topic Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals in Credit Card Approvals

Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

UncleB — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 04:30:27 GMT

It's been a while since I posted about an approval, but I have a couple that some might find interesting.

First up is the Venmo Visa...

I'm "poking the bear" a bit with Synchrony (this is my 5th card with them) but I wanted the Venmo Visa for 3% back at Walmart. The limit is more than I was expecting and I was really surprised to get the lowest APR. My Vantage 4 score (per the Sam's Club MC website) is 778.

That one got me to thinking... if Synch shuts me down, I'll no longer have my Sam's Club MC to use for gas, which brings us to my next approval... the USAA Rewards Plus American Express, which also has 5% back on gas (up to $3000 gas purchases/year, but that works for me). There is also a $200 bonus for $1k spend which I wanted; I'm still chapped over the upcoming nerf of the Limitless, and $200 makes me feel better.

Results:

I admit this one truly caught me off guard. This is my third USAA card; I have the USAA Rewards Visa at $12k, and the USAA Limitless Visa at $15k. I figured I would probably be approved, but I was expecting $3k to $5k - for reference, my Limitless was approved in 2017 with a limit of $5.5k at the highest APR (at that time, 20.4%). I don't know if they've loosened up their underwriting or if they like me better now since I've been around for a while, but in any case no complaints (even if the limit is definitely overkill for my purposes). My FICO 3 (Experian) was 765.

Finally, I wasn't going to mention the Custom Cash (it's rather run-of-the-mill these days) but while I'm here I'll share those data points as well. I got it last month, and like my other two Citi cards the app went pending. After a few days I called, and they placed me on hold then came back and told me I was approved. This is my most generous Citi approval to date, and also the first time I've not been assigned the highest APR.

They only pulled EQ (with my other two Citi cards it was a double EQ/EX pull). I don't have the letter in front of me at the moment, but the score was in the 780s.

Before these latest additions, my last approval was last summer... it was a Schwab Platinum card back in July (there was no reason to post about that one, since it was only to cash-out MRs and will be closed when the first year is up).

I believe it's very likely that I was able to get higher credit lines and better APRs for these cards than I have historically due to being mindful of the timing of the applications (I won't say 'gardening', since I'm hardly a good example of that).

I've tried to keep this post concise without leaving out anything important. Hopefully some will find these data points helpful.

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

CreditAggie — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 05:03:00 GMT

Congratulations on your approvals!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 07:32:15 GMT

@UncleB

Awesome approvals! Glad you sucked up on some great cards and subs ...

Fingers crossed on not getting a certain bank shut down.

Will we see you back in the garden or are you on a tear?!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

everest — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 09:58:33 GMT

Congrats on your approvals! 🎉

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

bigseegar — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 13:20:31 GMT

Congrats! Nice Sl on the Sync card especially. You're a brave soul no doubt lol. I only have 4 cards with them but they total $53,400 CL and I'm skeered lol to try for another one due to exposure as I've seen folks say that $50K is the "magic number" they start paying attention.

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

Remedios — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 13:39:15 GMT

@UncleB congrats on your new babies!!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

Elpadrino1 — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:07:10 GMT

Congratulations on your approvals!!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

MartyWrite75 — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:45:28 GMT

Nice, UncleB!

Congratulations on your approvals!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

gdale6 — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:21:31 GMT

3 very nice approvals for you, grats on all of them!!!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

NyaBuksh — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:37:26 GMT

Congratulations on your approvals!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

gingerflower — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 20:01:44 GMT

@UncleB

Congratulations on your approvals!!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

Wavester64 — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 20:59:57 GMT

CONGRATS @UncleB !

Question on this >> I'm "poking the bear" a bit with Synchrony (this is my 5th card with them) but I wanted the Venmo Visa for 3% back at Walmart.<<

Does Synchrony have a TOTAL spending limit over all the cards one might have with them? The reason I ask is that I have 3 Sync Cards (Verizon/Lowes/PC Richard), and the one that gets used the most (Verizon) got denied for a CLI request back in September for "The requested amount exceeds the limits set by our credit policy" which makes me think I have hit their limit.

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

cashorcharge — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 21:22:51 GMT

Nicely done @UncleB ! That's terrific!! Congratulations on all your Approvals!! 🎉🥂👏

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

UncleB — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 03:38:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@UncleB

Awesome approvals! Glad you sucked up on some great cards and subs ...

Fingers crossed on not getting a certain bank shut down.

Will we see you back in the garden or are you on a tear?!

Haha, definitely not on a tear, @Anonymous! I can't make an promises, but I don't expect to be applying for anything else in the near future. (I had considered the Banana Republic Visa in a few weeks before it goes to Barclays, but that might be flying too close to the sun with Synch.)

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

UncleB — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 03:45:17 GMT

@bigseegar wrote:
Congrats! Nice Sl on the Sync card especially. You're a brave soul no doubt lol. I only have 4 cards with them but they total $53,400 CL and I'm skeered lol to try for another one due to exposure as I've seen folks say that $50K is the "magic number" they start paying attention.

Thanks!

My other cards with Synch are well-aged (Lowe's 17 years, Belk 15 years, Sam's Club MC 6 years, Care Credit MC 3 years) and I've not asked for a CLI in a while (years), either, so I'm hoping that will work in my favor. I've been over $50k in exposure for ~6 years now, so I don't know if there's anything 'magical' about that - I suspect it's profile dependent.

My new exposure is $73k... who knows if this will put me on the radar or not. There are others with exposure higher than mine who are doing just fine, so my fingers are crossed that I'll be fine as well. (And if not, it's not the end of the world.)

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

UncleB — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 03:47:53 GMT

@Remedios wrote:
@UncleB congrats on your new babies!!

New babies, indeed!

I just realized how old some of the babies are these days... even cards that I think of as still being 'new' are getting long in the tooth, LOL.

Now if mah babies will just continue to stick around for a while... the playpen is getting quite full, ha.

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

UncleB — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 04:01:15 GMT

@Wavester64 wrote:
CONGRATS @UncleB !

Question on this >> I'm "poking the bear" a bit with Synchrony (this is my 5th card with them) but I wanted the Venmo Visa for 3% back at Walmart.<<

Does Synchrony have a TOTAL spending limit over all the cards one might have with them? The reason I ask is that I have 3 Sync Cards (Verizon/Lowes/PC Richard), and the one that gets used the most (Verizon) got denied for a CLI request back in September for "The requested amount exceeds the limits set by our credit policy" which makes me think I have hit their limit.

Thanks, @Wavester64!

Synchrony does have a 'total exposure' ceiling of $100k for most people, although occasionally you'll see reports of people going slightly over. Aside from that, I'm not aware of ceilings on individual cards... at some point they'll likely ask for proof of income, though (usually - but not always - for credit lines ≥$35K).

The message you got likely means that's all they're willing to give you on that card right now. Also keep in mind, anecdotally underwriting is widely thought to be different on various Synch cards - for example, for a while the Rakuten Visa was considered by many to be more difficult to obtain than some of the other Synch cards (I'm not sure if this is still the case), and some consider the Verizon Visa "tougher" than some of the others. In any case, give it some time and try again, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

CreditMagic7 — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 06:17:12 GMT

Congratulations on those new approvals!

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

Adkins — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 19:38:12 GMT

Congratulations, @UncleB! 😎

Re: Venmo Visa, USAA Amex, Citi Custom Cash Approvals

Wavester64 — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 15:13:08 GMT

>>In any case, give it some time and try again, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

@UncleB who's the man! You are!

Noticed it was 6-months today since that last denial and I "gently" poked the Bear (then again maybe a little harder then gently ) and made a request to move the needle from $15K to $20K and I was instantly approved! Sweet!

Thanks for the good advice!