Update: Club Carlson business card was approved!

438,000 525,000 points earned. 562,000 475,000 left to go.

Background: Million Mile Madness is the fun and foolish quest to earn a million points in one month. Throughout March, I’ll do everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. To keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000.

All points earned and expenses incurred will be tracked via this Google Docs spreadsheet.

See all Million Mile Madness posts (in reverse order), by clicking here.

The story of the churn

On Friday I signed up for 11 credit cards in the hopes of earning over half a million points through signup bonuses.  I systematically went through my list of planned applications and signed up for the cards one bank at a time.  I started with what I thought would be the hardest approvals, and then moved up the list from there, in this order: Barclaycard, US Bank, Amex, Citi, and then Chase.  Once I was done with all of the applications, only two had been automatically approved.  So, I called each bank in turn.  My mistake was that I should have called Barclaycard before proceeding to the next applications.  I’ll get to that momentarily…

Chase

I started by calling Chase’s business reconsideration line about two Ink Plus cards I had applied for.  The analyst told me that one of the two had been automatically denied as a duplicate application.  I explained that it was for a separate business, and she was able to reopen the application.  She asked many questions about my businesses and eventually moved some credit from a personal card.  The call took about an hour, but the result was that both cards were approved!  I asked that the cards be rushed to me.  They agreed.

Next, I called Chase’s personal card reconsideration line about the United MileagePlus card I had signed up for.  The analyst said “I see you are applying for a lot of cards today. You have six inquiries already”.  I agreed that that was true and told her that I didn’t need additional credit.  I said that I would be happy to cancel an existing card or move credit from one.  She suggested moving credit from my British Airways card.  I agreed, and she approved my application.  I then asked to talk with customer service so as to confirm the sign-up bonus.  Yep, 50K bonus plus 5K bonus for adding a registered user. $1K spend requirement.  Sweet.  I asked for the card to be rushed to me.  Agreed.

American Express

I signed up for both the Premier Rewards Gold card and the Platinum Mercedes card.  The Premier Rewards Gold card had been approved automatically, so I just needed to call about the Platinum card.  Apparently this card is handled by a different department than most because I was shuffled around a bit, but once I found the right person to talk to I was approved instantly.  There was no mention of any other inquiries.  They happily agreed to rush the card to me.

Citibank

This was interesting.  I had applied for both the American Airlines business card and the personal ThankYou Preferred card.  I asked first about the AA card, which was quickly approved without fuss.  For the personal card, though, I was told that they cannot approve two cards in one day.  Huh?  This is apparently a new Citibank rule as of a week or so ago.  Anyway, she said to call back in a day or two.  I called back on Sunday and was approved.  They also confirmed the 6K bonus and 5X points on certain purchases.  Sweet!  Citi never mentioned other inquiries.

Barclaycard

I applied for both the personal and business US Airways cards.  I already had a personal US Airways card, so this one would be my second active one.  And, the personal card was automatically approved.  The business card, though, was pending when I called on Friday.  They told me that they saw that I had 8 inquiries in one day and that that was a risk factor.  They also mentioned that I didn’t have much history with them.  The application was denied.  I called again later and asked to speak to a supervisor, but all conversations resulted the same way: no dice.  Its possible that had I called immediately after applying for just the Barclaycard cards I could have gotten this one approved, but I don’t know that for sure.

US Bank

I applied for both the personal and business versions of the Club Carlson cards.  I called US Bank and asked if I could get an instant decision over the phone.  No luck.  I was told that the process is automatic and there was nothing that could be done other than to wait for a decision.  On Saturday I received an email saying I was approved for the personal card!  As of Sunday, I still hadn’t heard about the business card so I called.  An automated system said that I was approved!  I was skeptical, though, that the system might have been reporting my personal card approval so I tried speaking with a person.  Unfortunately the application status department isn’t open on the weekends.  So, I’m still waiting to hear for certain about this one!  Until I hear for certain, I’ll continue to consider it “pending”.

Result Summary

I applied for 11 cards and was approved for 9.  One is still pending. One was denied. Here are the detailed results:

Here are the totals by application status (as of Sunday evening):

Links to all of the offers I applied for can be found on my Best Credit Card Offers page.  Reconsideration numbers can be found in this Million Mile Secrets post.

Churn Planning

If you have questions about why I chose the cards I did, please see the corresponding posts:

• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: American Express
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Citi
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Barclaycard
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: US Bank and others

Reader Participation

If you’re brave and/or crazy enough to want to play along with this game, first consider the risks: if you’re not careful you could spiral into debt, damage your credit score, get targeted for a financial review, have credit card accounts closed against your will, etc. Please only do this if you understand the risks and how to avoid them.

If you still want to play along, here’s what to do:  Open this Google docs spreadsheet.  Go to the tab labeled “How to participate”. Follow the directions shown there.

I will setup my spreadsheet to automatically show the summary information from each of your spreadsheets. Make sure not to include any personal identifiable information in the spreadsheet since it will be viewable to anyone who cares to look. If you have questions about the process, or about filling out your copy of the spreadsheet, email me and I’ll add the question and answer to the Q&A tab of my spreadsheet.

Learn about Million Mile Madness:

• A crazy million mile idea. Should I do it?
• Million Mile Madness, it’s on
• Million Mile Madness: Strategy
• Million Mile Madness: Preparing to buy & sell
• Million Mile Madness: Tracking points and expenses

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