On June 27th, my spouse decided we should have another hotel card. We've been traveling extensively. We have a peuny limit with Wyndham Rewards by Barclay ($500, and they WON'T BUDGE!) and we have a $3000 limit with Chase IHG. The spouse has A LOT of new accounts in the past 2 years and A LOT of inquiries. Utilization is optimal near 8 or 9%, and credit scores are in the 720's across the board. With the new Chase policy, we weren't sure if this would go our way our not, but figured because Marriott is obviously co-branded, we stood a better shot of being approved. We applied and got the pending message. We called the automated line countless times and kept getting the "two week" notice. Usually this is favorable, but I was wondering if we called in if it might provoke a credit analyst to automatically deny because of inquiries/new accounts. So we let the application sit for 10 days. Until today.
We called in directly to the verification/fraud operations department, and indeed, the hold up was the need to go through the security questions. The rep. asked some VERY weird questions: the credit limit on our Freedom card (not that hard, but still unusual), and then: THE DUE DATE on the Freedom account! She allowed us to go look quickly. Wow! We've never been asked that one. Upon providing her the right answer, she said she needed to put us on a brief hold. I thought: "oh oh... this is the part where she comes back and says 'everything looks fine but the number of new accounts' and 'could you please explain them (even though your explanation is still going to wind up with a denial anyway)?' Nope:
"CONGRATULATIONS, you've been APPROVED for $15,000!"
What's funny is a day before this we asked for a cli on our Freedom and were DENIED! Our limits with Chase (6 months of history with them are: Freedom $4500, IHG $3000, Slate $1500, and Sapphire $5000)
In summary: Marriott by Chase: APPROVED ----> $15,000 after security questions.
(an aside here: I also applied for the Bloomingdales card online. Upon submitting, it didn't even spin or think, I just got the "thank you for your application." That was the ONLY message! Just a couple of weeks ago I received the Macy's store card for $1000, an AMEX upgrade for an additional $3000, the major purchases for $5800, and the club account for $2500). I called the Bloomingdales credit department and was told: 'the application requires further processing and I'd receive mail in 7-10 days.' Well, I wasn't too sure about this. Ugh. Denied? What? So I chatted a credit rep. and got the same thing about "requires further processing." Odd, because I was contacted almost immediately by Macy's telling me that I needed to call in for security purposes, but nothing of the sort with Bloomingdale's. So I guess I'll wait the 7-10 days and see what this notice is all about. The credit pull DID happen on my Experian. My gut feeling is DENIED, but I think it's odd they'd deny me after successfully obtaining a Macy's account.)
Congrats!
Awesome SL!