Safe to Apply Twice in A Day?

[Anonymous]

Should be fine. Do chase first if you actually did get the $300 offer. As mentioned AU does count so by their eyes you're at 4/24 now. But Citi's hardest rule is 6/6, so you have to have less than 6 hard inquiries in the previous 6 months. So even if denied for Chase you'll be good to apply for Citi. Moreover, if you apply with Chase, I'd wait until the inquiry shows up on my credit report before applying to Citi, so you can be sure there's not some delay and you eliminate the possibility of the Citi card getting instant approval and Chase seeing it, making you 5/24 by their eyes. And I've read that calling in to recon cuz your 5/24 is due to AU accounts doesn't always work so I wouldn't bank on that.

If you're going with the Citi DC for the 2%, consider the PayPal cash back MasterCard. It gets 2% but essentially you can get the PayPal business debit card, link the 2, and you'll get 3% on all credit purchases and 2% on all debit purchases. I think it'd be easier to get than the Citi DC as well.

[Anonymous]

Guess it doesn't hurt to try, it's only an inquiry and seems as if you don't have many of those anayways. Small price to pay for the card you really want. 

[Gmood1]

Yeah, it's only one or two inqs at best. So if you don't get it. There are other banks that will give you a shot.. I'm sure.
Navy FCU and USAA are both lenient on thin files as well.

[Anonymous]

Very true, the worst that can happen is a denial, yet the potential upside is very worth it. I'll gladly be the Guinea pig! If things don't work out, should I apply for "easier" cards to establish a better profile to work up to the dream card, or just wait it out to improve length of credit?

I'd prefer not to open extraneous cards just build toward cards I actually want, but if it's gotta be done, I suppose. Category spend is pretty low so the only incentive I have to open a card is a good flat rate or sign up bonuses.

[Gmood1]

You could be ok with the lower tier Chase card. If it were one of their higher tiers. You'd have to open accounts elsewhere and build some credit history before Chase gives in.
Both individuals who reported initial denials had 800 plus scores and at least one had 10 plus years of credit history on one or two CCs. Just not enough of their own.
One was finally able to recon after several calls. The other wasn't so lucky.

[Anonymous]

Dude if you don't get approved for the PayPal Cash Back card then I'd question the utility of any card that you could get approved for: from what I can tell Synchrony is a pretty easy approval especially if you don't have any preexisting Synchrony cards.

See if you don't get the cards you want, getting other cards wouldn't just be about building your profile, imo you should also only put in for cards that actually benefit you. That said you may be able to get an easier one that has no utility but can be PCed to another one later that does offer utility, but then of course you're looking at a reduced AAoA etc. I'd stay the course with that Freedom Unlimited $300 offer and second app for the PayPal Cash Back card, and if for some reason you're denied on both and calls for reconsideration don't help out, then there's your sign to wait...

Either way, might wanna look into a Kasasa Cash checking account though, the one with Consumers Credit Union is nationally available, free, and pays 3.09% APY on balances up to $10k when you meet the monthly requirements (hardest part is 12 debit transactions a month: I do 12 amazon digital gift card reloads for 50 cents a piece so my opportunity cost is only 30 cents/mo [as opposed to putting $6 spend on a 5% CB card, so I'm out 30 cents to get my interest lol]).

[Anonymous]

Is there a resource to read up on the 3% with linking paypal cashback with the business debit you talked about earlier? Sounds fairly complicated haha. I'm just arbitrarily more inclined to go with Citi over Paypal for a 2% card for fear of potential horror stories with customer service that may be unfounded. I'm not sure that checking account option would work for my situation.

[Gmood1]

Synchrony hasn't been bad to me at all. The cards are SP CLIs and they grow very fast. I haven't had any issues with the five Synchrony cards I have. Every single one has worked on each purchase they were used.
The Paypal is a straight forward 2% cash back card with no hoops to jump through. It's certainly an option.
Citi is more finicky and slow to grow by comparison. The rewards threshold isn't the best either. Not a bad card by any means, but it's certainly not perfect. Citi's app is probably the worst of any lender I use right now.

[Anonymous]

As gmood suggested, the PayPal card is issued and handled by Synchrony - it's a cobranded PayPal card. Just like getting the Marvel card doesn't mean your account issued by Marvel directly, so does this mean your PayPal card isn't issued by PayPal.

It's pretty simple really. The business debit used to require either a premier or business PayPal acct, but the premier and basic have since been merged so anyone can get the business debit, just go to PayPals site, find it, and apply. As long as you have a PayPal account you'll be fine...actually based on your last post it sounds like you may not have a PayPal account or want one? It's actually required for either of those products - but you shouldn't keep any money in the account for this to work anyway.

There's a thread here that details the setup:
http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Earn-3-on-everything-using-one-card-LONG-UPDATE/td-p/51...

Essentially you get the debit card and the CC, and when you go to the debit card account webpage on your PayPal acct you set up the PayPal cash back cc as the backup funding source (can only do it with a PayPal cc which is why you can't just do it with the Citi DC). The debit card pulls from the PayPal account balance, but when it's $0 it reverts to the backup funding. Then you'll get 2% on every purchase with the debit card via the credit card - each transaction goes through both - and 1% for every credit transaction on the debit card (when ran as debit theres no extra 1% but you still get the 2% from the CC), the main stipulation being to get the 1% from the debit card you have to run $100 through it in that given month.

So basically after you set up the backup funding (takes like 2 minutes if that), you just sock drawer the credit card and carry around and use the debit card, ensure that your PayPal account is always at $0 when you use the card (the cash back deposits into the PayPal acct so transfer it out to your checking acct each month), and yeah just ensure you put $100 at least through it to get the 3% instead of 2%. Also note there are certain purchases that don't take credit, or like charitable donations where it's better not to use credit - 2% on debit transactions is friggin stellar in today's market. Of course even if you don't hit $100 you'll still get 2% on debit transactions as well as credit transactions.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your clear explanation, I do have a PayPal account that I rarely use. This is a really intriguing reason to get the PayPal instead especially since it's one of the features, assuming they do not remove it in the future.