Feedback / review / referral link request on my piggybacking app spree

[secondcor521]

Hi all,

I'm gearing up to do a CC app spree.  I would appreciate any feedback or review.

I already have existing lines with a number of the major issuers (AMEX, Chase, Citi, etc.) that are enrolled for piggybacking.  I won't risk applying for new cards from those issuers, as there is a strong likelihood they would shift CL from my existing lines to grant me the new cards.  That would adversely impact my piggybacking efforts, which is lower effort and higher rewards than anything else I am able and willing to do.  So I am looking at cards from issuers with whom I do not currently have a relationship with and are accepted by Old Company.

Here is my current list of cards:

Discover   IT Miles Card ($100)
Elan           Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature ($100)
Huntington   Voice Lower Rate
Huntington   Voice 3x Rewards
NFCU +   Cash Rewards ($150)
NFCU +   Go Rewards (10K points = $100)
PNC           Core Visa ($100)
Synchrony   Care Credit
TD Bank   First Class Card (25K miles = $250)
TD Bank   Cash Credit Card ($150)
TD Bank   Double Up Credit Card ($150)
US Bank   Altitude Connect Signature Visa (50K points = $500)
US Bank   Altitude Go Visa Signature ($200)
US Bank   Cash+ Visa Signature ($150)

The list is sorted by issuer then by descending order of signup bonus value in parentheses, if any.  The SUBs are all easily findable and mostly of the standard form of "Get $X by spending $Y within Z months".

I'm open to all feedback, but am particularly interested in the following:

1.  Are there better cards from any of the above issuers?  "Better" to me would mean a card with a high limit with no annual fee the first year; a reasonably achievable signup bonus would be a plus.

2.  If you want to give me a referral code for any of the above cards, and it's equal to or better than what I'm already getting, then please feel free to provide and I will use if I can; first come first served.

3.  Is there any groundwork I need to do before applying for these cards?  I'm already a US Bank consumer customer, and I'm going to sign up for NFCU membership via my Dad early next week, so I know about those two.  Do any of the others have requirements like that?

4.  I'll probably apply all in one day.  Any ordering recommendations or known hard limits for applications that I'm violating with this plan?  As I write this, I think I'll move NFCU to the top because they have better payouts for TL AUs.

5.  Ideally I'd like to end up with 1 or 2 cards from each issuer.  If you know of any cards from Discover, Elan, PNC, or Synchrony that are not listed and work with Old Company, I'd appreciate that info so I could add them to my list.

[Nutty]

In spite of the recent Barclay's issues, the research I did earlier this year said they were more tolerant of tradelines.  Moderate SUBs.  P2 and I were approved for 2 cards earlier this year.  I'll PM the referral codes.

[Archipelago]

Are any of these lenders subject to the 5/24 rule? Are you going to cycle between lenders between applications in case you're cut off from applying?

Interesting idea btw.

[secondcor521]

Are any of these lenders subject to the 5/24 rule? Are you going to cycle between lenders between applications in case you're cut off from applying?

Interesting idea btw.

No, that's a Chase only rule, and none of these issuers are Chase.  Other issuers do have some similar types of restrictions, however.  I don't think I'm subject to any of those but should check.

It used to be called an App-O-Rama over on FatWallet.  That site, and term, and actually the strategy are all defunct.  I do it this way anyway because it's fun and easy for me to manage, rather than applying for a few cards every six months or so (which is probably the smarter way to do things these days).

[Nutty]

Discover is limiting accounts to 7 AU per year.  They will lock you out past that.  May want to lower it on the priority list.  I got a $10k CL while P2 got $3k for our second cards.  Both of us have a long history with Discover and even though they say request CLI every month, they cite length of account open and spend rate for denial.

US Bank denied me because of the 8 cards opened this year.  Good luck.

Barclays approved us for 2 cards each a few months apart.  $100 SUB with $500 spend for the AARP.  Don't have to be a member or join.  No AF.

PNC has a bank account SUB you may consider.

Best wishes

[secondcor521]

Updated list below.

I reprioritized the order based on a number of factors - size of SUB, size of required spending, annual fee, etc.

I added the TDBank Red card because it's allegedly the only one Old Company will accept for piggybacking.  If anyone knows otherwise firsthand that would be great.  The other TDBank cards are question marks; I'd just get them for the bonus and for additional CL to reallocate to the Red card.

I also added one CapOne and one Citi card - the best offers at DOC.  I already have one card each with them but my CLs are on the lower side and the SUBs are juicy, so I'm going to maybe take the risk, but they're at the bottom of the list currently.

If anyone knows any solid MS methods, please PM me (or post if you like).  I've read that WM MS has been shut down, but that may be a YMMV situation.  I'll probably read the flyertalk threads for info anyways.  The bottom USBank card is a question mark because it requires $3K spend and apparently USBank is "allergic" to VGC.

I'll probably pull the trigger sometime shortly after 9/17; I have a moderately large credit utilization on one of my cards until that date.

Updated list:

NFCU +   Cash Rewards
NFCU +   Go Rewards
US Bank   Altitude Go Visa Signature
US Bank   Cash+ Visa Signature
Elan           Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature
Huntington   Voice Lower Rate
Huntington   Voice 3x Rewards
TD Bank   Red Card
TD Bank   First Class Card ?
TD Bank   Cash Credit Card ?
TD Bank   Double Up Credit Card ?
Synchrony   Care Credit
PNC           Core Visa
Discover   IT Miles Card
CapOne   SavorOne Rewards ($200) ?
Citi           Custom Cash (20K TYP = $200) ?
US Bank   Altitude Connect Signature Visa ?

[katsiki]

Thanks for this thread.

Question: the TD Bank red card - the target card?

[secondcor521]

Thanks for this thread.

Question: the TD Bank red card - the target card?

Yup.  https://www.target.com/redcard/about

[MasterStache]

I don't think Cap One gets enough love. I've had an old low limit (5K) Cap One card listed with the old company that has regularly filled it's AU spots for several years now. Easy to add and remove AU's online. Everyone has posted correctly and not a single hint of pushback from Cap One. I opened another one a couple months ago for the nice SUB and to season for tradelines of course.

[lhamo]

Not a cash bonus but if you ever shop at REI their branded card through US bank has a $100 gift card signup bonus and earns you extra REI dividends on your spending.  If you pay your cell phone bill through this card it also includes cell phone insurance.

I'd be happy to PM you (or anybody else) my REI membership number if you want a referral (gets me an extra $20 gift card):

https://www.reimastercard.com/credit/referAFriend.do

[katsiki]

I don't think Cap One gets enough love. I've had an old low limit (5K) Cap One card listed with the old company that has regularly filled it's AU spots for several years now. Easy to add and remove AU's online. Everyone has posted correctly and not a single hint of pushback from Cap One. I opened another one a couple months ago for the nice SUB and to season for tradelines of course.

Thanks for mentioning this. I usually have a bad opinion of C1 so have ignored them for tradelines.

[MasterStache]

I don't think Cap One gets enough love. I've had an old low limit (5K) Cap One card listed with the old company that has regularly filled it's AU spots for several years now. Easy to add and remove AU's online. Everyone has posted correctly and not a single hint of pushback from Cap One. I opened another one a couple months ago for the nice SUB and to season for tradelines of course.

Thanks for mentioning this. I usually have a bad opinion of C1 so have ignored them for tradelines.

I see that a lot. They really clamped down on the approval of CCs for a good while. I was denied multiple times over the course of about 1.5 years even when I was at 4/24. Looks like they have loosened the restrictions as I was finally approved a couple months ago and I'm seeing more DPs of approvals from others as well.

[secondcor521]

I don't think Cap One gets enough love. I've had an old low limit (5K) Cap One card listed with the old company that has regularly filled it's AU spots for several years now. Easy to add and remove AU's online. Everyone has posted correctly and not a single hint of pushback from Cap One. I opened another one a couple months ago for the nice SUB and to season for tradelines of course.

Yup.  I actually actively like the existing CapOne card I have.

The situation I want to avoid is:

1.  I have an AU on my existing CapOne card.
2.  I apply for a second CapOne card
3.  They like my credit history but feel they have enough credit exposure to me, so they approve my second card for $2K but reduce my existing CapOne card's CL by $2K at the same time.  I call this "shiftage".
4.  CapOne updates the AU's credit report with their new lower-by-$2K limit
5.  AU notices, gets upset, calls Old Company
6.  Old Company refunds AU and doesn't pay me.
7.  Old Company gets annoyed at me and deprioritizes sales on my card or cuts that card from the program or cuts me from the program.

I don't know what the risk of the above is, but it's something I'd rather avoid.  OTOH, it might not happen, and I might get a second CapOne card with enough of a CL to season for piggybacking.

So at this point I'm still not sure, but I'll probably apply for them lower down in my priority list, and then watch for shiftage, and try to repair/reverse the damage before step 4 happens.

...

I just looked, and currently I have no slots filled on my Citi or Barclays, but I do have two CapOne AUs on, so I think I may keep the Citi app and replace the CapOne with a Barclays offer.  Having no current AUs mitigates the risk of the above problem chain.

[kpd905]

If you haven't had a Citi Premier/Preferred card in a while, I would grab the Premier and plan on downgrading it to the Custom Cash card in 11 months.  The Premier card is paying out 80,000 points right now, which should be $800+.

https://citicards.citi.com/usc/Multi/tab/SL/Featured/PS/DV/default.htm?tab=rewards

[secondcor521]

If you haven't had a Citi Premier/Preferred card in a while, I would grab the Premier and plan on downgrading it to the Custom Cash card in 11 months.  The Premier card is paying out 80,000 points right now, which should be $800+.

https://citicards.citi.com/usc/Multi/tab/SL/Featured/PS/DV/default.htm?tab=rewards

Do you MS?  My lifestyle is modest enough to where I can't / don't generate enough organic spend for these kinds of offers.  I used to use the WM / VGC / MO route, but I read that is YMMV now.

[Nutty]

I added the TDBank Red card because it's allegedly the only one Old Company will accept for piggybacking.  If anyone knows otherwise firsthand that would be great.  The other TDBank cards are question marks; I'd just get them for the bonus and for additional CL to reallocate to the Red card.

I'm curious, you state that the Red card is the only one that Old Company will allegedly accept.  Do they list these anywhere or should I email and ask for a list of store cards?

Are store cards easier to qualify for?  I rarely shop at Target and don't have a Cap1 WalMart card any longer, but don't know if these would be accepted.  Enquiring minds want to know. 

[secondcor521]

I added the TDBank Red card because it's allegedly the only one Old Company will accept for piggybacking.  If anyone knows otherwise firsthand that would be great.  The other TDBank cards are question marks; I'd just get them for the bonus and for additional CL to reallocate to the Red card.

I'm curious, you state that the Red card is the only one that Old Company will allegedly accept.  Do they list these anywhere or should I email and ask for a list of store cards?

Are store cards easier to qualify for?  I rarely shop at Target and don't have a Cap1 WalMart card any longer, but don't know if these would be accepted.  Enquiring minds want to know.

It was mentioned in a couple of posts on the piggybacking II thread.  I emailed a clarifying/confirming question on this to Old Company primary contact yesterday.

Actual store cards, which are only usable at the store usually, were historically easier to qualify for.  But I don't think they exist very much any more.  The Target Red card and others like it are just regular credit cards, sometimes with some extra spiffs at that merchant.  These extra spiffs don't do much for me typically, but for someone who shops a lot at a given store they might add up to something.  As far as I know, the Target Red card and others are not any easier or harder to get.

[kpd905]

Do you MS?  My lifestyle is modest enough to where I can't / don't generate enough organic spend for these kinds of offers.  I used to use the WM / VGC / MO route, but I read that is YMMV now.

I don't MS, but I fortunately/unfortunately have $600+/week in daycare costs that can go on a card.

Otherwise I sometimes make a $600 payment to our utility company for $3.95 fee, or wait until we have our auto/homeowner's/umbrella/life insurance bills coming up.  You could also just Venmo someone the entire $4,000 for a 3% fee and still end up with $600+ profit.

[secondcor521]

Do you MS?  My lifestyle is modest enough to where I can't / don't generate enough organic spend for these kinds of offers.  I used to use the WM / VGC / MO route, but I read that is YMMV now.

I don't MS, but I fortunately/unfortunately have $600+/week in daycare costs that can go on a card.

Otherwise I sometimes make a $600 payment to our utility company for $3.95 fee, or wait until we have our auto/homeowner's/umbrella/life insurance bills coming up.  You could also just Venmo someone the entire $4,000 for a 3% fee and still end up with $600+ profit.

Thanks!  That makes sense.

[MasterStache]

Do you MS?  My lifestyle is modest enough to where I can't / don't generate enough organic spend for these kinds of offers.  I used to use the WM / VGC / MO route, but I read that is YMMV now.

I don't MS, but I fortunately/unfortunately have $600+/week in daycare costs that can go on a card.

Otherwise I sometimes make a $600 payment to our utility company for $3.95 fee, or wait until we have our auto/homeowner's/umbrella/life insurance bills coming up.  You could also just Venmo someone the entire $4,000 for a 3% fee and still end up with $600+ profit.

Thanks!  That makes sense.

You can also fund bank accounts, although a lot of them are doing away with this or really cutting back. Redstone Federal Credit Union is a great one. I have 6 accounts (2 checking and 4 savings) with them. You can open each account separately and fund with $2530 in CC funding. It greatly helped me reach the $15K spending needed for the CIP card SUB.

They have a referral deal going on right now as well. 

[secondcor521]

Do you MS?  My lifestyle is modest enough to where I can't / don't generate enough organic spend for these kinds of offers.  I used to use the WM / VGC / MO route, but I read that is YMMV now.

I don't MS, but I fortunately/unfortunately have $600+/week in daycare costs that can go on a card.

Otherwise I sometimes make a $600 payment to our utility company for $3.95 fee, or wait until we have our auto/homeowner's/umbrella/life insurance bills coming up.  You could also just Venmo someone the entire $4,000 for a 3% fee and still end up with $600+ profit.

Thanks!  That makes sense.

You can also fund bank accounts, although a lot of them are doing away with this or really cutting back. Redstone Federal Credit Union is a great one. I have 6 accounts (2 checking and 4 savings) with them. You can open each account separately and fund with $2530 in CC funding. It greatly helped me reach the $15K spending needed for the CIP card SUB.

They have a referral deal going on right now as well.

That would be awesome.  Unfortunately I don't see how to become a member of RFCU (I'm in Idaho, not Alabama).

[MasterStache]

Do you MS?  My lifestyle is modest enough to where I can't / don't generate enough organic spend for these kinds of offers.  I used to use the WM / VGC / MO route, but I read that is YMMV now.

I don't MS, but I fortunately/unfortunately have $600+/week in daycare costs that can go on a card.

Otherwise I sometimes make a $600 payment to our utility company for $3.95 fee, or wait until we have our auto/homeowner's/umbrella/life insurance bills coming up.  You could also just Venmo someone the entire $4,000 for a 3% fee and still end up with $600+ profit.

Thanks!  That makes sense.

You can also fund bank accounts, although a lot of them are doing away with this or really cutting back. Redstone Federal Credit Union is a great one. I have 6 accounts (2 checking and 4 savings) with them. You can open each account separately and fund with $2530 in CC funding. It greatly helped me reach the $15K spending needed for the CIP card SUB.

They have a referral deal going on right now as well.

That would be awesome.  Unfortunately I don't see how to become a member of RFCU (I'm in Idaho, not Alabama).

It doesn't matter, I'm on Ohio. Just sign up for a membership to the Financial Fitness Association. That will qualify you to become a member of Redstone. Make sure you print a copy of membership to FFA as you'll need it to sign up for Redstone.

If you need a referral let me know. It's an extra $100 if you meet the requirements (5 debit purchases and online baking). 

[secondcor521]

@MasterStache, thanks for the tip.  Yes, please PM a referral code.  If I can open some savings accounts and the conditions aren't too onerous, that will be a big help!  Thanks!

[MasterStache]

@MasterStache, thanks for the tip.  Yes, please PM a referral code.  If I can open some savings accounts and the conditions aren't too onerous, that will be a big help!  Thanks!

Happy to help!

[solon]

Have you done this yet @secondcor521? How did it go? Is there a reason for doing them all at once rather than spread them out?

[MasterStache]

Have you done this yet @secondcor521? How did it go? Is there a reason for doing them all at once rather than spread them out?

Not sure if it's still the case but it used to be easier to get approved applying for a bunch of CC's all at once.

[secondcor521]

Have you done this yet @secondcor521? How did it go? Is there a reason for doing them all at once rather than spread them out?

Not yet.  Waiting for a few final pieces to fall into place.  Probably early next week.

And yeah, it's not really optimal anymore to do it all at once, but it was 10 years ago when I started, so it's what I'm used to doing.  The better strategy these days is probably to apply for a handful every 3 to 6 months.

[secondcor521]

The final pieces fell into place so I just finished all the applications.

Well, all the ones I could.  Huntington requires you to already have an account, so I had to skip those.  Two of TD Bank's applications wouldn't work because I don't live in their area.

Results:

USBank - 2 deferrals, skipped one
NFCU - Approved $25K
Elan - Deferred
TDBank - approved $2200 for Red card, couldn't apply for the others
Synchrony - need to call in to finish app (?!?)
PNC - Approved $5K
Discover - Approved $10K
Citi - Declined
Barclays - Approved $2K

Total:  5 approvals, 3 deferrals, 1 continue, 1 decline, 5 app failures

Honestly a bit underwhelming, but by my math that adds up to $1440 in SUBs and (at least) two more piggybackable cards, so not bad for about 32 minutes of work.

I've actually been doing better on the bank bonus side of things (which I may not have mentioned in the OP, but I also like to do bank bonuses and CC apps together, again for historical reasons):

Redstone FCU - Opened ($400)
Key Bank - Opened ($200)
Chase - Plan to open by 10/18 ($225)
PNC - Opened ($200)
Bank Of the West - Opened ($250)

That's a total of $1275 in SUBs, and four successful applications and one pending application.

[BikeFanatic]

Well underwhelming but I find that the great deals pop up from time to time and make for a huge score
Once in a while. I am looking for new cards myself. I was hoping for a chase Safire the offer available in branch is 100 k and fee waved first year. I heard you can still get that offer if someone has a referral link to that offer. Nancy chase Safire folks want to shoot me a referral?

As far as manufacturing spending, I may have to try the bank funding route. I do get to prepay gas and electric through speed pass by Wells Fargo for a fee of 2$, for 2$ you can pre pay up to 600$.

[secondcor521]

Update in case anyone cares:

Credit cards:

Got approved for 9 cards.  7 cards with bonuses totaling $2,740 in value which has already been received, 2 just for piggybacking.  All of the 9 cards are now seasoning for piggybacking, but 3 of them have low CLs so I may work on that at some point.

Thanks to @MasterStache, I did a lot of my SUB spending by opening accounts at RedFCU and using credit card funding.  They did recently reduce the limit from $2500 to $500, but all that meant I had to do was open 12 savings accounts.  No biggie.  A couple of the banks didn't count RedFCU funding as spending, so I just advanced normal spending (insurance and taxes), and used them for regular spending.

I'll add that RedFCU has a pretty nice savings account called "Brighter Day" - 2.02% on the first $2500.  So that is a keeper and will be the place where the first $2500 of my savings sits.

Bank bonuses:

Opened six accounts with bonuses totaling $1,375.  Completed all activities, have received $200 and am waiting for the rest to roll in over the next month or so.

Chase is acting like they may not give me the $225 bonus.  They didn't like my several different synthetic direct deposits that I tried for the bonus, but it seems the synthetic bonuses may be enough to avoid the $12 monthly service fee.  Inconsistent, but whatever.  I might just close this account and try again with my only real direct deposit (Old Company piggybacking paychecks) later - they run the promotion all the time and it should work later if I didn't get it this time.

[MasterStache]

Update in case anyone cares:

Credit cards:

Got approved for 9 cards.  7 cards with bonuses totaling $2,740 in value which has already been received, 2 just for piggybacking.  All of the 9 cards are now seasoning for piggybacking, but 3 of them have low CLs so I may work on that at some point.

Thanks to @MasterStache, I did a lot of my SUB spending by opening accounts at RedFCU and using credit card funding.  They did recently reduce the limit from $2500 to $500, but all that meant I had to do was open 12 savings accounts.  No biggie.  A couple of the banks didn't count RedFCU funding as spending, so I just advanced normal spending (insurance and taxes), and used them for regular spending.

I'll add that RedFCU has a pretty nice savings account called "Brighter Day" - 2.02% on the first $2500.  So that is a keeper and will be the place where the first $2500 of my savings sits.

Bank bonuses:

Opened six accounts with bonuses totaling $1,375.  Completed all activities, have received $200 and am waiting for the rest to roll in over the next month or so.

Chase is acting like they may not give me the $225 bonus.  They didn't like my several different synthetic direct deposits that I tried for the bonus, but it seems the synthetic bonuses may be enough to avoid the $12 monthly service fee.  Inconsistent, but whatever.  I might just close this account and try again with my only real direct deposit (Old Company piggybacking paychecks) later - they run the promotion all the time and it should work later if I didn't get it this time.

@secondcor521
Yeah that really sucks about funding for REDFCU. I have been hesitant to open new accounts with them so have been doing it rather slowly. Don't want to get blacklisted or something, ha! Trying to meet min spend for 2 Chase SW cards.

As far as Chase bank bonus I just did it not long ago. Many of the old methods for DD do not count anymore, but they work for keeping account fee free (Discover in particular). Silly I know. If you have a Wealthfront account, it counted as DD for the Chase bonus. There is no Wealthfront bonus that I know of or referral bonus. But the account requires no minimum balance and is fee free. So you could always just open up an account for the Chase bonus.

[secondcor521]

@MasterStache, it seemed like the first couple of RedFCU accounts I opened were manually reviewed.  The first one was especially slow.  But after that, they were all robot-approved immediately.  I may have screwed up my ChexSystems score, but as far as RedFCU is concerned they seem like they could care less (so far, knock wood).

I'm too late on the Chase bonus this time around - there's some fine print about the bonus-qualifying deposit having to be within a certain time window of account open.  It was overconfidence on my part; I figured I'd find at least one way that worked in the time frame given, but I didn't.  One of the downfalls of my method of opening accounts all at once, because I was busy juggling a bunch of things - the DD I could have used went for the RedFCU $400 bonus instead.  So I'll just ride this account's six month period out, close it, then try again...I get the "special offers" in the mail every week, so it's just a minor hassle and delay.

After this round I'm leaning towards dripping them along and just doing them a few at a time.  In this round, I kind of wanted to get a second CapOne card, a second NavyFCU card, and the Chase bonus, so those items may be on the table to work on here in a month or so.

[secondcor521]

I'm not doing well on the bank bonus side.

1.  RedFCU says I'm not qualified for the GET400 bonuses because I don't live in the target area, even though another rep said I did qualify.
2.  Chase, as noted above, said my three various pseudo-DD methods (listed on various websites as working) didn't qualify.
3.  PNC said my pseudo-DD method (listed on a website) didn't qualify.

I did get the Key Bank one.  They're very low hassle.

Still waiting on Bank of the West and the RedFCU referral ones.