@BronzeTrader wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I worked diligently to sort out the mixed file, which brought my normal score (761) back out. A month after the rejections and stress of losing my Chase portfolio, the spree was on!
In order of approval, I managed to snag:
1) Barclays Arrival+ - $12,500
2) Capital One Venture - $15,000
3) BCE CLI - $2,000 to $6,000
4) Discover Double Dip CLI - $4,500 to $6,800
5) SPG Business - $25,000
6) Wife's CSR CLI - $11,000 to $20,000
7) Citi ThankYou Premier - $9,800
8) Ritz - $16,000
Very nice!
The one question I have is that, all the credits look nice, but will all the credit help in any way? I see they will lower our utilization % and give you more room to borrow more $$$. And there is a lot of redundancies with the cards. You get about $100,000 more credlt line, but what are your economical gains?
Great question. I'll lay the reasoning out with the caveat that my situation is reasonably unique.
1) Monthly personal expenses are between $7,500-$10,000. Business expenses vary between 100k and 10k per month, depending on what bills are due and whether we're expanding. This makes it pretty easy for us to hit sign up bonuses. I plan to cruise through a good chunk of the bonus market twice a year for the forseeable future. Last year I generated almost $20,000 in value through various sign up bonuses and regular business and personal spending. This year looks to be a little higher, but focused more on direct spend and less on bonuses. I travel enough to use the points effectively.
2) I'm remodeling and furnishing a fairly expensive home; furnishings will cost a lot and my contractor takes Visa. I'm also opening two new asset heavy businesses this year. Having somehwere to put this for a month or so lets me sell stock or bonds at advantageous times or make vintage one of a kind purchases without worrying about having already sold assets.
3) The business card will replace spending on a charge card for one of my businesses; the points associated with it would be going through a different AMEX product anyway, but the SPG points are more valuable for the travel I have planned. It will need a CLI in short order, or to be used in conjuction with a PRG. I'll find it to be a pain to remember to pay it mid-cycle.
4) The CLI on the CSR is simply to keep my wife's util lower. She doesn't pay until the balance cuts. I'd actually like to get it closer to $40k, but she'll need to app for another card and combine to get that. I'll probably have her app for a CSP or Freedom Unlimited and merge lines at some point in the near future. She's still eligible under 5/24 and for both bonuses.
5) Discover CLI was auto, I asked for more after I got it. BCE CLI was intentional to push it in the direction of a 50k limit. I'd like to get higher starting lines in the future.
6) TY Premier was to ensure I could get in and establish an internal score with Citi. I'll likely get a Prestige or future equivalent in a couple of years. I don't need it now, and got a nice bonus offer in the mail for this.
7) Ritz is specifically for Marriott/SPG status. I'll have the spend (and consider the marginal value worthwhile) to get Platinum status. It makes a big difference for us when we travel to be accomodated with a top floor room. The last Hilton property I stayed at bumped me for a person with Diamond status; I decided I'd like to not experience that again. I'll combine all but 5k of my Freedom Unlimited credit line here and use it for most of my spending.
8) Before the spree, I had 1.5x this spending power with AMEX in charge cards.. Heaven forbid I ever get nailed with FR, but if it ever happens I still need to be able to live life as usual while they go through their process. I actually need to develop a bigger business library outside of AMEX, but they're just so easy to work with.
9) I pay all credit cards in full. If I want to borrow money, I have many options that are around 4%. The large credit lines are mainly just for monthly float, large purchases outside of standard living expenses, and keeping utilization down. I can emphatically say that I'll never use any of these cards to spend money I don't have.
10) I'm currently holding less than half my income (exluding income generated from stock investments and similar) in revolving credit lines. I'm rapidly working to build higher lines as I ignored credit cards as viable leverage for too long. I'd like to get spending power of roughly 100k with two companies other than AMEX in the next five years.
Hopefully this helps!
those are some great pickups.
