Easiest Approval: Amex BCE, Chase Freedom, or BoA 1-2-3?

[yellowcake]

I'm looking to boost my portfolio of prime cards (I got the Discover More last year and recently PC'd it to Discover IT and have had the Citi Dividend cards for 8 years now), so I want to apply for one of those 3 cards in 2 months. My Util will be under 5%, AAoA around 4 years, TU score from Myfico about 720. Annual income 65k, have about 90k in installment loans (student loans + Car loans + personal loans).

I want to ultimately have all 3 , but I don't want to take all the hard pulls immediately.

I will stop applying as soon as I get approved for 1 of them. Which one should I go for first?

Thanks!

[thom02099]

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@yellowcake wrote:

I'm looking to boost my portfolio of prime cards (I got the Discover More last year and recently PC'd it to Discover IT and have had the Citi Dividend cards for 8 years now), so I want to apply for one of those 3 cards in 2 months. My Util will be under 5%, AAoA around 4 years, TU score from Myfico about 720. Annual income 65k, have about 90k in installment loans (student loans + Car loans + personal loans).

I want to ultimately have all 3 , but I don't want to take all the hard pulls immediately.

I will stop applying as soon as I get approved for 1 of them. Which one should I go for first?

Thanks!

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How many inquiries do you have on your TU?  What about EX/EQ?  Any idea what your EX score is?  AMEX and Chase almost always pull EX.  BofA seems to be all over the board for pulls, sometimes depending on where you live.  Here in the Rockies they like to pull TU but I've also seen where they pull EQ and EX in other parts of the country as well.  With BofA it could be a crap shoot for which pull you'll be subject to.  That 90K in installment loans, might be a detriment.  Those kinds of loans are not supposed to carry quite as much weight as revolving credit, but that's a fairly hefty amount to be carrying. 

[affluenter]

I think you should go for the AMEX BCE first so that you can take advantage of backdating in the future.

[OptimasPrime]

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@affluenter wrote:

I think you should go for the AMEX BCE first so that you can take advantage of backdating in the future.

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BCE is probably the most difficult of the trio to be approved for (difficult is a relative term in this case). Also, for backdating purposes, it wouldn't really matter if the op applied now or in december, as the member since date would still be 2013 for future backdating purposes. So in that regard, I don't think there is any reason to rush apping for the bce.

To answer the ops initial question - I would say that I would say that the 123 is the easiest to get approved for, with chase freedom a very close second in terms of underwriting (just my opinion, you could easily justify flipping the two). However, in my experience, BCE is a cut above those two in terms of underwriting.  

[Tran92]

I agree BofA and Chase Freedom should be the easiest.

[distantarray]

ever since Amex put a $6,000 a year cap on extra point categories BCP has become a MUCH easier card to obtain. Regardless I don't see a single point in getting all 3. It all depends on what your priorities are, but those cards are all cash back cards (minus freedom if you have a ink or sapphire combo for travel)

I find cash back cards to be pretty bad, I fell into the bandwagon of 5% everything in the past and deeply regret it. I save my Chase points for travel. 65,000 ultimate reward points transfers to United at 1:1 ratio. In the summers a flight to Asia costs upto $2,800 for a coach ticket. You can redeem 65,000 points for a trip from Florida to Asia which is a great deal. So I think in this case 1 Ultimate reward point is worth MUCH more than 1 2 or even 3% cash back. In this case it's worth 4.3+ cents per dollar. For first class you can get it for 130,000 points costs $12,000 + in the summer so that's 9.2 cents per point value.

So remember cash back is not always king, it's much nicer to save your points for a nice international trip imo. If cash works for you that's great, but there are plenty of other cards out there that would probably be better. Chase Ink would save you atleast $300 a year just on cable internet and phone bills (cell included) without having to put any additional charges on the card.

Also look into your grocery store if they offer extra discounts for mass ordering gift cards if you use the BCE, Publix grocery gives 3% discount if you buy $4,000 + if you call and order at one time. It's nice to have $6,000 worth of gift cards to completely max out your rewards completely and get total of 6% on a BCE or 9% on a BCP.

[Pilotdude]

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@distantarray wrote:

ever since Amex put a $6,000 a year cap on extra point categories BCP has become a MUCH easier card to obtain. Regardless I don't see a single point in getting all 3. It all depends on what your priorities are, but those cards are all cash back cards (minus freedom if you have a ink or sapphire combo for travel)

I find cash back cards to be pretty bad, I fell into the bandwagon of 5% everything in the past and deeply regret it. I save my Chase points for travel. 65,000 ultimate reward points transfers to United at 1:1 ratio. In the summers a flight to Asia costs upto $2,800 for a coach ticket. You can redeem 65,000 points for a trip from Florida to Asia which is a great deal. So I think in this case 1 Ultimate reward point is worth MUCH more than 1 2 or even 3% cash back. In this case it's worth 4.3+ cents per dollar. For first class you can get it for 130,000 points costs $12,000 + in the summer so that's 9.2 cents per point value.

So remember cash back is not always king, it's much nicer to save your points for a nice international trip imo. If cash works for you that's great, but there are plenty of other cards out there that would probably be better. Chase Ink would save you atleast $300 a year just on cable internet and phone bills (cell included) without having to put any additional charges on the card.

Also look into your grocery store if they offer extra discounts for mass ordering gift cards if you use the BCE, Publix grocery gives 3% discount if you buy $4,000 + if you call and order at one time. It's nice to have $6,000 worth of gift cards to completely max out your rewards completely and get total of 6% on a BCE or 9% on a BCP.

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You just made my brain explode!   

[cowboyguy]

ever since Amex put a $6,000 a year cap on extra point categories BCP has become a MUCH easier card to obtain. Regardless I don't see a single point in getting all 3. It all depends on what your priorities are, but those cards are all cash back cards (minus freedom if you have a ink or sapphire combo for travel)

I find cash back cards to be pretty bad, I fell into the bandwagon of 5% everything in the past and deeply regret it. I save my Chase points for travel. 65,000 ultimate reward points transfers to United at 1:1 ratio. In the summers a flight to Asia costs upto $2,800 for a coach ticket. You can redeem 65,000 points for a trip from Florida to Asia which is a great deal. So I think in this case 1 Ultimate reward point is worth MUCH more than 1 2 or even 3% cash back. In this case it's worth 4.3+ cents per dollar. For first class you can get it for 130,000 points costs $12,000 + in the summer so that's 9.2 cents per point value.

So remember cash back is not always king, it's much nicer to save your points for a nice international trip imo. If cash works for you that's great, but there are plenty of other cards out there that would probably be better. Chase Ink would save you atleast $300 a year just on cable internet and phone bills (cell included) without having to put any additional charges on the card.

Also look into your grocery store if they offer extra discounts for mass ordering gift cards if you use the BCE, Publix grocery gives 3% discount if you buy $4,000 + if you call and order at one time. It's nice to have $6,000 worth of gift cards to completely max out your rewards completely and get total of 6% on a BCE or 9% on a BCP

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^This should be nominated for post of the year.

A quick question though. By chase (in 2nd paragraph), do you mean Chase Freedom?

[distantarray]

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@cowboyguy wrote:

A quick question though. By chase (in 2nd paragraph), do you mean Chase Freedom?

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yep

[Anonymous]

OP- Apply for the one you want most or all if you want, I'd be willing to bet you'd get approved. In early January, I applied for AMEX BCE, Chase Freedom, Discover IT and US Bank Platinum Visa. I was approved for all of them and I was in a worse position credit wise (at the time) than you are. At the time, I had a 700 fico, 62% uti, 4.5 yrs AAoA, 192k mortgage, and another 40k in other installments. Go for it, you'll get what you want I'm sure. Since, my uti has dropped to 15% and my score jumped to 727 even with 5 hard pulls (the 5th was due to a limit increase on a card).

The reason I applied for all is because I am replacing  a couple very low limit ($500) sub-prime cards.