It was time to apply for some new credit cards as we’d finished the spending requirements for our last applications. We don’t apply for many cards between the two of us but we were in a strange situation. Both of us are under Chase’s 5/24 cutoff, mainly because I signed up for two business cards last year, which don’t count towards your number of new applications.
So what cards did we sign up for? One card we already have and another is a replacement for a card we still have. I wasn’t sure we’d be approved for either of them.
JetBlue Plus
The JetBlue Plus card is currently offering a 60,000 point sign-up bonus after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days and paying the $99 annual fee. If I can match my most recent JetBlue redemption of 1.44 cents per point, the bonus is worth $864.
I already have this card, but Sharon doesn’t. She’s no arms dealer, so I hoped Barclays would approve her application. She already has two other cards open with the bank, so I wasn’t sure. We use her Arrival+ regularly for non-bonused spend, which gave me hope she’d get automatic approval.
Success!
The card showed up in Sharon’s account immediately and we should receive it soon. It shouldn’t take long to meet the $1,000 spending requirement.
Time to apply for the second card for the night. This gave me even more anxiety than the first one.
IHG Rewards Club Premier
I wrote about the 140,000 reasons I wanted the IHG Rewards Club Premier card from Chase in this post. I would have liked to have Sharon sign up for this card but I decided I would because she’d had more recent applications with Chase than I did.
I still was hesitant to apply. Why? Because I already had six open credit cards with Chase and I wasn’t looking forward to closing any of them.
Here’s my card portfolio with Chase:
- Disney Visa Card
- IHG Rewards Club Select
- Chase Sapphire Reserve
- World Of Hyatt
- Southwest Rewards Priority
- Chase Ink Preferred Business
While some banks, like American Express, have a limit to the number of cards you can hold, Chase apparently only has a limit on the amount of credit they’ll issue to you. So while I already had these cards and reasonably high credit limits on each one, I gave it a try.
Darn!
I was hoping for automatic approval, but that didn’t happen.
You have a choice of what to do when you don’t get approved right away. You can try to call the bank and plead your case or you can wait for them to review your file. I’m on the side of letting them review what they want before calling and possibly giving more information than you have to. This is totally a personal decision and I know people who will call as soon as they get anything but an instant approval.
From what I read online, this message was more likely leading to approval than denial so I let it sit. For a long two days, I waited. This morning I received an email from Chase alerting me of a message in my account.
Chase moved credit lines from two of my other accounts and approved me for my new IHG card. That’s no problem for me as I’d never get close to the credit limits on the other cards anyway.
Two for two. Not bad with applications I wasn’t sure would be approved. While I love earning points with transferrable currencies like Membership Rewards and Ultimate Rewards, it’s also nice to grab a nice haul from programs I’m familiar with and I’m sure I’ll have no problems using JetBlue or IHG points in the future.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
