UPDATE 4/2: FINISHED ALL THE APPS - $67,000 IN NEW CREDIT
UPDATE 4/3: GOT APPROVALS FOR 4 OF 6 CHASE APPS ADDING 50,000 IN NEW CREDIT, WAITING FOR THE LINE ON THE 2 APPROVED AMEX STARWOOD CARDS.
UPDATE 4/4: 2 MORE INQUIRIES HIT, NEW ACCOUNT SHOWING ON MY REPORT FOR CITI (NO CREDIT LINE SHOWING YET), ALSO RECEIVED A REJECTION FOR ONE OF THE CITI BUSINESS APPS.
UPDATE 4/5: 2 CITI BUSINESS CARDS APPROVED VIA EMAIL. ONE OF THEM IS THE BIZ PREMIER PASS CARD. NOT CERTAIN ABOUT THE 2ND ONE BUT I ASSUME IT IS THE BUSINESS THANKYOU CARD (CAME THROUGH AS GENERIC CITI BUSINESS ON THE EMAIL, ASSUMING THE AA CARD WOULD INDICATE THE COBRANDING - I WILL BOLD IT WHEN I HAVE CONFIRMATION). NOT SURE ABOUT CREDIT LINES.
UPDATE 4/7: TWO NEW CITI APPROVALS CAME IN FOR 21K IN NEW CREDIT, BOTH BOFA APPS WERE APPROVED. INITIALLY GOT 5500 BUT SPOKE WITH CREDIT ANALYST AND PERSUADED HIM TO BUMP THEM BOTH TO 20,000.

Inquiries Update:
Showing a LOT of experian inquiries, unfortunately. Bummer.

4/4 TRANSUNION: NCBK-NCCS & DISCOVER
4/3 EQUIFAX: FIA CSNA
4/3 EXPERIAN: CITI, CHASE BANK USA NA, BANK OF AMERICA, AMEX, CHASE BANK USA NA, ELAN FINANCIAL SERVICES
4/2 EXPERIAN: AMEX, CITI, CBSD/UFC, CHASE BANK USA NA, CITI, CITI,
4/2 TRANSUNION: BRCLYBANKDE

Here are the details on the card application status:
1. CITI Biz - Business ThankYou (Deferred/Approved - 8,000) ** closed citi A/A
2. CITI Biz - PremierPass (Deferred/Approved - 8,000) ** closed citi A/A
3. CITI Pers - PremierPass Elite (Deferred/Approved - 11,000) ** closed citi A/A
4. CITI Pers - Associated Bank Visa Platinum (Approved - 25,000) ** closed citi A/A
5. CITI Pers - Platinum AMEX (Deferred/Approved - 10,000) ** closed citi A/A
6. CITI Pers - Honors Hhilton (Approved - 15,000) ** closed citi A/A
7. CITI Biz - Aadvantage (Deferred) ** closed citi A/A
8. Chase Biz - UPS (Deferred/Rejected)
9. Chase Biz - Amazon.com (Approved - 15,000) - moved line - 500
10. Chase Biz - Priority Club (Deferred/Approved - 15,000) - moved line - 29,500
11. Chase Pers - Chevy Chase Bank Flexible Platinum (Deferred/Approved - 19,000)
12. Chase Biz - Chase Business Visa (Deferred/Rejected)
13. Chase Pers - Sony Card (Deferred/Approved - 1,000)
14. Juniper Biz - Bank Atlantic Rewards Business (Approved - 25,000)
15. National City - National City Lifespring Health (Deferred/Requires Proof of Identity)
16. US Bank Biz - M&T (Deferred)
17. US Bank Pers - Baylor (Deferred/Approved - 12,000)
18. AMEX Biz - Starwood Preferred (Deferred/Approved - 26,500)
19. AMEX Pers - Starwood Preferred (Deferred/Approved - 1,000)
20. Bofa Biz - BofA Power Rewards Platinum (Deferred/Approved - 15,000)
21. Bofa Pers - Nea Worldpoints (Deferred/Approved - 20,000)
22. BofA Pers - NEA AMEX (Deferred/Approved - 20,000)
23. Discover Biz - Discover Business Card (Deferred)
24. Discover Pers - More (Deferred)
25. CITI Pers - Professional ThankYou (Deferred/Rejected)** closed citi A/A


CURRENT LIST OF OPEN QUESTIONS (will update the quick summary with answers as they come in):

1) A few of my planned applications require up front BT requests to take advantage of the BT offer. I don't maintain huge balances on existing cards and I don't have a line of credit I can send payment to. As best I've read, that leaves me with 4 options.

- Send the BT to my existing Citibank CC accounts, generate a credit balance, and either request a refund or balance transfer the cash from CITI to a bank account. Not sure which of the two is favored. Seems like the CITI credit refund may be somewhat more likely to raise red flags. This seems like the easiest option but I admit to being fearful of A/A as a result of the Citi churn. Clearly, Citi does not intend for us to be sending 50-100k etc. through our credit cards to generate credit refunds.

- Another option is to fund my 40k ThankYou point Citibank offer, which requires a 26k deposit, using either my Fidelity, AMEX or Chase cards (actually a combination of 2 cards would be needed), then pay off the balance with the new application balance transfer.

- Send the BT money to a debit card. This seems to be not advised and more trouble than its worth. My options include Citi, BofA Premier, Century Bank and Fidelity. Not planning on going this route.

- Do a small second phase AOR only for those cards that require the BT request up front. By that time, I should have a bunch of debt racked up on new credit cards. Use the 2nd round of AOR cards to pay the balances on the original round of cards. Obviously, the liklihood of approval drops significantly at this point due to credit scores, inquiries and new balanaces from the 1st AOR (unless I do this when there are only business balances, in which case the impact may be less significant).

2COR Recommends: Most BT requests can be done after the app is submitted. Only reason to request the BT at the time of the App is to get bigger credit line (seems to by very YMMV). Has a credit balance with Citi of 54k on a 5k limit card. No issues with this approach thus far. Does not recommend splitting up the AOR into 2 parts - business & personal.

2) New Citi applications - I am having a difficult time prioritizing the citi applications. I am probably going to do 2-3 business, 1 professional, and 2 personal. That is more or less the rule of thumb, as I understand it. That said, 2 details have thrown me a bit. I originally wanted the Hilton card but scratched it in favor of some of the others shown currently in the quick summary. In doing further research, it seems the Hilton card is a distinct credit bucket. Should I add it? Am I asking to get rejected on some of the core apps? Maybe apply for it at the end? Also, I saw a note on the forums about the Citi Diamond AMEX card that is good for reallocating personal credit to business lines. This seems like a very worthwhile card to have if many of the personal cards can't be directly reallocated to business. Just need some insights on what to go for. I'd like to max out rewards but don't want to waste inquiries needlessly.

2COR Recommends: Confirms that Hilton card is a separate bucket from what he has read. Suggests grouping by issuer for the apps. May or may not be able to reallocate lines - again ymmv.

3) Locking my Experian file - is there a consensus yet on locking my experian file prior to the AOR? I don't have a lot of inquiries currently but I realized that these can not be b*mped. On the other hand, there seems to be creditors who will outright reject applications rather than pulling from EQ or TU. As best I can tell, this seems to vary by state of residence? Lock it down or no? I'd be bummed if every Citi card was rejected for this reason, although I suppose I could unlock it and re-apply, right?

2COR Recommends: Not worth freezing EXP. Too much of a hassle and not enough inquiries on my report to justify.


4) Any view on splitting the AOR in half - starting with a business AOR, load up the lines with debt with EXP locked. Then b*mp EQ and TU for a few weeks, then follow up with a personal AOR. Seems like a hassle - is it worth the effort vs. doing the full AOR in one shot?

2COR Recommends: Do Biz and Pers AOR in the same shot. Dont worry about b*mpage right now since there will be too much administrative effort as it is. Not worth the effort.

5) Do I have too many planned apps? I see varying recommendations ranging from go conservative and do 10 or so vs. others who have done 30-35 recently with good success.

2COR Recommends: Have about the right number of apps right now. No A/A for 2COR yet but may be too early to know for sure.

6) Related to #5 are there any cards that are known to give particularily good credit lines that can be used for reallocation (ie. that don't themselves have juicy offers)? For example, I might not need multiple 0% BT offers from the same creditor and could switch up the applications in order to get better lines. Any comments here?

2COR Recommends: No specific recommendations. Look for distinct credit buckets by issuer.

7) Are any of the cards I listed in the quick summary more/less sensitive to inquiries? I am going to take a shot at reorganizing the list to the order in which I intend to apply.

2COR Recommends: None in my list are sensitive particularly to inquiries. Reorganize by issuer across biz and pers.


Other Valuable Information Culled From Other Threads:

From Venturion's Chase Experiment in Feb '08, the following Chase apps were approved -
1. UPS Business
2. Amazon.com business
3. Priorty Club rewards business
4. Chevy Chase Bank Flexible Platinum business
5. Chase Platinum business
6. Sony Rewards Personal

From r0man's Citi Experiment in June '07, the following Citi apps were approved -
1. Business TY $12K
2. Business PremierPass $6K
3. PremierPass Elite $20K
4. AT&T Universal $7.5K
5. Driver's Edge $7.5K
6. Professional TY $15K
7. Honors HHilton $25K
8. Business AAdvantage $40K