With the current situation, I thought it might not be a bad idea to grab a card with a 0% introductory purchase offer. I thought I'd go for an airline card since there's at least anecdotal evidence that some cobranded travel cards come with higher limits. As a loyal Delta flyer, I wanted to stick to SkyTeam members or other Delta partners. I already have 3 Delta credit cards, so adding another doesn't make sense right now and there's no 0% intro offer. The Air France/KLM card and Virgin Atlantic cards are both Bank of America, and I am positive they would take away from my main $90k BT card if I applied for a new account, so out for now. US Bank has families of Korean Air, Aeromexico, and (soon to be a close Delta partner) LATAM cards. But only being with USB for a couple of years and already having 2 of their cards with $42.5k in limits, I'm not sure how generous they would be.
So, that left two remaining SkyTeam credit cards available in the US: FNBO's China Airlines Blue Card and Gold Card. I could find zero data points on this card, here or elsewhere, and really had no idea what to expect. (My excuse for leaving the Garden is "I did it for science.") Application process requires you to sign up for (or log into) a China Airlines Dynasty Flyer account to even go to the application page. The application was pretty standard and much of the info was already filled in from my Dynasty Flyer account. Seconds after hitting Submit:
$15,000 starting line with FNBO seems to be high from what I read glancing through approvals for their other cards, so I am satisfied. I don't know what the APR is. This is one of those cards with a 3-tiered APR, so I don't know if I got low, medium, or high, as it was not disclosed anywhere. There was no option to create an online account when I applied last night, and I didn't even get an email from FNBO until this morning:
The "Enroll Online" button is a teaser, as it requires the account number, expiration, and security code to enroll. I got an alert immediately that they pulled EX which is currently 807 and has 3 scoreable inquiries all of which would have been over a year in the next 2 to 6 weeks. I was 7/24, 2/12, 1/6, and a day shy of 0/3 when I apped last night. I was planning to be 4/24 in November, but will now have to wait until March 2021 when I'll be 3/24 even with this new addition before applying for a Chase Marriott card.
China Airlines is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan (ROC). China Eastern and XiamenAir are the two remaining members based on the mainland (PRC) after China Southern left SkyTeam.
@simplynoir wrote:Reminded of that scene in Armageddon when he discusses American/Russian components
(And thank you!)
Great story, K. 
Congrats! on your approval.
@Mahraja wrote:Awesome Congrats @K-in-Bostan .. i received a pre approved offer from a local bank "cards backed by First Bankcard" was thinking to hit that offer ..so yeah with FNBO 15k is sufficient to start with boston ...
Thank you my friend. This didn't do a whole lot for me catching up to you, though. Still about $300k behind. 😂
Yeah most of their approvals seemed a bit on the low side, but looking at others with similar profiles gave me hope that the SL would be decent. Again, no DPs to be found at all for these airline cards. My understanding is that the norm is SP CLIs every 4 months so here's hoping.