I know the best thing I could do would be to garden fully until my 6/16/14 date listed in my siggy, but I am looking for some advise here. I was approved for the Chase/SWA and Barclay Arrival in Nov and Dec respectively along with the Cap 1, Wally and Sam's as well. At the time I was approved for the SWA, I app'd for the Freedom and was declined on recon. The lady I spoke with just said that they wanted to see how I handled the higher limit. I totally understand that and respect that decision. Since the approval with Chase I have run through approx $10K and paid approx $7.5K (I currently have a little Christmas shopping on there) and will probably run another $5K through and have it paid by mid Feb.
My son plays college baseball and will also be playing in the Cape Cod league this summer. I plan on spending about 20-25 nights in Marriott hotels from March 1 to Aug 31 and the 5X points as well as the signup bonus on the Marriott Premier would sure come in handy. Approx 2/3 of the nights will be from Mar 1 until the initial gardening end date of June 16.
My current TU FICO score is 708 (per Barclay) and will hopefully be a little higher with lower util by mid Feb. I do have 1 baddie on TU and will have 8 inq within 6 mos by mid Feb. My question is should I plan to app for the Marriott card in mid Feb or forgo the extra points for the sake of letting my new CCs season and wait until my original garden end date of June 16 when there will be no inq within 6 mos?
I am sorry for the long post but felt like it was important to give you all the info I could. Thanks for the help guys.
*Brain hurts*
I'm gonna wait and let others speak who have experience here lol =)
@lg8302ch wrote:In your situation I would probably forget all common sense and go for the gamble. I would pay down all my Chase cards and app as late as possible before travel just so the card would be ready to travel if approved. Fully aware of a possible waste of HP but my motto would be here: "if it works perfect and if not just a wasted HP" but I would try it. Under other circumstances I would definitely garden but here I would simply try maybe in February that gives you a little more time to pay down your Chase cards
I was going to wait until the week before I started traveling and go for an expedited if approved. Just hoping that my activity with Chase until then will be enough to get it.
@lg8302ch wrote:In your situation I would probably forget all common sense and go for the gamble. I would pay down all my Chase cards and app as late as possible before travel just so the card would be ready to travel if approved. Fully aware of a possible waste of HP but my motto would be here: "if it works perfect and if not just a wasted HP" but I would try it. Under other circumstances I would definitely garden but here I would simply try maybe in February that gives you a little more time to pay down your Chase cards
+1 on the gamble part & wait until like late Jan or Feb. I don't know the reasons for Freedom denial, but all my Chase cards have been approved exactly month apart. CSP in Oct/ Hyatt in Nov/ and now Ritz in December. I did put high usage on CSP & Hyatt and PIF. I also have checking/savings w/ Chase and that could be a contributing factor, but so far Chase has been good to me. If you were to gamble and end up having to recon, tell the analyst that you're willing to move some of your SWA CL to Marriott to get approved. With your score I think you should be okay IMO. Gluck and let us know what you end up doing.
