I’m not very aggressive signing up for new credit cards. Not because of the hardship in meeting minimum spend requirements, rather because it gets a little uncomfortable trying to explain to CSRs why you have 16 new credit cards within the past year. It’s usually not the biggest deal to live with this, but I prefer just limiting myself.
That said, banks definitely get their share from me. Maybe 10 cards/applications per year.
Contents
Card Choices
Now was time for another couple applications. The ThankYou Premier with a 50,000-point bonus and the Blue Cash Preferred with a $200 bonus are both higher/better than the usual offers.
ThankYou Premier
With regards to the ThankYou, we don’t know if that offer will be around for long or if it’s temporary. I really don’t want to have to deal with the old split-year bonus and this offer was ripe for the taking. I held off for the past few weeks, waiting for all my retention bonus points to come in. This way, in case there was a need to close out one card in order to open another, no points will be lost on the deal. Really, that’s more of a Chase thing than a Citi thing, but I decided to wait for it anyhow. Since the points just posted it was time to apply.
Blue Cash Preferred
As for the Blue Cash, there are occasionally targeted offers of a better $250 signup bonus. My thinking is, however, that the card has ongoing value due to the 6% grocery category. If the bonus is $50 less than its peak, it may still be worthwhile to get it sooner rather than later so as to get in the $6,000 of spend during the 2015 calendar year.
Amex Platinum
The Amex Business Platinum with 150,000-point bonus was also on the table for consideration. The fact that the hard pulls of the Blue Cash and the Platinum would likely be combined made it especially appealing. For a couple of reasons, I ended up holding off on this one and just applied for the ThankYou and Blue Cash.
The Application
First, I applied for the ThankYou. Why? Because existing Amex cardholders probably won’t get a hard pull on their credit if they get denied. Rather have a cleaner report for Citi and not worry as much about the Amex application.
ThankYou Premier application
Applied for the ThankYou Premier card.
Result: Pending. Shoot. Instant approvals are so much fun.
Luckily, I’ve applied for Citi cards before and I recall getting the exact same result on a different Citi application which really just needed me to call in to decide on some credit line issues. Not a question of approval itself. The wording of the Citi response, “we need additional information from you”, sounded that way as well. Okay, that’s better.
The call into Citi turned out to be just that: they approved me for a $3,000 credit line and asked if they should move over $1300 from a different Citi card to bring the credit line up to $4,300. Only $1,300 can be moved, not more they said.
My knee-jerk reaction was to move $1,300 from the $8,000 credit line on my Dividend card. On second thought, it occurred to me that the ThankYou Premier card is likely a one-year-and-over card, so why transfer credit from a fee-free Dividend card which will be around forever? I can manage the minimum spend with a $3,000 credit line. So we left it at the $3,000 credit line and that was that.
On to the Blue Cash…
Blue Cash application
After entering my info, the system again gave me a pending decision.
Previously, I’ve always been instantly approved by Amex so this one was more surprising. Whipped out my phone to call the reconsideration line and I see an email pop up in my inbox with “Your American Express Application was Approved!” in the subject line.
I’m honestly not sure why the system gave me a pending reply and then instantly approved me. Maybe this is typical with Amex, maybe not.
One thing I noticed is that there wasn’t a long pause after applying the way there is with most credit card application. You know, the long time staring at that circle going round-and-round waiting to see what whether you’ll be approved. It gave a very fast pending message. It’s possible that this all has to do with the fact that Amex initially just soft pulls and subsequently hard pulls, or maybe it’s unrelated.
In any case, it was nice not to have to call in. Now I just have to see if there’s a way to register my Amex card for Amex Offers before I get the actual card…Oh well, maybe I’ll just call and ask them to expedite the card.
So…if your application is ever pending, it may not really be pending.
Let us know your own experiences in the comments.
I applied for the Chase sapphire reserve and got an “application pending” message.
Called in the next day and was told I was approved for 20,000 when my highest limit card at the time was 1700 (discover). pleasant surprise.
Just applied yesterday for the Barclaycard Aviator Red and the Blue Cash Everyday amex and they were both approved. 4000 CL for the Aviator and unknown for the Blue cash (phone rep didnt tell me and i didnt ask).
Worth mentioning that I applied for both cards from europe, so it must have been around midnight in the USA.
Barclays told me i had already been approved the day before and Amex told me they just needed to confirm my Identity because they thought someone might have been applying with my info as I sometimes apply for credit without my middle initial or without the dash that unites my two last names.
once the amex rep spoke to his superiors regarding the small discrepancies with my last name, he told me the system had to update and boom, 5 seconds later I was approved.
he also gave me free expediting due to the inconvenience of me having to provide my info.
neither barclays expediting (which I paid for) nor amex’s were able to give me a tracking number, which I did get for the Chase sapphire reserve.
UK app here. Just applied for Amex Plat business and it gave me a pending. Just wondering if the “pending” status was more likely with a business card. I’d totally understand if that was the case.
I applied the ThankyouPremier last week and got denied instantly. I called the EO recon number and tried to request for that after 4 days. They asked me about my annual income and other information then told me they’ll make the decision in 5-7 biz days. But when the CSR try to submit my application she suddenly ask me what’s my recon request exactly for, I told her that’s for the TYpremier credit card, but she told me she saw the card was approved already, but I saw the instant denied page exactly( I even took photo forthat).Both of us can’t figure out what’s going on. I thought Citi made something wrong with my application status, but I received the card yesterday and it works fine….
so my credit worthiness was not an issue (I recently just got approved for a Biz Plat & Biz Gold)… if I were to goto recon, which requires (another) HP, will that go thru even if a human manually declines the app? or is this trick only applicable to computer decisions.
the reps I spoke w/about OBC closure said it wasnt a “negative closure” and shouldnt affect my current or future relationship with AMEX. so I’m guessing the computer only made a binary decision on my app (acct closed by us recently so customer is ‘bad’ thus no new acct) … any idea when this goes away? I certainly dont mind going to recon but would hate to waste an HP if they cant manually do anything because of the underlying situation re: OBC.
I’ve heard varying reports about whether Amex will approve after OBC closure. Maybe the rep was wrong and you aren’t able to be approved, but I certainly hope that this isn’t the case for your sake.
Chuck, I’m guessing this is your second OBC?
No, I have OBC. This is BCP, didn’t have one til now.
Just applied for the Ink Plus in branch and it went to pending, but the banker give me the recon number and told me I could call. I gave it a little and called up and the analyst said they were unable to verify my birthdate, which is odd given that I have two Chase cards already and that the banker had my driver’s license when she put in the application. My options now are returning to the branch tomorrow or faxing in the license and waiting ten days for them to process it. A bit of a bummer.
Let’s hope you get an approval!
My dad applied for a Chase United Explorer a few weeks ago and got a pending review message. He has not yet called the reconsideration line. Was wondering if it would be better to wait to see if he gets approved or denied or call reconsideration line before decision is made? He has good credit and income only issue might be amount of credit or number of cards with Chase.
Not sure. At this point, maybe just wait for the letter to come and then call. Surprising no letter came yet. Maybe call and see what’s doing if it doesn’t come soon.
Applied for both SW premier and plus about a week apart. Pending on both, but received and email three days later saying approved the card was in the mail. Didn’t call recon either. Not sure why both went pending but it only took a couple of days to get approved, in regards to the comment above I think after 10 days I would call recon, might be something small.
Nice that they approved without having to call in.
I had the unfortunate experience of going to pending for the Premier card, and then recon told me they were sending a 4506-T, which would ultimately result in a 2nd hard pull and have my taxes released to Citi for verification. I just threw in the towel on that app, as it didn’t seem worth the trouble/2nd pull. Pretty much of a bummer.
Bummer + waisted hard pull 🙁
I just got that today, what happens when you don’t send in the 4506-t? Can they close your accounts? I don’t want another hard pull against my account.
I’m ready to apply for TY Premier, Prestige and ATT Access more for multiple family members. I saw some comments that AmEx Gift Card purchase was NOT coded as cash advance on Citi Double Cash. I really need to buy AGC to complete min spend on cards in family members names. Have you collected any datapoints on AGC counting as purchases more recently by Citi as opposed to cash advance in the past? Specifically for TY points earning cards? Thanks.
I won’t guarantee anything, but I”ve also seen those reports and my gut feeling is that your totally fine with AGC. I’ll be writing a post soon hopefully which really explains more what’s going on with Citi etc.
In any case, you can lower your CA limit. If it goes through, it should count for minimum spend too.
@Chuck Sithe
I did the exact same application a few weeks ago, two sw cards at the same time and got the same pending. I called in and got approved but it took some answering questions about my “business” and never asked why i needed both. Just told them the advantages I saw in both cards. It was more about me and was rather painless, although I did have to fax in my proof address on one them.
Thanks for the data point.