thanks so much for your effort on this thread.

for those of you doing spouse/family-o-ramas, one thing to be aware of with business credit...

i'm running into problems with some issuers who treat a business as a single credit entity. for example, advanta gave me a business card, but no go for my wife. we are co-owners of our business, and apparently there can only be one account per business. as another example, nat city created a sub-account after my wife's application using our company's master account. the good news: this netted an additional 10K in CL. the bad news: my wife's account didn't reset the clock on the original 6 months of 0% BT action from my application 2 months ago.

in these cases, seems like i would have been better off just applying as a $0 revenue sole proprietor with the wife-o-rama.

i know other issuers don't have this restriction (e.g., citi, chase).

anybody else run into this problem? if so, details would be great. still waiting to hear from BofA and a bunch of others from my wife-o-rama launched yesterday.

lhendricks92 and MikeR397:

thanks for the suggestions.

I am preparing for Phase 3 of the fam-o-rama: myself, and dad done, working on mom's.

Question for you MikeR397: looks like you managed to get a BofA business card for at least one family member. I recall BofA has a requirement of at least 2 years in business. How did you handle that?

ChumChurum said:lhendricks92 and MikeR397:

thanks for the suggestions.

I am preparing for Phase 3 of the fam-o-rama: myself, and dad done, working on mom's.

Question for you MikeR397: looks like you managed to get a BofA business card for at least one family member. I recall BofA has a requirement of at least 2 years in business. How did you handle that?Actually, that is a good question, and wise of you to catch this inconsistency in my data... Here's what happened...

When I did all the original business apps for my mom, I used the 0 years in business, $0 revenue data. Now, after her entire AOR was done, and when I was doing my Dad's AOR, I checked the buinsess preapproval offer button for her and it said she had an offer for this buisness card.

Here is my mistake: My parents own a condo and rent it out, and have been doing this for 6 years (which has a good revenue stream) and I SHOULD HAVE USED THIS AS THE BUINESS APP DATA! I've kicked myslef in the arse so many times for not thinking about this for my mom (did use if for my dad's apps though), as she is a co-owner on it with my dad. So when I applied for the BOA offer, and ONLY this offer, I listed her business as condo rentals, and years in business is 6 (and technically this business relationship is a partnership, which is similar to the sole prop in that docs do not need to be filed, but it is more than one person, and is not necessairly a sole prop. She was instantly given a 25k line and honestly I don't think they pulled a credit report, maybe just a soft pull with this preapproval offer (I don't see the inquiry).

Mike, Do you happen to have a screen shot or pdf of an old BoA power rewards ap showing the NO BT fees? I didn't save mine (shame on me) and even though I was promised no BT fee verbally as I was making the transfer over the phone, they charged me a fee and didn't notate the account. Now I'm forced to wait on a supervisor call back to fix the situation. TIA.

Excellent post, Mike. Thanks to all for contributions. Creating a Sole Proprietorship as a startup company with no initial business income sounds great. There are some posts about credit companies allowing only one business card per business. Are there any companies that allow more than one?

When preparing for a Round 2 Biz-O-Rama do you feel it is necessary to indicate on the credit app that you had any business income or can this be left at $0 again? It may appear to creditors as a negative to have a $0 business income or gross profit after your first year of business and this may affect how much they would be willing to give you on your Round 2 Biz-O-Rama.

The point here is not to report any taxable business income to the IRS, but instead report interest earned from your Biz-O-Rama on your personal 1040 filings since they are deposited in a personal saving account, and to make it legitimate to the IRS and Credit Card Companies. Any other legal considerations in doing this? Is it necessary to have legitimate taxable business income (E-bay) after the first year in case there was a Credit Company FR or an IRS review?

Thanks in advance!

Do you have the phone number to BOA business credit department? And is it good to usually call them to expedite processing or better to just wait? And when you have a personal bt waiting to be done also from bankamerica is it better to just wait until this card gets approved or do it after the approval of this card?

RagingBull said:Do you have the phone number to BOA business credit department? And is it good to usually call them to expedite processing or better to just wait? And when you have a personal bt waiting to be done also from bankamerica is it better to just wait until this card gets approved or do it after the approval of this card?BOA number is 1-888-449-2273. I would say start calling them and get the ball rolling asap to minimize lost interest.

BlackKnight85 said:So if I close a business card then that will not have any bearing on my credit score, correct? I'm looking to avoid the $125 annual fee but don't want my score impacted since I plan to take out a mortgage next year.You are correct, it will not affect your personal credit score or your mortgage. With that fee, I would also just close it.

lhendricks92 said:I'd like to point out one potential downside to business credit. If you move ALL of your personal credit to business cards, you may find it to difficult to secure high CLs. The reason: issuers may see you as a low roller when your average CL drops on your personal lines.

So, there is a bit of a trade-off. Personally, I'm keeping a AM.EX personal line with a high CL and no balance for show (and to avoid AM.EX FR.) I also have some old USAA lines that are quite healthy. Not sure exactly what the optimal balance is, but "move everything to business" may not be the best strategy.

It seems that many issuers will move personal lines to business lines. Is it possible to move them back after a while, e.g. when the AOR is over and before triggering the next one?