@Anonymous wrote:
Ahhh ok! That's what I've gathered from the forums: everyone's experience is different. Right time, with the right credit analyst, the right situation. I'll try again in a week or so (give my bruised ego some time to recover.. Ha!). Already had a pretty good day with BOA, luck only goes so far!
I was also wondering, what is the motivation of the credit analysts? As in all negotiations, you have to know what's driving the other party and come at it from their side. Obviously the bank doesn't want to give out free money, but what might tip their hand? The usual ('m disappointed, loyal customer, this is frustrating, etc) didn't work. how did you get the bonus points out of them?
I really can't answer that question accurately as I am not an analyst. I would say some of it has to do with odds. Sometimes mood. I recon'd my chase app for IHG/Hyatt. The woman was so rude to me and basically said I wasn't good enough and so on....yet a few days later another woman was super nice, and approved my IHG. Then the next day they were very nice and said they were sorry but they wanted to see how I handled the first card. Found out later with chase cobranded cards they are super lenient and its best to just let them process.
Interesting call with BOA the other day. Rep came at me from every angle known to man kind to get me to do a balance transfer onto my amtrak card. He went on and on about how it would give me extra activity on the card and that I would still have plenty of room for purchases. Lol. Long story short, I gave in and did a very small BT at 0 until April 2017 (the bt fee was 3% and only cost me a few bucks). I can 100% guarantee you his motivation was some type of a quota/goal. BOA is known for balance transfer offers and his agression clearly demonstrated that.
I have no idea why they honored the bonus on our CR. In doing more research it looks to be an anomaly. Maybe it is because the account was so new? It was less than 60 days old if I recall. I wish I wouldn't have brought it up to ya, now I feel bad. I hope your ego isn't bruised as you shouldn't take it personally. Besides...you will get $30 every quarter for many years to come now with the BBR. I am betting at some point in the future you will at least be able to leverage some of your limit from either card to get another. But I am NOT encouraging you to do this any time soon. Building credit takes time. There is still no reason you wouldn't be able to enjoy some extra perks in exchange for your loyalty to a new card though from time to time.
You basically have a few choices now. The best one would be to relax and let your cards age, maybe add a card every 5 years after the CSP/Freedom. Or you could take risks and try to expedite the process. Right after approval go grab a venture and a quicksilver. Limits will be larger I'd imagine. Then go get your united card, etc. The problem then becomes your ability to spend enough to handle all the cards. Your main goal from the get go was a big limit. If you do what I did and add all these cards for bonuses, your limits will not grow as fast. I am slighly stuck in the 2k limit range, at least it seems to be the most common for me. With time this will improve. (back in april I only had a 1k cap1, a 2k visa, and a $500 credit one) If I would have applied for fewer cards, perhaps my CLIs would have been larger as more spend would be going through fewer cards? Who knows. I really dont care quite frankly about a huge huge limit card. I can suck the money out of one account in 24hrs most days and be fine. Its not that often where I would go blow several grand in one hit unless its insurance, property tax, or car buying time. Your need for the larger limit was justified. You wanted to use a single card for trips and not ruin your utilization.
You will make mistakes. Its part of learning. Hopefully you will soon have tips and success stories to share here too. You can always take a step back and calibrate. Sock drawer a card, or even close a card, or product change a card (like you did). Most folks would have just applied for another card. Bravo to you for making use out of something you already had! And for combining an inquiry for a CLI with a super cool bonus card.
so I chickened out and of course didn't ask for the credit limit.