Results from My Last Round of Credit Card Applications

Last week, I wrote about the credit cards that I was considering applying for. It wasn’t a particularly ambitious cycle as I was only looking at 2 new cards, but I was a little worried that I might not be approved for a business card considering that my business (i.e. this blog) doesn’t make any money. Okay, that last statement isn’t entirely true, but I’ve only made enough money to go take myself out to McDonald’s after 6 months of blogging (fun fact: McDonald’s apple pie is vegan).

I applied for the Citi Hilton Reserve card first. I already have two Citi AA cards along with a Citi Forward card from college, but my last Citi app was in October 2012, so I figured that I’d be in the clear for a new card. But after submitting my application, I didn’t get an instant approval; instead, it told me that they needed to verify information to complete the application.

I immediately called the phone number listed, and the woman who answered was really friendly and thanked me for my business. She didn’t ask to verify anything and instead just said that I was approved for the new credit card, but I was only approved for a credit line of $X, and that if I wanted a higher credit limit, then I would need to transfer some credit from one of my other credit cards to this new one. Since the credit limit she proposed was plenty for me, I declined transferring any credit limits and got approved for the card. Yay.

I then submitted an application for the United MIleagePlus Explorer Business card. I first logged into my United account on United.com, clicked on “Business Products” under “Products and Services”, and then clicked on the link for the credit card. The first offer that I saw was the general public offer of 30k miles after $1,000 in spend, but after clicking on the tab for the United MileagePlus Club card and then clicking back, I got the offer of 50k miles after $2,000 in spend, which is the one that I applied for.

I again did not get an instant approval. This time, it was a pretty generic statement saying that I’d either receive my card or else receive a rejection and reason why within 30 days. I believe there’s a backlog of Chase business credit card applications because of the higher Ink Bold/Plus sign-up bonuses, and they’ve been discouraging people from calling the reconsideration line, so I figured I’d hold tight for a week or two and then call if I hadn’t heard anything. Luckily, three days later, I got an email saying that my new card is on its way. Woot.

In the interim, I also received an offer on my Bank of America Alaska Airlines card for 3x points on grocery, drug store, restaurants, and gas station purchases, up to 2500 bonus points. Although Alaska miles became slightly less useful to me recently, I think I’ll still end up fulfilling this spend as well.

All in all, I’m happy that I got approved for both cards that I wanted, and I’m looking forward to spending those weekend night certificates at the Conrad Hong Kong and replenishing my constantly depleting stash of United miles.