Oh lovely readers, I need your help for a moment. Remember that awesome British Airways Visa promotion offering 100,000 bonus miles for signing up? Well, I’m trying to take full advantage of it. I had my dad sign up and he got approved. I had my brother sign up and he got approved. I signed up and today my status via the automated phone system switched to “your application is under review.” I gave Chase a call to see what the deal was, and as expected they denied me because I opened a Chase Mileage Plus Visa about four months ago, and they have a policy of only allowing one new Chase card every six months.

The agent gave me options, though. He said I could close my Chase Mileage Plus Visa and they’d allocate the entire credit line to the British Airways Visa. I really do want the 100,000 miles, so I’m tempted. I asked whether he could reallocate just part of the credit line of my Chase Mileage Plus Visa, and he said no. He claimed I would be approved otherwise, though.

So I have two questions I’m hoping you guys can help me with:

1. Any chance Chase would take away the miles I received for signing up for the Mileage Plus Visa card?

2. Is it safe to assume I’d still receive the bonus for the British Airways Visa card?

I hate to ask questions like this on the blog, but I’m hoping someone can help out. If you can, I’d appreciate if you could post a comment here or send me an email (onemileatatime@hotmail.com).

Thanks!

Posted on November 19th, 2009 by lucky
Filed under: Credit Cards | 18 Comments »

  1. November 19th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

    Gene said,

    1. No

    2. Yes.

  2. November 19th, 2009 at 7:45 pm

    Gary said,

    They will not take away your United miles. There’s this urban legend of miles being taken away for cancelling within 6 months. I’ve never ACTUALLY seen it. Just a couple reports. But certainly not normal practice. And you’d ultimately get the miles back since it’s Chase switching the card for you, you wanted to keep it, you’re 1k, blah blah.

    Whether you safely get the 100k miles or not depends on how the account is coded at opening. But you’ll get the miles after a fight, for sure.

    But if they’re saying they’ll let you have another account with them in 2 months, you can always wait. I know there are some “apply by November 30″ notes out there but the PR folks representing the card assure me the push is on for 90 days (from Nov 6).

    RIGHT BEFORE this offer I opened the Chase Continental Mastercard (45k mile signup). And they were a bit persnickety with me over credit lines, I have too much with them (80k on the UA Visa, 45k on each of 2 business visas) yadda yadda. So I’m waiting on my BA Visa.

  3. November 19th, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    lucky said,

    Thanks guys!

    @ Gary — Interesting about the card being available for at least 90 days with the current offer. My one concern is that if I wait, wouldn’t I get rejected now? And isn’t there a thing on the Chase app which asks if you’ve been rejected for a Chase card in the past six months?

  4. November 19th, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    lucky said,

    One last question. Could they theoretically take away ALL the miles I’ve earned through the card (which is 75Kish), or just the 30K I received for signing up? If it’s the latter it’s a risk I’m willing to take, but if it’s the former I’d be pretty scared….

  5. November 19th, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    Gene said,

    @ Lucky — I did not see the question about being rejected in the last 6 months on my BA application earlier this week. I too was concerned about this question, since the witch I spoke to last time I applied for a Chase card took great pleasure in rejecting me and then sending me letters slashing all of my existing credit lines. My credit score is stellar (>750), but the agent said I had too many new accounts (17 in 24 months). Maybe I’ll fare better this time. I will definitely put up a fight for THIS card!

  6. November 19th, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    Ed said,

    @Gene — I think I spoke to the same gal you spoke with! Got the letter about “too many inquiries” and when I called to plead my case, I got the runaround.

    Is there any hope of convincing someone on the phone to review the case and overturning the rejection?

    Ideas? Help!

  7. November 19th, 2009 at 8:55 pm

    Sean said,

    The bigger issue is that you will probably not reach the spending threshold required until after new years which is to late as it is based on a calander year. You should wait till Jan 1 to open the card.

  8. November 19th, 2009 at 8:58 pm

    lucky said,

    @ Sean — I don’t plan on spending $30K on this card. I can easily spend $2K this year. My dad will spend $30K on his card next year and we’ll pool our miles (trying to get enough for two F tickets to either the Middle East, Africa, or India).

  9. November 19th, 2009 at 9:01 pm

    Gene said,

    @ Sean — Huh? Couldn’t you reach it during calendar 2010? i believe this benefit applies EACH calendar year.

  10. November 19th, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    eck said,

    Is there any hope of convincing someone on the phone to review the case and overturning the rejection?

    Trying 2 or 3 times on the phone didn’t work for me. In fact, I couldn’t really get a straight answer from Chase as to the reason for the denial, and so assumed it was my recent hard pulls for other card apps.

    Being a persistent cuss, though, I wrote & mailed an appeal letter (basically, extolling my many virtues as a credit user w/long spotless history, owned residence, same employer for many years, etc.). I got a prompt call explaining that it was the 6-month problem Lucky describes: I’d opened a Priority Club Chase card a few months earlier, which the rep said she could close in order to issue my desired CO MC.

    Sum of comment: if working the phone doesn’t solve your problem, write a clear, temperate, spell-checked letter urging reconsideration. Worked for me.

  11. November 19th, 2009 at 10:38 pm

    Ed said,

    @eck — you Rock!! I called Chase just now and told them I was willing to close all of my recent Chase accounts just to get the Golden Ticket (British Airways card) and the lady was great! She gave me a little tsk-tsk about all of my recent inquiries but, dude, I pulled it off. As you can tell, I’m jazzed!

    Thanks for the help.

  12. November 20th, 2009 at 8:28 am

    Gene said,

    Approved without any intervention! Yipee! Now, if only I could use this to pay my rent and mortgage.

  13. November 20th, 2009 at 9:08 am

    Rick said,

    FYI, 1-800-432-3117 is the Chase number to call for automated credit card application status.

  14. November 20th, 2009 at 10:13 am

    chitownflyer said,

    Lucky, you should be able to take some of your United Visa credit and transfer this to a new British Airways Visa. When Chase allowed the bonus mile offer more than once for United cards, I transferred some existing credit from one United Visa to a new account so as to get the bonus miles offer. There should be someone whom you can contact to do this, so the info the Chase rep gave you was wrong.

    With regards to closing the United Visa, Chase states that they can take back the miles if the account is not open for six months or even possibly one year. I would strongly advise you to leave this card open for a bit more than one year(14 months), and then you may close it if you desire. It is simply not worth getting into an argument with Chase and having headaches with them over this. BTW, I am sure you got the Chase hard sell for the Identity Protector, Fraud Protector, etc. and other programs they want to sell you for a monthly fee.

  15. November 20th, 2009 at 11:05 am

    mark said,

    When Chase allowed the bonus mile offer more than once for United cards, I transferred some existing credit from one United Visa to a new account so as to get the bonus miles offer. There should be someone whom you can contact to do this, so the info the Chase rep gave you was wrong.

    I think this falls under the heading of “that was then, this is now.” These days, Chase is taking a pretty hard line on multiple new cards within any 6-month period. Perhaps they will make an exception and allow credit-line reallocation from a newly opened account (as Gary is asking for) instead of requiring that previous card to be closed, but nobody can count on that.

  16. November 20th, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Shedbasher said,

    I was under the impression that the 2K spend was to be done within 3 months so get the card now and spend 2K early next year and then you only need 28K more to get the companion?

    Shedbasher

  17. November 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 am

    One Mile at a Time » Credit card experts, help me out! | Apply for a Credit Card said,

    [...] Read this article: One Mile at a Time » Credit card experts, help me out! [...]

  18. December 3rd, 2009 at 7:34 am

    One Mile at a Time » Credit card experts, help me out! Mortgage just to Me said,

    [...] the original here: One Mile at a Time » Credit card experts, help me out! By admin | category: miles credit card | tags: allowed-the-bonus, credit-card, from-one, [...]

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