Let me start off with some numbers just so you can get an idea of where I stand. All 3 of my scores are teetering around 700-ish.. they go up and down depending on how much debt I currently have. It's pretty high right now.. it goes up and down between 35% and 50% utilization, which in turn, negatively or positively affects my scores.. 702, 698, 695, 704, 710, 698, etc. You get the idea with the general up and down action.
Current credit cards before the recent approvals:
Golden1 Rewards Visa - $2000
Discover IT - $3600 (auto-cli up form 3k a few weeks ago almost immediately after I redeemed cashback rewards)
Chase Freedom - $2200
Bofa Cash Rewards - $5000
Amex BCP - $6000 (successful 3x cli recently)
My gross yearly income is exactly 66,490
I have 0 negatives on my report, no baddies, etc.
I dont have a mortgage and dont pay rent. I pay some measly bills, utilities, etc. as my part of living in my fiance's house.
Recently, I decided to pull the trigger on the amazon.com rewards visa simply because I buy a TON of stuf from amazon.com and I figure I might as well get 3% back on top of that glorious free 2 day shipping. Chase immediately approved me for $4500 (I think my fako was 704 at the time...whichever one they checked. I have to look still. After that, I wondered if I might be able to use the same HP to get a CLI on my Chase Freedom since it was my lowest limit at the time. The Chase rep said it would have to be an additional HP. I said, fine let's do it. He said, how much credit limit do you want total on the Freedom? I said let's go with $4500 to match the amazon.com card. Waited a moment. Dude: "Good news! If you agree to a total limit of $4400 ($100 less than requested), then we can approve it without doing a HP. Now, this was either triggered by the system or it's a numbers thing. $4400 is exactly twice my current (at that time) credit limit, which was approvable, but $4500 was not. Of course I took it.
Fast forward 1 day later.
I'm sitting at my computer on my 2nd or 3rd beer, and said, "screw it, let's go for the CSP." Pulled the trigger and got this:
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Thank you for submitting a credit card application to Chase.
Here's what you can expect next:
We'll let you know of our decision through U.S. mail within the next 30 days. Please don't resubmit
this application while waiting for our decision.
If we approve your application, we'll send your card and other important information to you by U.S
mail. Once you receive your card, call the number on the sticker right away so you can take
advantage of everything your card has to offer.
If we don't approve your application, we'll send you a letter explaining why.
Thank you for applying for a Chase credit card.
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Okay... so I'll wait until Monday and see if a new account shows up and if not, I'll knock on ye 'ol backdoor. Today arrives. No new account yet. I call the credit analyst number listed on this site and immediately, some guy picks up the phone, sounding really nice. I asked if I can find out if there's something I can do to push the approval forward, and he goes to check. He comes back with this, "I'm sorry to say that you were denied because the CSp app was the 3rd consecutive Chase app within the same month, which triggers the system to auto-decline the application, but give me a moment to see what I can do." Sure thing and thank you, I said. He comes back and asks me my income (with the legal paragraph about alimony, etc.), and about my employer, job title, what I do, etc. He goes away again for a minute then comes back and says he was able to approve me for $5000 (the minimum). Which is fine by me. I'm just happy I got him to reverse the auto-decline.
So in 2-3ish days, I went from a single $2200 Chase Freedom.... to..... $4400 Chase Freedom, $4500 amazon.com rewards visa, and $5000 CSP. And on my lunch today, I signed up for Chase's checking account (for the trifecta) with a $125 bonus I yanked out of my "shred" pile.
Couldn't be happier. Now I just need to decide how to spend $3000 to get those 40k points.
Let me know if I missed something or if someone needs more data on something.
Discover IT $17k / US Bank Ace (VSig) $13.5K / US Bank Cash+ (VSig) $13.5k
