To answer both questions, hopefully. I don't have any accounts with BoA, haven't called reconsideration yet, I will wait until after the 17 of March as that is when my AMEX Platinum is past one year old, that will put it to 3 cards in the past year vs 5 when they were going over my account this past Tuesday.
They did counterofffer with a secured card, though i didn't ask if it was an Alaska one or something along the lines of the Cap 1 Plat. If it were along the lines of the Plat, there is some scripe that I have with it: (1) people open the Plat to improve their score, opening biz cards don't report to personal credit so that doesn't help with me with my 750 score from TU that was pulled; (2) if the secured card earns no rewards, whats the point of having it, the bank makes the interchange fee and you get nothing, not even the benefit of increasing your own credit score. Though you may argue that it helps establish a relationship with BoA, but honestly, I rather just open a plain CD than do the secure card, that's my 2 cents for why I would not open the secure card.
I am a grad student and opened the card for my parent's biz as they don't want to deal with CC so I may as well open it for my own benefit if they are actually going to use it for their purchases.
