Credit Card Application Day is Fast Approaching

June 2, 2012 - Rick

I’m due up for my next round of credit card applications on June 14th. As a reminder I try to space my applications at least 90 days apart so as to prevent denials for “too many recent inquiries”. And I like to do a round of multiple applications all on the same day. Applications done on the same day may prevent each of the credit issuers from seeing the other applications. It has worked for me in the past and I’ll keep my system in place for now. Katybug will also be doing her round of applications at the same time. We missed her last application cycle and its time to load up her accounts again.

Each of us have credit scores as reported by CreditSesame.com of 744. It was interesting to see in the comments section now that Credit Sesame distinguishes 740 as the number that puts us in the elite category of credit accounts with Excellent credit. My personal credit report shows I have had 96 accounts reported to Experian (the highest) and my current inquiries within the last two years are as follows:

TransUnion 6, Experian 19 (still high), and Equifax 10.

In South Carolina most card issuers pull from Experian and I don’t personally get involved in freezing my credit files to force lenders to pull from less used agencies. I do well enough with my own method.

After pulling my info from Credit Sesame I jumped over to Truecredit.com where I have a long standing account to view my credit report and their numbers as pulled and reported on the VantageScore scale. My top score is 984 with a possible 990 top score with Experian. I guess the 3 million miles (and top number of inquiries) we have accumulated in the last three years of card applications haven’t ruined my credit after all

For those of you new to applying for credit cards for the travel rewards benefits these are the first steps:

Checking your credit score. Don’t waste your time applying if your scores are under 700 on a FICO style scale. I recommend CreditSesame.com as it is available monthly to update and their is no need to register a credit card to obtain an estimate of your credit score.
Checking your credit report for accuracy. It has been reported that at least ten percent of all credit reports have inaccurate information. Don’t play the game with bad information. Get the file corrected and if possible try to resolve any old blemishes with past creditors. You can obtain a copy of your credit report free once per year from AnnualCreditReport.com. Do your homework.

Thursday I’ll run through my thought process on which cards I’m applying for and the reasoning behind my choices.

Update on Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall

HikerT is updating the promos and payouts from various retailers on the Chase Ultimate Reward Mall each month. This takes time and effort. Thanks for your work on all our behalf. latest info here

Nic

I never thought about freezing my Experian to force issuers to use a different one. Does that work or has anyone tried?

Rick

lots of people do it. it’s just not my style

Ryan from MA

Hey Rick, how do you find out how many inquiries you have with each bureau?

RedRiver

Get a copy of your credit report from all three bureaus.

http://www.annualcreditreport.com
Rick

I use Truecredit.com but the info is available much cheaper on other sources like annualcreditreport.com

Jill

Nice article. Newbie here. I’d like to see more articles on how an average household can meet the minimum spend on many cards simultaneously. In our situation, we already put everything possible on CCs and can barely meet a 5K spend in 6 months on just one card!

http://twitter.com/Peachfront Peach Front

Jill, the classic method is to charge business expenses from work and then file for reimbursement through your employer’s expense account. When you are aware that you or your spouse will have a lot of upcoming business charges, this might be the best time to apply for your new credit card. We have relatively little spend in our household, so we did time a recent application to coincide with a time when we knew my husband would be required to order a lot of supplies for his company. Tiptoe quietly, and pray a lot, so that your boss doesn’t suddenly decide to offer a company credit card! There are other ways to increase “spend” but this is the classic and usually the best place to start if at all possible. The goal is to increase our financial success, not to be tempted to “spend” too much just to get miles.
Rick

Jill. send one another $1000 each per month with amazon payments and concentrate on cards with lower minimum spend requirements

Liw5215

Rick, very helpful info on the creditsesema! what credit cards are your on radar screen?

Rick

I list them all on Monday, two browser trick with citi, b of a Hawaiian and bank of Hawaii Hawaiian airline and ink bold

Liw5215

Rick,

Thank you for sharing the information. is this your brand new or churned applications?

Best,

Chris

Jill: Newbie here too. We are a young couple with smaller expenses than big families, so we are having to get creative to meet minimum spending. Frequent Miler has a post on creative ways to meet minimum spend. They include gift card churning as well as buying gift cards for future use. Another one I just learned about is donating to Kiva loans. You donate money with your credit card (assuming you have the cash to pay it off) and then you are paid back over 6-12 months. They have about a 99% repayment rate. We will probably use this for our next card which I hope is the Ink Bold. Not sure yet. The FM parent site is broke at the moment, but keep checking back.
Myhotrs

Hi Rick, maybe you can shed some light on this for me… I pay $5/mo for Citi Credit monitoring and get my scores every month. My Experian score for some reason fell from 733 to 717 with no apps and a lower utilization. The strange thing is that on Quizzle my free 6-month Experian score is now 759.

What gives?

Thanks!

Rick

you may have had a high balance on a card they day they checked. Short term issue and I wouldn’t worry about it

tassojunior

I’m not sure about the other lenders not seeing same day apps. I’ve been told they appear immediately on a credit report. OTOH with Citi at least the 2-browser trick may seem to prove this wrong or may prove it. (ie- you wouldn’t need to use 2 browsers if a 2nd app later in the day would get approved.

CalebB

I think even Citi sees both apps when using the 2-browser trick because when I recently did this Citi showed a lower credit score on the second app than the first.

Professor Paul

Hi Rick,

I just did a round of apps a few days ago. I try to keep it 90-180 days between mega app day as I call them. I am going to Paris next Spring and needed some little points to finish off the hotel end of things. I remembered that I hadn’t had any of the Hilton Citi cards in a couple of years. I use the Surpass. So, my wife and I were each instantly approved for that. 80000 points in the bank. Then I applied for Virgin Atlantic cards. We were once again approved and that gave us 90000 miles to convert to Hilton at 1:2 or 180000 points. Lastly, I picked up a Citi AA card for a 40,000 mile bonus. Not bad for an hour or so work of work.

DrTarheel

Any links you can provide to those offers?

Corridor!

Rick,

I go into this about 15 months ago. Everything has gone smoothly with churning until I received my yearly Homeowners coverage notice.

It says that my premium was influenced by information from consumer reports: It then goes to list the amount of revolving accounts opened in the last 24 months, number of inquiries in 24 months, percents of accounts with balance, and number of accounts that have been established.

I am not sure why they mention percents of accounts with balances as I pay off all cards in full every month. My premium went up $30 this year which isn’t much. I just haven’t seen anyone discuss this consequence for churning. Any info you have on this would be great.

Thanks in advance!
Bryan

Are there any cards at the moment that are offering a good balance transfer deal (0% for at least 12 months) along with miles? If not, do you have any recommendations for a card with the longest 0% term on a balance transfer. Thanks in advance for your help. I’ve preached about your site to many people!
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Husarm

Hi-
I came over from MM site.

I recently applied for the 50,000 thank you premier visa (I already had the MC version) & Instatnt approval!

My wife’s application for a MC (she has the Visa version) is pending & now they want a IRS form 4506-t WHICH GIVES THEM OUR TAX RETURN.

Should I pass? Why would they want this all of a sudden? She has 2 other Citi cards with a pretty high total ofCredit – over $20,000 & a score of 811 from the experian pull.

http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/ Frugal Travel Guy

As always it is your choice. I never have, but I’ve never been asked either. Try a phone call and offer to reduce other card credit lines before giving them the form. They are looking to verify the income you stated on your application.

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Credit Card Application Day is Fast Approaching

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