Thoughts on App O Ramas and Instant Alerts from Credit Sesame

Instant Notifications

We reported that Credit Sesame is switching over from displaying the information in your Experian credit report to your Transunion report, see Credit Sesame Switching to Transunion. Interestingly, they seem to have also added a new feature which instantly sends you an email when a hard inquiry is done on your credit report.

Last week, I applied for a credit card and the bank did a Transunion inquiry. In under 60 seconds from when I submitted the application, I received an email from Sesame informing me that there was a new inquiry on my credit report. Whoa!

credit sesame gmail 2

Upon login, they showed me that there was an inquiry on my Transunion credit report.

credit sesame tu

Apparently, besides for switching from Experian to Transunion, they now send out instant notifications for hard pulls as well. I’ve gotten some notifications from Sesame in the past, but they were usually useless things like “credit usage alerts” or “balance alerts”, things that are changing all the time. Not sure why they didn’t send out inquiry alerts. In any case, now they are and it comes instantly, literally.

This certainly makes Credit Sesame more useful. Though overall I think the change to Transunion is negative, this is a nice little feature to find out about a Transunion pull in real time. Another credit monitoring service which I have didn’t tell me about the pull until the next day.

App O Rama?

Many people make a habit of applying for many credit cards on the same day. There are numerous factors involved in the App O Rama approach, one of them being that it takes time for the credit report to get updated and that the second bank in your application spree won’t see the inquiry done by the first bank in the spree. (I also just learned that the term App O Rama actually has a Wikipedia page and a Wall Street Journal article written about it.)

Many have cast doubts over whether this delayed-reporting theory still holds true today and my Sesame experience has me more skeptical than ever that there’s a delay at all. Possibly a few seconds, likely not more than that.

It is possible that there’s a difference between Sesame receiving the info versus an inquiring bank, but logically it would seem that if the report is updated so that Sesame gets access to the new info, that new information would be available to a bank who pulls the credit report as well.

Other Factors

Of course, there are many other reasons why some prefer to consolidate their credit card applications:

  • Credit score may not be affected. Though we’re inclined to believe that the inquiry shows up on the credit report instantly, we still don’t know if that’s the case for the credit score as well. There is a chance that the score doesn’t update the same way with real-time data and won’t be affected for a few hours/days.
  • The new accounts aren’t yet showing up the report. It takes a few days and sometimes longer for the new credit card account to show up on your credit report. The exact time varies by financial institution, some take just a day or two and many take over a month. Even if the second bank sees the inquiry done by the first bank, they won’t see the account added to the report until at least a day later, which may make it easier to get approved for the second card.
  • Easier to stay organized. Some find it easier to stay organized by batch-processing applications every, say, three months.
  • Score jumps after 3 or 6 months. Some time after an inquiry dings your score, it jumps back. This is supposed to happen at the 3 and 6 month stages (i.e. it rebounds a little at the 3-month mark and rebounds more/completely at the 6-month mark). Since all your hard pulls are consolidated, you’ll be able to go and confidently apply for more cards 3/6 months later when the negative effect has worn down.
  • Consolidate inquiries from the same bank. If you’re applying for more than one card from the same bank, you can sometimes get just one hard pull showing on your credit report for both applications done in the same day/hour as the inquiries get consolidated. See Card Issuers That Combine Multiple Credit Pulls/Inquiries.

Personally, I just cherry-pick credit card applications, but I’m also not the most aggressive signup bonus chaser. Different things work for different people.

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Greg
Greg (@guest_164597)
August 27, 2015 16:20

Hi Will,

I am very new to the CC pts game so I apologize if this has been asked many times. Also, not sure if this is the right place to ask this but is there a way to apply for a card without them doing a hard pull. 3 weeks ago I applied for and was accepted for the AMEX everyday rewards card. This week I applied for and was rejected for the SPG Amex card. I am going to call the recon line and see if I can reverse the decision but, now I am really worried that applying for my next card will result in another ding if they do a hard pull and I get rejected. I get the feeling it is better to apply by phone with a customer service agent rather than the automated online application process. I was thinking you can request that they do a soft pull rather than a hard pull. Sorry for the convoluted wording… thanks for the assistance.

Rick I
Rick I (@guest_110954)
April 29, 2015 13:16

I thought your post was very balanced and showed both sides of the story RE “AOR” or “Get them as they come” system. As a heavy card applicant I still using the every 91 day approach as I hate the denial for “too many recent inquiries”

More data points from readers/churners in the coming months will help clarify the issue for sure.

Jb
Jb (@guest_110278)
April 28, 2015 14:07

Is there a free experian service now?