market but saying it is at an all time high is not really accurate. Factoring in inflation, the current market is below previous market highs. The newspapers like to use nominal terms because 'all time high' sells papers but inflation distorts it.

Just got off the phone with Wachovia and have my app pending with them too. That's my last planned app. Anything else over the next couple days will be in reaction to a totally bitchin' opportunity.

Saw this post with a superior Wamu deal. Darn. As it is, a $3000 transfer with a $75 fee is marginally profitable, I probably won't do an advance on it unless I can get a CLI. But to be fair, I partly wanted to get the Wamu card simply as a "base" for future BT shenanigans.

Hindustani - I had previously canceled my Chase Sony Card, but I do still have a Citi DPR card (which I will close/consolidate if I have to to reallocate the credit). I break the FWF orthodoxy a little bit by closing cards if they serve no purpose in my mind

mhesidence - I certainly scrounged up a lot of 0% deals, but there are so many more with fees than last year, and many are shorter 6/9 month period, which can make profitability tough on the smaller lines.

lhendricks - I honestly don't know how the Chase/Lasalle partnership works out. The main reason I applied for the Lasalle card is so that when they get bought out by BofA or RBS, it will probably result in something "interesting" happening to the card, and I just want to insert myself in that mess. With FNBO, others' reports seem to indicate that FNBO is in the driver's seat. In fact, I was reluctant about applying for the Principal Bank card, because Infibank is owned by FNBO, and I didn't know if I wanted to give them any other free peeks at my credit besides the UBOC app.

elleve - My perverse hope with AMEX is to get FR'ed and survive. In fact, if I don't get FR'd, I know I'm doing something wrong. If they close my cards, I don't mind, since I don't use mine for anything.

Mike - I had a tiny portion of my first AOR invested in an emerging markets mutual fund. It lost 30% immediately after I purchased it (later staging a recovery). So I'm well aware of the risk, but I'm trying to limit the allocation that a market downturn would result in a loss of profit, but not a loss of principal (And if it gets bad, it won't break my finances). Also, I'm not going to be day-trading or anything, I'm a horrible trader. I won't have the amounts and allocations until I get a better handle on how much BT money I will be playing with.

u2head - the shiny blue words with the card descriptions have links to where you can get info on the cards. In the Citi DPR's case, it's a FWF thread with a substantially better deal than what you can get for personal cards on citi's site.

WalStMonky, I agree with your above points. I just wanted to let Mark know of the risks he was getting into. I wasn't trying to tell Mark not to invest in stocks, but just making sure he was comfortable with the risks involved at this time. (I also conceed to no more bantering in this post, sorry mark, I'll try to stay more on topic from here out!!) Best of luck with the rest of your results.

Regarding AMEX, I'm not sure if I will be able to sweet-talk Amex into unfreezing a card so I can buy groceries like kiasuchick did, she's a smooth operator, and I'm kind of a donk

And Mike/Monky, I'm comfortable evaluating the risk here, honest To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, a sizable chunk of that "other" income I'm reporting in the apps is from gambling for pete's sake. The volatility with that makes the stock market look like the joke. And I'm predominantly in stocks with my retirement savings. However, I enjoy treating the BT money as a 12/15 month portfolio, partly because I don't want to pay high credit card rates on anything but mainly as a form of "AOR scorekeeping".

Again, I don't have the details on my invesment plan yet but let's just assume it's 20% stocks/bonds, an the rest money market/HYS/t-bills. What I'm really trying to do is shift the expected value (EV) of the investments upward while keeping the variance in the returns in a positive side.

For instance, if I were to put the money solely in savings, then my EV would be about 5-6%, with virtually zero chance of it deviating from that amount.

What I'm shooting for is an EV of 7-8%, but with a fairly high certaintly that my returns will vary between 1% and 16%. I don't have the analysis and math skills to crank out the allocation exactly, but I hope to get close enough.

Hopefully, that will be a moo issue for me, and I can reallocate the CLs to CitiBusiness or CitiProfessional cards.

Thanks to the miracle of the "what's my app status?" topic, I was able to find out two things:

1) The HSBC card I was approved for has a $600 limit. No, I didn't make a typo. Multiple hundreds of dollars are now at my disposal! I quiver at the thought of what I'd have to invest that $600 in to recoup the $99 advance fee. (Actually, I'd be investing $500 after the fee was deducted). But seriously, I do already have a GM flexcard, and so besides HSBC's general schizo-ness, they may have dinged me for having the other card. I'm just glad I saved them until late in the AOR process, I hope the more desirable cards got their inquiries in before HSBC's.

2) I was approved for the IN:LA card, although I don't know the credit limit. That means we can mark this as the official start of my "Countdown to Financial Review".

Earning $1,000 a month on 0% money sitting in the bank allows me to dollar-cost average into mutual funds. It also allows me to take a lump sum and invest it, knowing I will make it up as the months roll by. Of course, I have to pay taxes on the interest I am earning so I factor that into my withholdings (wage slave here) or just suck it up in April and pay uncle sam at that time.

Yesterday Chase cut my credit lines back, out of the blue. I wrote them a nasty E-mail demanding that they restore my credit line on my sonycard, which they forwarded to the appropriate department for review. Can't figure out what these guys are thinking. Yes, I have $65,000 of their money but I've had it for months and months and months and I had it when they increased my credit line on the sony card. Now they "wake up" and cut me? That's no way to run a bank. Still, earning $325 a month off their card makes it worth putting up with the insult. Yelling at them for insulting me ... priceless.

Stumbled on to this totally by accident. Have enjoyed reading it and trying to figure the acronyms. Think I've got it...except can't...for the life of me....figure out what AOR means? Please forgive my ignorance. Thanks.

Mucho Gracias!

What the heck tasha? I remember that your aor was pretty conservative, and there wasn't even that big of a drop. My only guess would be that your scores were so nuclear before, that it was just harder for them to recover?

ScubaDave, when I was confronted with "legal business name" I simply put in my name, and then when prompted for "illegal business name" I entered "AOR Consulting", or however I wanted the card to appear. Don't know if I did that right or not for a sole proprietorship.

Weekend updates:

- Got emails from Discover and US Bank saying that the apps were accepted. Don't know CLs. Discover should be particularly interesting since I already have two cards with them.

- Online status check revealed that both AMEX business cards were accepted. Don't know CL on the SimplyCash card.

- Pulled another TrueCredit report, and was able to fill some info in on the OP regarding which bureau did what. I got modestly hammered on Experian. I think that optimizing an AOR on a per-bureau basis would be too anal-retentive, even for me, but it is kind of interesting to see which companies did instant pulls, and which waited a day, and which are still lagging.

- I remain unable to effectively explain to my mother how an AOR works. She just keeps asking me if I'm going to jail.

markkundinger said:

- I remain unable to effectively explain to my mother how an AOR works. She just keeps asking me if I'm going to jail.
I am in the exact same situation, except I am acutally doing an AoR for my mom. At first she kept thinking I was going to jail, then when my AoR went smoothly enough, she got interested and I talked her into doing one (and letting me keep the interest as my college graduation present! I'm thinking it was a smart move b/c she is well on her way to getting 250k+ after hitting 120k on her first six approvals out of 25 applications. Good luck with the rest of your AoR results.

PS: If you do get put in jail, at least you have the cash to post bail

mhesidence said
What about taxes? Anyone write off interest, expenses, etc? Put your AOR income as business income?
I've love to seem some details. I've never done business taxes before but I assume with TurboTax type programs it should be pretty easy if you plan on it from the start of the year.
This is a good question, and one I have not answered fully for myself yet. I was thinking that it really isn't business income in a way becuase you are putting the money in a personal savings account (not a business one), and earning the interest in that personal account. Therefore, only the loan in on the business side, but the income is acutally on the personal side, so you could possibly just claim it as personal income.

A reason why you would want to do this is becuase I think you would save more on Social Security and Medicare deductions since you have to pay double that rate (pay for the business and then the individual in the business up to a cutoff point) when claiming the money as a sole prop. I could be wrong on this info, and I am still looking into it, but it would be nice to get some feedback from others on if it is possible to just claim this income on the personal and do nothing on the business income side?</blockquote>

A minor postscript:

I guess Citibank finished their "investigation" about my my returned check fee on my biz card, as the fee was reversed today. Took them about two weeks. But more interestingly, I also received my monthly statement during that time. So while my 0% period should have ended on 8/25, and even though I carried a balance through 8/30 (plus the $39 balance longer), I was charged no interest! So either the 0% promo rate was really goo through the end of the statement cycle (as many lenders do), or all of the postings and reversals to my account basically broke the calculation of finance charges. I just thought it was an interesting data point.