I don't see any flaws; would you be moving any of the current 3X dining and travel spend away from CSR in order to get the 3.5% cash back with Premium Rewards and Platinum Honors? Only advice I might give is wait until the 3 months have passed and you officially get Platinum Honors prior to applying? I'm sure I don't need to tell you that many others with otherwise exceptional profiles have had difficulty obtaining the card.
Redemption options for PR are far more flexible valuable than TR. With the TR card you must redeem them against travel purchases for maximum value. If you use the $100 airline credit each year, the AF is -$5 so it's still cheaper than TR since they pay you to keep it. While having that amount of deposits for only one month would theoretically achieve the 3 month balance requirement for Platinum Honors, I'm pretty sure that their system is automated and it is granted after 3 months of maintaining combined deposits of $100,000 or more. You may find some value in the 100 free monthly trades as well.
I've not read any instances of people downgrading the Premium Rewards card. It should be theoretically possible, and I'm hoping the reverse is true as I'd like to one day close my own card but PC my significantly older (former MBNA card) Travel Rewards into Premium Rewards.
For Delta, the credit still seems to cover the remainder of payment when a gift card has been used. So grab a $50 gift card at Target, Staples, or Best Buy, and then charge the rest. It also works for paying the $29 fee for guests at SkyClub, and if you needed to *gasp* fly Main Cabin, it’ll pay for food and drinks. Also taxes on award fares!
No, it sounds completely reasonable and well-thought out.
I'm a much more simple traveler and only got the CSR last year but I have also considered diversifying with the Premium Rewards card. I just got over $130K in credit lines with Chase in the past year so I've filled out that part of my plan. Bank of America is right behind Chase in terms of size and it's also a bank I have long ties with over 20 years. So solidfying that relationship will also be helpful to my credit file. I like being diversifed with different lenders but also having redemption options open with different programs, as long as I don't overextend my spending.
It's interesting that you don't hear more about the Premium Rewards card. For such an apparently exclusive card, it's very low-key. I think a lot of the denials on the forum, though, were from people who cold-apped and didn't understand that the target market is narrowly focused at relationship clients and underwriting is strict in that regard. I definitely see that now, so if I apply it will be after I reestablish some basic banking and move assets into Merrill to fortify my position with them.
I noticed something when I got my approval letter recently from BofA for my credit line request on my Cash Rewards. I had gone up to $50K a few months ago and some My Fico members told me I hadn't asked for enough, even though I wasn't using anywhere close to that amount. This time, I asked for $100K and they countered with $70K. In the approval letter, they stated why they didn't approve me for the higher requested limit. It included "We also considered your relationship with us ... " That is probably the first time I remember that I've ever see a bank specifically mention relationship as a partial reason for not granting a higher limit. So relationship matters.
Let us know how the app turns out and good luck!
