My Most Recent Round of Credit Card Applications

I wrote last week that I was feeling pretty meh about credit card churning, which is true. But it’s also true that not applying for new credit cards is like leaving miles on the table, and so I got off my butt today and applied for a couple of new cards.

#1 was the Citi Executive AA card. The 100k mile offer is gone, but there’s still a 75k mile offer alive, which is still a whole lot of miles for a card that seems to be endlessly churnable. And in order to meet the minimum spend requirement, I’ll need up my manufactured spending game anyway (currently at $0 per month), so I’m okay with the lesser miles offer since it requires lesser spend ($7500 instead of $10,000). I got a pending decision, though, so we’ll see if I actually get approved. I currently have a version of this card that I got in January at the 100k offer.

#2 was the Barclays US Airways card. I’ve had this card twice before (and currently have one card open). The current offers aren’t quite as good as they’ve been in the past (i.e. no first year annual fee waived anymore), but I applied for a 40k after first purchase, $89 annual fee not waived, 10k miles upon first (and only first) anniversary. I surprisingly got instantly approved. Pretty happy about this, as this card might possibly be going away with the merger, and reports on Flyertalk have said that it’s been a lot harder to get approved by Barclays reconsideration recently.

#3 was the Bank of America Alaska card. I’ve also had this card twice before (one open, one downgraded and open). The offer that I chose was 30k for getting the card, $75 annual fee not waived. Unfortunately got a pending decision on this one as well.

And that’s it. I briefly contemplated a Chase card (like one of those Chase Ink cards that bloggers endlessly pump), but decided against it for completely arbitrary reasons. I might regret that, but I can always apply for more cards in a couple of months. I’ll post again once I finish calling recon.