It used to be that when I did an app-o-rama – applying for 3,4,5,6 or more credit cards in one go – I used to get instant approvals on all of them and would just wait for all the cards to arrive, meet the minimal minimum spend, reap the points and wait for the next round. But these days things are a little more complex, and as I mentioned on my latest round I actually did not get any instant approvals and had to deal with reconsideration on all of my applications.
A Double Reconsideration with Chase
I know several people are interested in being able to get the Chase Ink cards again now that they have switched from Mastercard to Visa, technically making them new products and as such making us willing applicants open to new sign up bonuses. So in this round I included a Chase Ink Plus card, using just my own name for the “business”, even though I already have an open Chase Ink Plus account under the same “business” name. I fully expected this to go to reconsideration, and so it did, but I was pleasantly surprised they did not really ask much at all about my existing Ink Plus card and were more concerned about general financial questions. I was told by the lady on the recon line she was going to approve me for $5k and so I hung up a happy man. So I waited for the card to arrive, but eventually a letter arrived bluntly denying me again for having too many recent accounts…
… so I called up the same recon number again (888-338-2586 gets you to a status line and they can transfer you to a credit analyst) and explained the situation hoping for a blanket approval. But while the lady apologized for the confusion, she said she could see the prior notes and even though it was sent for approval the system rejected it because of my parallel Marriott personal card application. So to cut a long story short, we went through the whole recon process again and she once again came back and said she would “recommend” a $5k approval. And while the card has yet to arrive (I will be sure to let y’all if the 50k bonus posts) it does now show when I login to chase.com, so this time the message stuck.
So be prepared to deal with recon a lot…
Bank of America are No Match for Anyone
I actually thought I had applied for the Alaskan 30k offer, but turns out I had only applied for the 25k offer. It’s entertaining to see that this has absolutely no spend requirement. Not even $0.01. The 25k points had posted to my Alaskan account before the card had even arrived. But I really wanted to bump up to the 40k offer. Readers will know that a $10k min spend is just a day’s work here at Milesabound, and the chance to get 25k miles for $10k spend (15k bonus miles plus the 10k base miles for the actual spend) was mightily tempting. So I tried to get them to match the bonus…
… My first attempt was to phone customer service. After some time on hold, I got put through to new card applications, and an exceptionally clueless person. Hang Up And Call Again. I’m sorry sir we can’t do that without applying again for the other offer. Hang Up And Call Again. We understand sir, but there is nothing we can do. So next I tried online chat. Same thing. And finally I tried secure message, only to hit the same wall. So it seems I am stuck with the card I got. In protest I am not even going to activate this card, I will simply cancel it and apply for the 40k in my next round of apps.
Conclusion
Applying for credit cards is something of a sport for me, and I always find it interesting to learn the new rules and terms of engagement!
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