miztressuz
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2011
Excellent, it was just the wording you used when describing the CSP that made me want to double check. Because of the way they market the Freedom cards not everyone connects the dots that they are in fact UR points the same as the Sapphire cards. Transferring to SW, and even other partners like Hyatt, will most times exceed that 1.25 multiplier so it is a handy card.
I wouldn't be spooked by the CFU denial. It sounds like you just reached the credit to income ratio they wanted to extend to you and that's what held up the card. Since you say reducing your credit limit (CL) got you the card, if you manage your Chase CL's properly you should be able to open many more. Generally recommendation for easiest approval is to be less than 50% of credit to income. This is across all your Chase cards - co-brands, business, and personal. If you have 5 Chase cards, say, add up their CL's and then divide by the income you use on the applications (which should be household income, but I know everyone plays different. I only started doing HHI recently myself). If you are over that 50% mark then you can proactively reduce CL's in advance of application to smooth the process out. Chase has a history of giving me about 60% of reported income so I reduce to somewhere in the 40% range and so far (knock wood) it's been working for each new card approval so that I don't have to speak with anyone for an approval.
As for CL's overall, there are some issuers that are sensitive to credit extended to you by others, but Chase is mostly concerned with what they've given you and not necessarily anyone else. I think AmEx is mostly the same way. There are some behaviors that can deem you a higher risk that would put eyes on your overall limits but for the most part you can treat each issuer as it's own silo. If you have a strong credit score to begin with and a reasonably long history, then opening new cards should have a minor hit on your credit score. I'm not hard core, but over the last year opened a mix of 7 business (that don't report to my personal credit report but have an inquiry listed) and personal cards and my score hasn't changed. The only thing that lowered it was using the 0% interest on the new Discover card to float some money. It increased my utilization and I took a small hit for a month or two until I paid it back down to my normal utilization percentage. I haven't dropped below 800 the whole time, on either scoring model. If you go hard core and start opening lots of cards in a short time you can move the needle but most people with established credit who play the game don't see too much of an effect.
As for keeping the cards, it all depends on if you'll find ongoing value in it. If it has an annual fee (AF) then I make sure I'm getting more value out of the card than what I'm paying for it. If it doesn't, then it can't hurt to keep it open even if I'm not using it. If it's got a fee and I can't find future value from it, then I'll close it or see if there's a way to change it into something without a fee.
As for your CSP you don't necessarily have to close it if you are concerned, you just can't be holding it at the time of application; so you can downgrade it to a CF/CFU and if you happen to be denied you can upgrade it back to the CSP. Also, you can upgrade one of your Freedom cards to a CSP or CSR anytime after the first year if you have the minimum CL needed to open one, 5k for the CSP and 10k for the CSR. So you don't have to worry much about losing the ability to transfer to partners, even if you got denied.
