My dream of holding a Best Western credit card must be deferred. The mash note from Barclays said “excessive credit requests.”
I didn’t actually want the card, it was part of my experiment of sequential 5-card Barclays applications in my ‘11 approved, 2 pending‘ card churn. The 12th card, the US Bank Club Carlson Business was approved, but no lucky 13.
What burns me up is that I was too lazy to call Barclays the day I applied. Commenter Richard warned me ahead of time to call on any that went to pending. Sure enough, a few days after application, a new credit inquiry appeared for Barclays, fortunately on my little-used TransUnion.
So, if you go for Barclays, or any cards in a churn, heed Richard’s advice:
The late Barclay’s hit reinforces the point about doing a churn in the early hours so you have time in the day to call/chat/contact recon for all the issuers by the end of that day so if they do re-pull, it will get merged.
Not every card issuer will process same-day with a call, US Bank seems a no-go based on reports and my experience, they process when they want and calls do not reach the people who actually do the processing. Most other card issuers will process if you call, Frugal Travel Guy has a comprehensive list of contact numbers.
See my Barclays credit cards 101, and how many can you get at once, 4, 5 or more? for more information on maximizing Barclays applications.
(Disclaimer: I do not receive a commission for either card referenced in this post, the links above I provide for reader convenience.)
Good data point. To provide another, in an October Barclays app, I applied for 2 cards. One auto approval and 1 rejection after calling right away(no love). I ended up with 2 pulls, one on TU and a second on my heavily inquired Exp! I hope this is an unusual experience as the wasted Exp pull is a huge bummer.
Wow MrAlezMoore that sucks. what state and what cards? I think its the first time I hear of problems getting two cards.