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I apologize if this is a duplicate - I haven't seen anything like it thus far.
I've been getting direct mail offers about every 2 weeks for the UA card - 20k signup bonus, no annual fee the first year. On 3/28 I filled out three of the offers online ("sendmethecard.com") with identical information. The confirmation e-mail after applying says that Chase will be unable to consider further applications within a 30-day period. Only one credit inquiry (EX) was pulled, presumably because the applications were processed on the same day and the report was already on file. However, a few days later, in Chase Online, three new accounts showed up.
I made one purchase on each card. The statements closed on 4/28 and today (5/3), the 20k bonus posted x3, yielding a total of 60k UA miles, for one credit inquiry. Not bad.
I don't know if this would work if you just apply from the web (rather than from the direct mail offers), but I can't imagine why it wouldn't.
I would like to consolidate the credit lines into one card, but I'm afraid to because I assume that would constitute closing the other cards, which would run the risk of the signup bonus miles being taken back.
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I would like to consolidate the credit lines into one card, but I'm afraid to because I assume that would constitute closing the other cards, which would run the risk of the signup bonus miles being taken back.
I also would not be in a big hurry to let one CSR (the one doing the consolidation) know that I had three of the same cards. S/he may put 2+2 together (or on this case 20+20+20) and turn your hide in to the Chase Police!
Isn't it wonderful how automation has no common sense?
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I think they probably know about it already
I am sure then CSR know what is going
haahaa
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Just to follow up, I did this again this week and it worked again (all 3 new cards showed up in my online account). It appears that you need to have received distinct invitation codes for this to work; others have reported that if you do the non-targeted application more than once, they will reject the subsequent apps as duplicates. So, if you are receiving UA offers by mail, save them - they're valuable :)
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Just to follow up, I did this again this week and it worked again (all 3 new cards showed up in my online account). It appears that you need to have received distinct invitation codes for this to work; others have reported that if you do the non-targeted application more than once, they will reject the subsequent apps as duplicates. So, if you are receiving UA offers by mail, save them - they're valuable :)
Most probably you are right. I applied online two times one after the other and their receipt was acknowledged by email immediately. However only one application was approved. I got a letter in mail informing me that duplicate applications cannot be accepted.
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Most probably you are right. I applied online two times one after the other and their receipt was acknowledged by email immediately. However only one application was approved. I got a letter in mail informing me that duplicate applications cannot be accepted.
I keep getting the business version of this in the mail--maybe a 1/2 dozen of them.
I feel no guilt about reaping these miles (over 105K miles this year on UAL and I have not flown a single flight on them). If they don't have their act together enough to know I already have an account and they solicit me? So be it ...
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Anyone know what opening multiple credit card accounts does to your credit score/rating? It was my understanding that the more credit reports pulled, and the cummulative credit limits of all those cards would drop your score.
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Anyone know what opening multiple credit card accounts does to your credit score/rating? It was my understanding that the more credit reports pulled, and the cummulative credit limits of all those cards would drop your score.
Note that 21A said there's only one hard pull for three applications on the same day, so it's not that many credit reports pulled.
In other threads, the consensus seems to be that if you churn credit cards very aggressively it can drop your credit score by about 40 points, which is not particularly significant. I'd avoid doing it if you plan on buying a house in the next 12 months, as it's better to be safe than sorry. Under any other circumstances it's probably nothing to worry about.
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Anyone know what opening multiple credit card accounts does to your credit score/rating? It was my understanding that the more credit reports pulled, and the cummulative credit limits of all those cards would drop your score.
There is not much of a difference. I have played this game very aggresively and did not see any significant difference. However dont be fooled by your good score. I always thought I was in good hands as long as my score is above 780 until I learnt my lesson the hard way. If you are planning to buy a house or car or apply for any loan then you must stop this dangerous game. Lenders see your score as just one part of the application process. They have a very complicated secret assesment process in which they also look into the number of credit cards applied in the last 2 or 3 months and then 1 year and how many hard pulls on your credit reports despite good score. 3 months back I bought a new car and subsequently they pulled a new report on me to change the insurance policy and I was in shock. First I thought AAA was being nasty to me so I checked other places but got a rude surprise.
Moral of the story is, it is nice to watch your score and keep it high, but remember it is just a small thing in the bigger picture. Just a good score in itself does not mean much if you are planning to apply for a loan or insurance in the next 6 months?
And yes churning credit cards in itself did not make any differnce in my credit score at all.
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I basically concur with the above... there is some effect on one's credit score, and certainly a somewhat unpredictable effect on one's report in the sense that some loan officers/analysts could react more strongly than others. This is a tradeoff I make consciously in playing the game (the 120k miles I've netted this way so far have FAR more value to me than a few FICO points, for now).
In general, a report containing mostly positive information doesn't seem to suffer too much from inquiries or new accounts. However, I think anyone with a young/thin report, very high balances, past delinquencies or late payments should probably think twice about it because they've probably already taken a haircut from FICO for those things, and the further effect from the inquiries may drop their scores to the point of risking declines (which, are, of course, a lose-lose, since you're still hit with the inquiry but don't derive any benefit). I don't think there's really any universal answer to this concern other than a big YMMV.
On another side note, it seems that Chase business cards result in a separate pull from personal cards. For personal cards I've gotten a "First USA" pull, and for business cards it shows as "Bank One". This seems to be the one exception to the same-day-pull rule.
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One other potentially useful tip here: although it isn't necessary to talk to a human CSR to activate, if you do wait for the system to transfer you to a CSR at the end of the process, you can pick up an extra 1000 miles per account by sitting through the activation spiel on balance transfers, etc, and at the end, accepting the Payment Protector offer (it's free for the first 30 days, after which point you'll have received the bonus miles and can cancel). Amusingly, this also doesn't appear to stop them from also sending the $15 incentive checks for the same program.
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Doh! I am having no luck with Chase. I applied for a third card last month and the new one came with a letter that they had linked it to a "dormant" account of mine (the second card) that I hadnt been using. In other words, same account # and no new 20k bonus for me! Argh... Has anyone else had this happen? I dont want to cancel prior to 6 months and have the miles yanked, so I just have kept cards 1 and 2 open. USairways cards are much less work to churn.
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There is not much of a difference. I have played this game very aggresively and did not see any significant difference. However dont be fooled by your good score. I always thought I was in good hands as long as my score is above 780 until I learnt my lesson the hard way. If you are planning to buy a house or car or apply for any loan then you must stop this dangerous game. Lenders see your score as just one part of the application process. They have a very complicated secret assesment process in which they also look into the number of credit cards applied in the last 2 or 3 months and then 1 year and how many hard pulls on your credit reports despite good score. 3 months back I bought a new car and subsequently they pulled a new report on me to change the insurance policy and I was in shock. First I thought AAA was being nasty to me so I checked other places but got a rude surprise.
Moral of the story is, it is nice to watch your score and keep it high, but remember it is just a small thing in the bigger picture. Just a good score in itself does not mean much if you are planning to apply for a loan or insurance in the next 6 months?
And yes churning credit cards in itself did not make any differnce in my credit score at all.
Thanks for the caution on this, but I want to make sure I understand your point. I understand that how creditors view your buying a house or car can involve more than your credit score--opening too many credit cards in too short a time, for instance. But are you saying that too many credit cards in too short a time also can affect your getting an insurance policy, be car insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, whatever?
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Thanks for the caution on this, but I want to make sure I understand your point. I understand that how creditors view your buying a house or car can involve more than your credit score--opening too many credit cards in too short a time, for instance. But are you saying that too many credit cards in too short a time also can affect your getting an insurance policy, be car insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, whatever?
Thats absolutely right. I am a living example. I can only say about car insurance from my personal experience (despite the fact that my fico score as of today is 790). The beauty is that the CSRs either dont know much about this system or they are not allowed to disclose their policy. However I presume that must be ture for life insurance, disability insurance, and so on.
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I can see looking at how someone has paid their bills in the past as an indicator of how they will pay in the future--but ... I think its a stretch to say how they pay their bills correlates, even loosely, to how they drive their car or to their cholesterol level. Can a FICO score possibly fit into a risk assessment and yield anything of value? Same for determining potenital value of an employee.
It’s like trying to make apple pie using tires instead of apples--it just does not seem to apply at all, except that maybe both are round.
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Thats absolutely right. I am a living example. I can only say about car insurance from my personal experience (despite the fact that my fico score as of today is 790). The beauty is that the CSRs either dont know much about this system or they are not allowed to disclose their policy. However I presume that must be ture for life insurance, disability insurance, and so on.
Thanks very much, but I'm still a bit confused. So are you saying that your car insurance was more expensive becuase you had a record of opening too many credits cards in a short period? If so, what do you mean about the "beauty of the system"?
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I can see looking at how someone has paid their bills in the past as an indicator of how they will pay in the future--but ... I think its a stretch to say how they pay their bills correlates, even loosely, to how they drive their car or to their cholesterol level. Can a FICO score possibly fit into a risk assessment and yield anything of value? Same for determining potenital value of an employee.
It’s like trying to make apple pie using tires instead of apples--it just does not seem to apply at all, except that maybe both are round.
Actually it does make sense.
Someone who is more careful about paying bills is also likely more careful in other aspects of life. Credit scores *ARE* correlated with accident history. If there was no correlation the insurance companies would have no reason at all to base rates on them.
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Actually it does make sense.
Credit scores *ARE* correlated with accident history.
Insurance companies aren't specifically trying to avoid paying for clients accidents, they're trying to minimize risk. Someone with a low credit score (read higher credit risk) is also a higher insurance risk within a few sigma, think standard distribution curve, at the end. This is why there is a “credit-based insurance score” that is used.
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When you apply for three new cards: all three send the promo 20,000 new ff miles to the same UA ff account?
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Indeed. The FFN is even printed on the card.
Date Activity Actual Bonus Total
21-Sep-06 CHASE CREDIT CARD - CHOICES 20,000 20,000
21-Sep-06 CHASE VISA PURCHASES - CHOICES 2 2
22-Sep-06 CHASE CREDIT CARD - CHOICES 20,000 20,000
22-Sep-06 CHASE CREDIT CARD - CHOICES 20,000 20,000
22-Sep-06 CHASE VISA PURCHASES - CHOICES 15 15
22-Sep-06 CHASE VISA PURCHASES - CHOICES 7 7
subtotal September 06 60,024
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Actually it does make sense.
Someone who is more careful about paying bills is also likely more careful in other aspects of life. Credit scores *ARE* correlated with accident history. If there was no correlation the insurance companies would have no reason at all to base rates on them.
Another big part of the reason credit score is used by insurance companies is due to the fact that someone badly in debt would be much more likely to consider doing something like burning the car to collect the insurance money
See the quote from Madelyn Flannagan, assistant vice president of research and development for the Independent Insurance Agents of America in the below article under the section entitled "The price of youth -- car insurance
http://money.cnn.com/2000/10/26/banking/q_bankrate/
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Am I mistaken?
I noticed a couple folks are worried that the bonus miles credited will be pulled. I was under the impression that once Chase hands 'em over to United (or any party to any airline), that's it. No indian-giving possible.
I could be wrong though.
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I noticed a couple folks are worried that the bonus miles credited will be pulled. I was under the impression that once Chase hands 'em over to United (or any party to any airline), that's it. No indian-giving possible.
The fine print gives them the right to retract the bonus if the account is closed within 6 months of its opening. A relatively small number of people (relative to the total number doing the churn here) have reported this actually happening. The going theory seems to be that if the retention CSR threatens to pull them back, it will probably happen, but if they do not at the time of the account closure, it is unlikely to see any sort of audit or reconsideration later.
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Another big part of the reason credit score is used by insurance companies is due to the fact that someone badly in debt would be much more likely to consider doing something like burning the car to collect the insurance money
http://money.cnn.com/2000/10/26/banking/q_bankrate/
I think we're talking about two different things here...or maybe I'm just talking about something different than everyone else. :D I can certainly see why insurance companies would take credit scores into account. But there's a separate issue: maulah was saying that even if you have a good credit score your ability to get insurance or its price (I'm not sure which of these maulah was specifically referring to) can be negatively affected by the fact that you've opened a lot of CC accounts. Assuming I've understood this point correctly, any comments on this?
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that must be another reason my car insurance is dropping. good news.
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I filled out three of the offers online ("sendmethecard.com") with identical information.Turns out that you can get the exact same results from using the 20k, 21k, and 25k offers. ;)
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Dudemon, Are you cancelling in less than six months?
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Dudemon, Are you cancelling in less than six months?
I had been in the past but I've had two 20k point reversals (one about 4 months ago and the other about 1 year ago) so I haven't been cancelling the last several cycles.
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Turns out that you can get the exact same results from using the 20k, 21k, and 25k offers. ;)
Nice! The direct-mail offers have finally dried up, so this is a cool variant on the strategy.
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Doh! I am having no luck with Chase. I applied for a third card last month and the new one came with a letter that they had linked it to a "dormant" account of mine (the second card) that I hadnt been using. In other words, same account # and no new 20k bonus for me! Argh... Has anyone else had this happen? I dont want to cancel prior to 6 months and have the miles yanked, so I just have kept cards 1 and 2 open. USairways cards are much less work to churn.
This is news to me about if you cancel in less than 6 months they can take back the bonus miles ????????
Is this only with chase ????
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This is news to me about if you cancel in less than 6 months they can take back the bonus miles ????????
Is this only with chase ????
Aloha, and welcome to FlyerTalk! All bonus mile c.c.'s should be kept for a minimum of six months before closing, consolidating, or re-negotiating the terms. To fully understand, please go to Miles & Points, to MilesBuzz, and find the thread "21000 United miles for Chase credit card" by SteamEngine, started on September 25. Read it from start to finish and post if you have any questions. Have fun on FlyerTalk!
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Nice! The direct-mail offers have finally dried up, so this is a cool variant on the strategy.
Got the direct mail offers and signed up the 3x saturday. Will see what happens.
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I apologize if this is a duplicate - I haven't seen anything like it thus far.
I've been getting direct mail offers about every 2 weeks for the UA card - 20k signup bonus, no annual fee the first year. On 3/28 I filled out three of the offers online ("sendmethecard.com") with identical information. The confirmation e-mail after applying says that Chase will be unable to consider further applications within a 30-day period. Only one credit inquiry (EX) was pulled, presumably because the applications were processed on the same day and the report was already on file. However, a few days later, in Chase Online, three new accounts showed up.
I made one purchase on each card. The statements closed on 4/28 and today (5/3), the 20k bonus posted x3, yielding a total of 60k UA miles, for one credit inquiry. Not bad.
I don't know if this would work if you just apply from the web (rather than from the direct mail offers), but I can't imagine why it wouldn't.
I would like to consolidate the credit lines into one card, but I'm afraid to because I assume that would constitute closing the other cards, which would run the risk of the signup bonus miles being taken back.
I'm going to guess you used three different letters on the same day, rather than a repeat application for the same offer(same invitation code, etc). I didn't catch that on first read(and second). So we tried 3x 2 weeks ago with the same letter and got 2 duplicate application notices in the mail yesterday. I imagine we'll get at least the one account, no cards yet.
So in case it wasn't clear to anyone else, if you're going to try this variant, you need to use three different offer letters(with corresponding different invitation codes) for this to work, if they haven't wised up yet.
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So in case it wasn't clear to anyone else, if you're going to try this variant, you need to use three different offer letters(with corresponding different invitation codes) for this to work, if they haven't wised up yet.
That's correct. Apparently, applying for separate offers also works (see above post about 20k, 21k and 25k on the same day), which reduces the importance of the invitation letter.
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That's correct. Apparently, applying for separate offers also works (see above post about 20k, 21k and 25k on the same day), which reduces the importance of the invitation letter.
You know, I didn't get that when I read it either. Meaning a 20k, 21k, and 25k application all in one day, not 3x 25k in one day. I feel so dense for not catching this.
Thanks!