My Recent Application Spree, I Took The Good With The Bad
It is about that time of the year, well to be honest it is always that time of year 😂. It is time for a recent application spree breakdown. With a new year kicking off I felt motivated to get cooking on a few things. I laid out the rough outline of my plans for 2021 last month and things haven’t totally gone as planned but we continue to power through. I figured I would share with you my journey so far. This will include applications for myself and my wife.
Amex Hilton Business
The first card I had my wife grab was the Hilton Business card. This was back when the offer was for 130,000 points and before the new increased offer of 150,000 points and a $150 statement credit. I still need her to call and see if she can get matched to that offer. I did get 20,000 Membership Rewards from my Amex Business Gold card (currently increased and no lifetime offers) for referring her. She was instantly approved and the points have already hit her account for this offer.
Results – Approved 130,000 Hilton Honors Points, $95 Annual Fee
Chase Ink Cash
Shortly after grabbing the Hilton Business card my wife dropped under Chase 5/24. I had hoped to snag a Freedom card but with the whole World of Hyatt card snafu that ship had sailed. I decided to have her try for the increased 75,000 point Ink Cash offer. To be honest, I didn’t have high hopes for this one. She never seems to get approved for Chase business cards, and she currently has 7 personal cards with Chase. With the increased offer it was worth the risk to me anyway. The application went pending and then a week later the denial came through for too much credit already extended. I didn’t want to cash in wife points for the recon call so I accepted defeat and moved on. I may have her try again in a few months after a few personal cards are closed.
Results: Pending and then Denied
Citi Premier
Next up I finally fell under the 3/6 rule for the Citi Premier and was ready to give this a go. If you remember I worked out my plan for this for years and Citi kept mucking it up. Well it was finally go time and I was finally instantly approved. This offer should net me 60,000 Citi ThankYou points when it is all said and done, that is if Citi ever gets out of their own way and lets me actually spend on it.
Results: Approved, 60,000 ThankYou Points $95 Annual Fee
US Bank Business Card X2
I decided to go for the newly improved US Bank Business card offer for both of us. We both have been approved for a US Bank Business card in the past year (hers was a little bit of a bait and switch) so I put this at a low chance of success. US Bank seems to be a little more cautious with business cards and we received very small credit lines last time around. Knowing all that it was well worth the risk for a juicy $500 cash offer. Well my prediction rang true. She was instantly denied. My application went pending and then ended in a denial. But all was not lost, I ended up grabbing a US Bank bank account and should net $400 from that offer at least.
Results: Immediate denial on one and pending denial on the other
Schwab Amex Platinum
Last up was the Schwab Amex Platinum. I had my wife go for this even though I hadn’t planned on it until later in the year. We need to do some stuff around the house and I planned on cashing out some of her Membership Rewards to cover it. I finally decided that with the $30 a month PayPal offer it was worth grabbing now. This would speed up the process and net her an extra $150 in credits. That is on top of the 60,000 point welcome offer and other perks. This does take up a Chase 5/24 slot but she has a couple open and I still need to move some stuff around there so it wasn’t a huge deal. I needed to sign her up for a Schwab brokerage account first and then apply for the card. She should get a $100 bonus from the brokerage account as well. She was instantly approved and the card was in hand less than 24 hours later, super impressive this day in age.
Results: Instant Approval. 60,000 Membership Rewards, $550 annual fee.
My Recent Application Spree – Final Thoughts
I went 3 of 6 overall this time around. If I was a baseball player I would be the best ever, but as far as for applications go those are meh results. A few of the applications were known long shots so that muddies the water a bit. Overall, I will end up coming out of this with:
- 60,000 Membership Rewards
- 60,000 ThankYou points
- 130,000 Hilton Honors points
I will have to pay $740 in annual fees and complete $12,000 in spend. These were spread out over around 6 weeks so the spending is staggered which makes it a bit easier. We have already completed the Hilton Business card spend and are halfway through the Premier and Schwab spend, although it has been a real chore.
Share your recent application results, or the card(s) you are looking at grabbing next in the comments.
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When I fell below 5/24 in January, I proactively reduced the credit limits on my two Chase business cards by a total of $5,000 along with a couple of my personal Chase credit limits by another $5,000. I was instantly approved for the Business Unlimited with a $3,000 limit. Since the spend requirement was $7,500, I moved some credit around to bring it up to $5,000. In February, I again reduced some of my personal credit by $5,000. I applied for the Hyatt card and it went pending for a couple of days and was approved with over $20,000 limit. They are definitely being much more conservative on the business credit cards.
For sure and I like to reduce credit limits before applying as well – makes things a little easier for approval (especially with Chase). I am jealous you got your hands on that juicy offer – congrats Tricia!