So a couple months ago I sat at 6/24 Chase Status, having already acquired the four Ink cards I had wanted. I didn’t really need many more Chase cards but did need many 1.5% to 2% cashback cards for various reasons — IYKYK. Rather than wait over a year to start trickling them in, I just decided to go all out and apply for ALL of them in an AOR and revisit Chase cards in two years. Must have them all NOW! 😺
So I applied for the following sixteen cards over a 2 day period:
- Citi Shop Your Way (SYW)
- Synchrony Premier Mastercard (SPM)
- BofA Premium Rewards (PR)
- BofA Customized Cashback Rewards (CCR)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR)
- Citi Custom Cash (CCC)
- Paypal Cashback Mastercard
- Comenity Bread
- Wells Fargo Active Cash (WFAC)
- Synchrony Venmo
- Discover It Miles (DIM)
- BofA Business Unlimited Cash Rewards (BUCR)
- Fairwinds Signature Visa
- BluPeak Max Cash Preferred
- Amex Personal Gold (APG)
- BofA Business Customized Cash Rewards (BCCR)
I was successful getting seven of the sixteen above cards:
- Citi Shop Your Way (SYW)
- Synchrony Premier Mastercard (SPM)
- BofA Premium Rewards (PR)
- BofA Customized Cashback Rewards (CCR)
- Discover It Miles (DIM)
- BofA Business Unlimited Cash Rewards (BUCR)
- Amex Personal Gold (APG)
I started the App-O-Rama loading up 5 tabs with application information and hitting submit on all simultaneously (and then applied for most of the rest one by one immediately afterwards) :
Cit Shop Your Way (SYW). I did this one first because I knew Citi was very fussy about recent inquiries. I am happy they approved me. Got a decent CL as well over $5k. I’ve been wanting to get this card for a while now for the stacking plays but could never get it because I didn’t want to further worsen my Chase 5/24 status. Now I get to do all these fun stacking plays.
Synchrony Premier Mastercard (SPM). This card is an excellent 2% CB card I’ve been wanting for a while now. I have a lot of non-category spend and needed it along with other 1.5% to 2% cashback cards mentioned here. It has no SUB but was worth throwing in as part of this AOR — at this point SUBs really didn’t matter. Got a decent CL of over $7k.
BofA Premium Rewards (PR). Another card I needed similar to my BofA Unlimited Cash Rewards (UCR) card I already had. It earns 2.625% CB with Platinum Honors Preferred Rewards status tier. It also has a juicy SUB of $600 which I recently was awarded. It comes with a $95 AF but I managed to redeem the $100 airline credit for a SW one way flight. [BOA made me wait for a letter with a reference number on it to call in and verify my identity before approving the app.]
BofA Customized Cash Rewards (CCR). This is such a great card. $2500 quarterly cap on Online spend — this covers so much I was amazed how much (almost anything you buy online with just a few reasonable exceptions). I also got a nice little $200 SUB IIRC. 5.25% CB on Online spend with Platinum Honors Preferred Rewards. I maxed the $2.5k quarterly cap within the first month. Would be nice to have a more of these cards like RJ has! [Like the above, BOA made me wait for a letter with a reference number on it to call in and verify my identity before approving the app.]
I got very good CL’s on both of the above BofA cards of over $10k, as I already had on my UCR as well. Everything was peachy in the app process up until now. Now come the denials lol.
Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR). I knew I was going to get denied but I didn’t care; and I was denied. I figured it was worth a shot since I am killing my credit with a flood of hard inquiries anyways. I don’t travel but this card is very lucrative if you know how to play it. I’ll probably be product changing my Chase Freedom Flex (CFF) to this card early next year. I have enough UR banked to get the next iPhone Pro at a 33% discount (1.5x UR) and look forward to that among other things with this lovely card.
Citi Custom Cash (CCC). Another card I knew I’d probably get denied for. I know you aren’t supposed to apply for more than one Citi card within an 8 day period but didn’t care. I applied for it within 30 minutes of applying for the above SYW — also wasn’t 100% sure if store cards counted. I could of researched this beforehand but really didn’t care as I was going all out with the apps anyways lol. Of course Citi denied me. Btw, I recently product changed my sole CCC card to Citi Double Cash (CDC) as I was in need of more 1.5-2% CB cards; e.g. I spent 59 cents on CCC one month, and the month after I product changed it, I put $10k on the CDC — so worth it. I acquired a Citi Strata Premier about 6 months ago and will most likely be product changing it to another CDC actually, otherwise I’ll PC it to a CCC to get back that 5% custom category spend. (I know people say CCC is the best Citi card and I used to think that as well but finding I am getting more use out of the CDC lately.)
Paypal Cashback Mastercard. They wouldn’t let me apply for it because I already had the extremely crappy Paypal Extras card — which was my oldest card so I hung onto it. I have since then closed that card, and even after two months they STILL won’t let me get a Paypal CB card — grr. The Paypal CB is a great card at 1.5% CB along with 3% CB for Paypal. Great card for a large variety of spend!
Comenity Bread. This card is often overlooked. An excellent 2% CB Amex network card. They sent me a letter with a reference number to verify my identity. Despite after doing all that they denied me due to my recent credit card history — due to the AOR lol.
Wells Fargo Active Cash (WFAC). I know I know, yet another 2% CB card but I wanted it bad. I could make good use of it. But they denied my ass for interesting reasons which I share in a recent article I wrote.
Synchrony Venmo. I really really wanted this card as it is 3% cb unlimited in a custom category of your choosing including Wholesale Clubs like Costco. They denied me, stating in a letter they couldn’t verify my identity. They gave me no reference number in letter nor a phone number to call them. 😿
So after the above onslaught of DENIALS I had luck with the next couple cards.
Discover It Miles (DIM). I was approved for this one. This is a highly underrated card. Despite its name, it is actually a 1.5% CB card — and I don’t use for miles/travel. It gives 3% CB the first year (due to the year end cashback match), with unlimited spend which is amazing. I knew going in they’d probably approve me despite recent inquiries; they seem very lenient letting in almost anyone. I got a low CL of under $4k but will request a CL increase after the 90th day. You can have two DIM cards at any given time. I am considering forfeiting my Discover It Cashback (DICB) card for another DIM in a future AOR. This card is worthy applying for at the tail end of any AOR. This card is my best catchall CB card for the next 10 months — and still useful even after 12 months. Oh BTW if you get this card, be sure to change the design to the Dawn of Discover. I am very proud to carry this card around in my wallet flashing this card design as I make purchases, even more so than the Amex Gold or Platinum lol; yeah I am old and remember the old Discover card designs from the 80’s — the nostalgia.
BofA Business Unlimited Cash Rewards (BUCR). So I recently signed up for a BofA Business Checking account, a $1000 SUB for $20k deposited for 60-90 days. I am due to get that $1k any day now. I achieved Gold tier Preferred Rewards status on the business side due to applying for the account with Fast Track to Preferred Rewards — the $20k deposit was the requirement for Gold tier (Platinum is 50k and Platinum Honors is 100k). So about a week after opening the business checking account I applied for and was approved for the BUCR card. I like this card because it is up to a 2.625% CB card and the balance on the card doesn’t count against one’s personal credit utilization.
Fairwinds Visa Signature. It has some interesting cashback categories but they denied me hard and fast lol.
BluPeak Max Cash Preferred. I wanted this card as it is identical to the US Bank Cash+ card. I knew I’d probably be upgrading my Cash+ card to a Smartly VISA card in the near future, so I wanted another 5% card for Utilities as well as Ebay purchases — Ebay codes as Department Stores which is one of the 5% Cash+ categories. BluPeak denied me due to all the recent activity from AOR.
Okay after those two rough bumps, I scored a good one:
Amex Personal Gold (APG). $1k SUB. I was approved for this card — they seem to accept almost anyone lol. I can’t stand the credits as I don’t like to be force fed fast food but for the SUB it was worth it overall. I’ll probably never close this card, downgrading it to the basic green card at a minimum — I hear it has an AF of $55. (I’ll keep it in anticipation of upgrade offers — hopefully timed right for a platty trip dip.) This is also a decent grocery and dining backup card. Used in conjunction with 25% off BK with Walmart+ subscription (via my ABG),I am getting a substantial discount as the first year I get 20% off dining for up to $500 in dining spend. So roughly, instead of a Whopper combo costing $10 it’s around $5.50.
BofA Business Customized Cash Rewards (BCCR). I wanted this card to go along with my BUCR above but was smacked down by BofA 🙂
And that’s it! The sixteen cards. Overall I am very happy with the seven cards I acquired — all very powerful cards I am making use of now (I’ll never close any of them). Got a few SUBS in the mix which was cool. But many of them are mainly utility cards which get regular use.
Notes. Regarding BofA, it was only 1 hard inquiry for all four of those apps combined. I started with (11, 2 , 9) hard inquiries — (TransUnion, Equifax, Experian) respectively — and ended up with (15, 6, 13). I went from Chase 6/24 to Chase 12/24.
Cards I didn’t get but desperately want. Of all the cards I was denied, the top three I miss and still really want: Paypal CB, Synchrony Venmo and Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) — again I’ll probably be PC’ing my CFF to CSR here in a couple months.
Summarizing. So not too bad, I got seven cards which I am now making good use of. Literally using all seven with most over 50% utilization on each currently. I just couldn’t wait over a year to start gradually getting all these cards I needed now. So again, I just went for it and glad I did. In 1 year and 10 months my credit will be pristine again with little hard inquiries and a very low Chase 5/24 status: 0/24 to 2/24 or so I figure.
For the time being, I’ll focus on business cards to garden my Chase 5/24 status, namely Amex cards if possible, so I can garden my hard inquiries as well. Amex, show me some love! 😻😹 [That said, Amex just smacked me down on Schwab Platty app.. I avoided the pop up jail but they denied me, due to recent inquiries and personal credit utilization!]
I have 26 credit cards now, lol. Twenty-four of these were acquired in the past 2 years! 😺 (Interestingly, I only want to close two of them.)