Thoughts from My Last Round of Credit Card Applications

Here are a hodgepodge of thoughts about my last round of credit card applications.

1) It seems that most of the telephone numbers listed on blogs for Bank of America’s credit card reconsideration line have all been disconnected. Both 866-458-8805 and 888-503-6090 connected me to messages saying that the lines had been disconnected. The line that did work, 877-721-9405, is merely an automated application status check.

2) Many of the most popular blogs no longer have the Chase reconsideration line phone number listed on their blogs. But the number still works (888-245-0625 for personal credit card applications). I know this observation has been mentioned by others previously.

In general, it makes sense for banks to not want their reconsideration lines plastered all over the internet as it’s probably disruptive to their employees and not that efficient to staff phone lines for these reconsideration calls. But you’d think that Chase would follow Bank of America’s tactic of disconnecting the published numbers and telling their affiliate bloggers/pimps not to post the phone number.

3) I had previously posited that it makes more sense to cancel credit cards outright and NOT transfer the credit lines to other cards as this makes it more likely to get instantly approved for new credit cards. At the very least, this worked for Chase, as the credit analyst on the reconsideration line didn’t ask me to transfer any credit to the new card that I applied for.

4) Assuming that I get approved for the US Bank Club Carlson Business card as well, I’m signed up for $6000 of minimum spend in 3 months to hit all of the spending bonuses for these new cards. I’ve also still got ~$1000 left to go on my Citi Hilton Reserve to get the free annual weekend night certificate, and the Chase Freedom 5% category this quarter includes Amazon and department stores, which is another $1500 of spend to possibly max out. While $3000 of this potential $8500 of spend is easy to manufacture via Amazon Payments (and no, unfortunately, I do not believe that Amazon Payments counts as an Amazon purchase for the purposes of the Chase Freedom 5% category), I think I’ll still need to hit up CVS regularly, especially since I want to get my free night certificates from the Chase Hyatt ASAP to use them for an upcoming trip.