Objective:
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I want to do a major app-o-rama (AOR) to take advantage of the most possible BT offers that I can. I have read quite a number of posts here at FWF, I researched the cards that I want to apply for. I have a very good credit, I don't have any plans to apply for any loans in the close future (3-5 years). I'm ok trashing my FICO for a while. However, I don't want to raise too many flags - so this will also require keeping the utilization to 90 or 50 percent. And finally, I will do these on Monday 5/15 (as the $100 chase offers expires then).

Current cards:
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AM.EX Platinum Cash Rebate Card opened 2001, CL $500*
*CL used to be $3,000 but was decreased when I opened the business card
AM.EX Platinum Business Premium Cash Reb opened 04/2006, CL 13,300
AT&T Universal Platinum MC opened 1999, CL $8,050
Chase Regular Visa opened 1998, CL $3,000
Chase Platinum Visa opened 2001, CL $7,100
Chase Ama.zon Visa opened 2004, CL $8,000
Chase Buycom Visa opened 2005, CL $4,400
Citi Dividend Platinum Select MC opened 2001, CL $11,810
Discover Platinum opened 2001, CL $5,500
MBNA Platinum Plus MC opened 2000, CL $14,100

Total personal CL: $62,460
Total business CL: $13,300

I also have 6 store cards (Sears, Kohls...) opened 1998-2002 with a total CL: $6,360

Paid off car loan for $15,600 between 1999-2004. No current loans.

I have never been late on any payments. I haven't done a BT since 2003, when I did my first one and didn't read the terms properly so it cost me much more. I always pay balances in full and I don't have many expenses.

My current credit debt is: $219.80 (0.35% utilization).

My FICO score from Equifax is 785 as of May 12, 2006 (provided by myFICO.com). My credit history is 9 years old.

Cards to apply for:
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1. Advanta BusinessCard
0% APR for 15 months: 0% for the first 15 billing cycles from the date your account is opened, BT fee 3% ($5 min, $50 max), 5% CashBack gas, office, util, comp, phones, internet, 1% all else, $50 cash reward from cardoffers.com! www.advanta.com

2. Discover Platinum
Got a mail offer to do a BT for life, 0% till Jan 2007, then min 2 transactions to keep the offer. BT fee 3% (min $5 max $50). Reply by 5/30!

3. Sony Styles
$100 credit after first purchase, 0% for 12 months, it's a Chase card. 0% fixed APR for the first 12 billing cycles following the opening of your account. BT fee 3% (min $5 max $75). www.SonyStyle.com

4. Chase Cash Plus Rewards
$100 credit after first purchase, 5% gas, grocery, gas CashBack, 1% other Cash Back. BT 0% for 12 months, BT fee 3% ($5 min, $75 max). Promo Code 2YL expires 5/15! 1-888-787-0329

5. Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card
$100 gift card after first purchase (10,000 thank you points), 0% BT for 12 months*, no fee! https://www.citibank.com/us/cards/index.jsp

6. ATT Universal Rewards
$100 gift card after first purchase (10,000 thank you points), 0% BT for 12 months*, no fee! http://www.universalcard.com

7. First National Rewards Advantage Platinum Edition Visa Card
1 reward point for every $1, 1,000 points after first purchase. BT 0% for 6 months, no fee!
http://www.firstnational.com/fnb/personal/cardproducts/creditcards/rewardsadvantage.asp

8. HSBC Cash Back Rewards MasterCard
1% full CashBack, BT 0% for 12 months, BT fee 3% ($5 min, $50 max) possibly no fee. http://www.us.hsbc.com/1/2/3/personal/cards

9. Providian Visa Platinum
BT 0% for 12 months, BT fee 3% ($5 min, $75 max), free credit scores

10. The RBS Platinum MasterCard
BT 0% for 10 months, BT fee 3% ($5 min, $60 max)

11. Bank of America Power Rewards Visa Platinum (check if pre-approved!)
$25 gift card, 0% BT for 6 months, BT fee 3% (min $10, no max!)
https://preapproved.bankofamerica.com/SelfInquiry.aspx

12. Pulaski Bank Gold Visa
BT 0% for 6 months, no fee, $40 from cardoffers.com

Considering also:
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1. Penfed CC Rewards (but since I'm not a penfed member yet, I might forego this one)

Banks to open:
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1. GMAC MMS
2. Amboy Direct
3. Citibank Checking
4. Citibank e-saving
4. USAA checking
5. BofA Checking
6. HSBC Online Savings

Questions to figure out:
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1. In which order to apply for these cards?
2. If requesting BTs, which of my low/zero balance current cards to use to transfer these BTs to? Ask for checks? Or direct ACH into my checking accounts?
3. Ask for BTs right away on the application forms or wait to re-allocate lines after approval to get more bang?
4. How much to ask for on BTs? Limit myself to BTs under $10k (I think I read somewhere that if you deposit more than $10k into your bank it raises some flags).
5. Is this too much for the first app-o-rama? Should I scale down? Or too little - thus add more cards? There are definitely more citi and chase offers that are appealing, but I already have 4 chase cards and 2 citi (citi+universal) cards.
6. I still don't have any CapitalOne card, I wanted to venture into their market as well, but they don't have any enticing offers right now.
7. I would have taken another MBNA card (already have one) but their BT offers don't seem to have a maximum fee capped.
8. Still thinking of perhaps adding some frequent miles cards (I already had Delta AMEX, but maybe united or aa would be a nice addition).

Thank you for your comments and advice. I will be reading CC BT investment thread during the weekend, to finalize my strategies and incorporate your advice as well.

EDIT: updated the title to note that the aor is now officially over. I will enter the results as they arrive.

EDIT 6/28/2007 -> please see the new thread for AOR 2.0
LINK

I am in the middle of one also...I would also suggest a mbna card. There is an offer for the jets card with ipod..if you are interested. I also did discover card from card offers.com....to get the 40-50 buck bonus. I dont think there is the "for life" part...just the 0% for 12 months.

Also I would suggest applying for a couple of citi bus. cards (100 buck bonus for those). Check out their website.

I missed the 250 bonus on AMEX unless we get an offer in the mail. If anybody has a suggestion for an AMEX card to add?


---I would go with the best offers first.

Looks like you've done your quite a bit of research. I wish you the best of luck.

Based on the chatter on this website it seems you might have a hard time with #4 but it is probably worth a shot and worst case you get a different card from Chase that also has 0% apr for 12 months (just no 5% Cash Back).

Also I'm sure you're planning on doing this, but when you get your Chase cards it seems time to reallocate/consolidate. $100 sign up bonuses are nice but if you could combine limits to get a $10K limit 0% card you could make 5 times that in one shot.

I noticed that all of your current credit lines are pretty small. What is the point of doing an AOR when you are likely to be given similar (or smaller) credit lines? It almost doesnt seem worth it if they are not going to give you larger ($15,000+) credit lines. Will you really make much profit from the interest with such small numbers (even if you max out every new card)? I am not trying to give you a hard time, I am just wondering what you are thinking. I would try to combine my current lines to raise current limits before doing an AOR.

You already have 4 Chase cards and want to apply for the 5th one - why not move the Buy.com (most recent) limit to your oldest card, and then close it? That should give you a CL of $7400 on your oldest Chase.

Thanks everyone for your input. Please keep it coming!

maddybeagle said:...there is an offer for the jets card with ipod..
I thought about it, but once again - there is no cap on the BT fee, which makes it a no-go for me at this point. Ipod nano would have been nice, but I'm in this for the BT offers.

x43b said:Also I'm sure you're planning on doing this, but when you get your Chase cards it seems time to reallocate/consolidate. $100 sign up bonuses are nice but if you could combine limits to get a $10K limit 0% card you could make 5 times that in one shot.
Thanks x43b. That is precisely what I am planning to do. Get the Chase card and before BT re-allocate all the possible CL into it.

mhesidence said:Suggestion go thru card offers for the AT&T Universeal rewards card and get an extra $40. Citi Premier Pass Elite instead of Diamond 15000 points ($150) instead of $100 plus $40 thru card offers. There is an annual fee, so once you get your points swich the card to a non-annual fee type. In my experience the Premier Pass cards get higher credit limits than Diamond or Dividend.
FYI, HSBC and Providian gave poor credit lines not worth the BT fee to use. YMMV. Once I used the BoA pre-approval form they started to send me no fee BT offers in the mail, same for Capital One.
mhesidence, thanks for this tip on the citibank premier pass elite, I will give it a thought and read over their info. On the ATT Universal card - I decided that it would be better to go through universal website directly instead of cardoffers, because the deal is better from universal.

I had an old BofA offer for 15 months 0% BT no fee, but it expired in March. I'm hoping the pre-approval form might spit something juicy out.

s0meguy said:I noticed that all of your current credit lines are pretty small. What is the point of doing an AOR when you are likely to be given similar (or smaller) credit lines? It almost doesnt seem worth it if they are not going to give you larger ($15,000+) credit lines. Will you really make much profit from the interest with such small numbers (even if you max out every new card)? I am not trying to give you a hard time, I am just wondering what you are thinking. I would try to combine my current lines to raise current limits before doing an AOR.
That is a very valid point. The lines are so small because I haven't made any effort to cultivate them over the last few years. Yet, I don't think it's fruitless to do AOR at this point. Chase lines could be combined, citi lines could be combined. My recent AMEX business was opened with 13.3k. We all have to start somewhere, so this is where I plan to start.

The question is - would it be more beneficial to combine CLs before the AOR (meaning days before the AOR) or would it not make such an impact? I'm planning on combining those lines and reallocating them into the newly approved BT cards to max out the BTs.

SUB said:You already have 4 Chase cards and want to apply for the 5th one - why not move the Buy.com (most recent) limit to your oldest card, and then close it? That should give you a CL of $7400 on your oldest Chase.
I do definitely want to move both Buy.com and Amazon lines - but I don't see a point in closing those cards, unless I will get denied by chase for having too many chase cards. Both of the oldest chase cards used to be First Bank before the merger happened. Applying for Buy.com and Amazon was a mistake in retrospect, but I'm not sure it would benefit me too much to close them yet. I need to check the credit issuer faq thread to see the maximum chase cards, that a person can have.

Ivanist said:demingy said:s0meguy said:I noticed that all of your current credit lines are pretty small. What is the point of doing an AOR when you are likely to be given similar (or smaller) credit lines? It almost doesnt seem worth it if they are not going to give you larger ($15,000+) credit lines. Will you really make much profit from the interest with such small numbers (even if you max out every new card)? I am not trying to give you a hard time, I am just wondering what you are thinking. I would try to combine my current lines to raise current limits before doing an AOR.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. Those credit lines look a little similar to the ones that I had before applying for just two Chase cards (not AOR) just a few months ago and I received both cards with $10K+ lines. A quick CL consolidation gives me just over $20K. My debt was even higher than jairocon's, my score was at least 50 points lower, and I'm sure my reported income was lower as well. I'm not saying that this would guarantee anything, but I don't think it is THAT unlikely that OP could get somewhat high limits, especially if CL's are combined.

Of course this is just my 2 cents based purely on my own (admittedly non-AOR) experience.

By reallocating your credit to another cc and close that account, doesn't it affect or even lower your credit?

It didn't lower my credit. Of course I just consolidated the two cards almost as soon as I received them, so I never had a card reported as closed, they only reported it as one card. Even if they had originally reported both of them and then closed one, considering they were about the same age there wouldn't have been much of a difference in my average age of accounts.

You may want to consider USAirways Mastercard issued by Juniper/Barclays. The BT rate is 0% for 6 months, with a $100 max fee and . I applied for one as an afterthought in my own AOR, and got a $30k CL. You also get a bunch of USAir miles. More details at http://www.lotsmoremiles.com/

Also suggest you look at CapitalOne business card (0% BT 12 months, no fee).

Regarding Capital One, when I recently applied for my first card with them, they gave me 30K CL with 0%. This is my highest Cl, so YMMV with them.

I would definately try to consolidate lines BEFORE your AOR. IME, many limits are based on the highest limit already showing. Once I had worked my way up to 15K with Discover (over a long period), every other card gave me the exact same limit as Discover.