When the cards arrive call in and ask for bumps to the CLs. The worst they can say is no.
Right now the only person who’s seen your file is a computer. Talk up a real human and see if it gets you a higher line.
Argyll your meteorological reports are always of keen interest. Thanks!
But returning to the topic of money generally:
As I have tried to move forward with things I am picking up strong concern on the part of financial institutions regarding fraud. It has reached the point of seriously interfering with honest business, as they try very hard to fight back against the crooks. Case in point:
I did a CC deal yesterday. The amount was south of $15k. Got gunned down like a dog with a security halt. First they shived my deal. Second they contacted me to ask if it was a good charge. When I immediately responded all was well, they instructed me to put the charge through a second time!
Well, not so easy, boys. I tried, but everything unravelled and the deal remains in a shambles, uncompleted. Now if only they had placed the charge on hold long enough to check with me first. But, nope, that is not how it works.
At this point I’m just rolling with the punches. a tiny fish in a huge pond.
Agreed. Patience may yet win the prize. Discover instructed me to wait three billing cycles, then try again. I work my deals in $5k increments, so if I could just get up to a $10k line, or a tiny bit over that, I would be able to avoid cycling, which would make me happy.
pattyb53 I am happy for you and I think you did splendidly compared with my own outcome.
Clearly the granting of credit is a complex, multi-faceted, calculation. I think one needs to be an insider in order completely to comprehend the algorithms involved.
I am no insider, that is a certainty.
I’m probably going to regret this, but as Miles advised Joel in “Risky Business”:
"Sometimes you just gotta say WTF . . . "
I still enjoy that movie. And the earlier forays into Mastercard and Discover cards (see OP) are working out well after need for me to iron out some wrinkles, especially at Citi. Anyway, it was time for new horizons.
New horizons involving profitable Mastercards and Discover cards are small in number. So I did the unthinkable. I applied for and received one of the (ugh!) PayPal 2% across the board cash back cards.
I acknowledge some folks are negative regarding PayPal, and with excellent justification. I’ve been a PayPal member for many years with zero problems . . . . . . . . so far!
Anyway, Synchrony approved me instantly and offered me double the CL of the other two operators, Citi and Discover. How could I turn that down!
We shall see how it goes with PayPal. These Mastercards and Discover cards are so darn profitable that addiction is a distinct possibility.
Moving away from PayPal now, this is a comment regarding Citi DC:
I learned today, in time to save myself, not to request my DC rewards in the form of a statement credit. I will be requesting my rewards be paid by check. Citi does not pay the second 1% on payments to the account made in the form of a statement credit. Sneaky
Probably because you’re not using it the same way as those who had problems. I think most paypal problems stem from bad ebay transactions. Some from excessive MS.
Right. A deposit to a Citi checking or savings account, if you have one, might be faster/easier than a check.
Agreed. My bad. I should have mentioned that. But I do not have other accounts with Citi so that approach, for me, is not front and center.
I direct deposit my double CB to another institution, doesn’t have to be citi.
3 Likes
Heckuva good idea!
Moving along now from the “perils of PayPal”, I am looking at the HSBC Cash Rewards Mastercard. The card has an effective unlimited reward of 1.5% straightaway, 1.65% after one year.
Has anyone anything good to say about this card? Anything bad?
ETA
After extensive further review, this card is out. The card has a built-in CA (cash advance) trap which the cardholder cannot remove.
This is for whatever help it might be to others. Posting here because discussion up thread touched on new Discover card:
Learned today that Discover is willing to submit, upon request of the cardholder, interim reports to the credit bureaus. Hence:
If you mess up with your Discover payment timing and violate Argyll’s Rule, you have a way to put things right. With other credit cards you would have to wait up to an entire month for the next regular report to be issued to the credit bureaus. But not at Discover:
Discover allows you, after you pay down your balance to zero (or whatever) and after that payment has settled irrevocably into the account (allow a few days), to request sending of an off-cycle report to the credit bureaus. This gives you a way to lower your utilization without having to wait (possibly as long as) a month. Lower utilization will give you a higher score. Discover will dispatch the interim report within 72 hours. Allow another day or two for the credit bureaus to receive and tally the updated data.
I learned the above this morning from a very helpful Discover rep. She also told me my opening (I’ve had the card less than a month) credit line with Discover was on the high side . . . . . for them. That was nice.
4 Likes
Update
This is an update to the OP. Have been successful in obtaining a Citizens Bank Cash Back Plus World Mastercard with a decent line, and also of course the PayPal mastercard. Neither card has arrived as yet.
You might not think 1.65% at Citizens Bank is very good, but I can make money with that reward . . . . no problem at all.
I think maybe this is enough Mastercards and Discover Cards for now, though my scheme does scale fairly well. But it’s nice having a bunch of cards so I can spread things out a little. All in all a tidy situation thus far.
Except HSBC. I didn’t like the HSBC card and I did NOT apply. HSBC is inflexible.
Update
So far so good. Things are proceeding apace, actually, with outcomes thus far on target.
All cards have now been received and used one time. Of the five, I was scorched only twice with declined charges. The others worked the first time.
Citi and Synchrony got me. At Synchrony I was able to put things right rather quickly with minimal heartburn. Not at Citi. They really raked me over the coals on security; required multiple calls and attempts. OMG is Citi strict!! Finally “got 'er done” though. Patience won the prize.
Without really knowing for certain, I anticipate my second run through on the cards will go smoothly since the banks will have a history of my usage. I think it’s tough for the banks when there is no history whatsoever. I also have already sent payment money in several instances. That should help to mollify them . . . . . I hope.
Remain in process of getting everything coordinated. With multiple cards like this I need, as best I can, to align cycle dates and payment due dates. It takes the CC issuers time to make changes to those things. The resulting long cycles, in several instances, are at best annoying. But it all will work out in the fullness of time.
Bad: The $150 signup bonus can be redeemed for cash but only to a HSBC Checking/Savings account. I guess it’s in the fine print somewhere but I didn’t see it and so they got me.
Sometimes they have signup bonus for opening an account, but they’re very strict (and quite possibly random) about new accounts (or quite possibly repeat customers).
Yeah, I did not sign up with HSBC (see up thread). It just did not strike me as a bank with which I wanted to do business.
Confession: I am not acquiring these new cards in order to harvest signup bonuses.
So far since beginning this thread have acquired four new cards, all either Discover or Mastercard, and have increased credit line on a fifth (already owned) Mastercard to where it now is usable for money-making purposes (old C/L was only $1000).
Boy, if only Visa and American Express cards would work for me. I have TONS of existing credit available on those cards . . . all worthless. And finding Visa and American Express cards with great rewards seems much easier that finding Mastercards or Discover cards with fat rewards. No complaints, though. I have been fortunate so far and things are going well.
Kind of a fun morning for me today; performed a bit of credit card alchemy.
Whazzat, you ask? I turned an old leaden Visa CC into a brand new and very valuable (to me) Mastercard . . . . without suffering a hard pull and while retaining the old 10K credit line. Here’s the story:
I’m noodling around my credit report at Chase, clicking here and there, and I noticed this old Visa CC which will expire in a few months. I have not used the card for over two years. It, as things turned out, was lying quietly in my sock drawer, forgotten and frankly of little value.
I telephoned the bank to enquire on the card. Got talking to the rep about this and that. We carried on for a while just yakking. Really do not remember how it happened, but something she said motivated me to ask whether it might be possible to transform my worthless old Visa card into a Mastercard . . with the same rewards and with the same credit line!!
So help me God she said “yes”!! She also said there had been other requests for such “conversions” (her term) because of difficulty in some instances with Visa acceptance (yeah, tell me about it). Anyway, I was surprised, overjoyed, and could not believe my good fortune. My old, worthless, Visa CC will now become a genuine money maker. It’s a little like having an old, losing, lottery ticket, which you held onto anyway, suddenly pay off. I got a 10k line, one I can use, with no hard pull. It don’t get no better than that.
So if your sock drawer is full to capacity, do not give up on those worthless credit cards. There might be a gold nugget hiding in there after all, just waiting to be found!
Was unfamiliar so needed to look that one up. Very interesting service. But, no, my game does not involve Plastiq in any way. Your post valuable nevertheless. Thanks.
Posted for information only:
The focus of this thread has been on Mastercards and Discover Cards throughout. Was just informed of a nice, free, upgrade to one of my Mastercards. Thought this could be of interest to others.
Commencing this August, Citizens Bank is boosting the cashback reward on its Cash Back Plus World Mastercard to 1.8% with no strings.
A 1.8% no strings reward on a Mastercard is a respectable reward. I can tell you Citizens Bank pays promptly and efficiently with no BS whatsoever. And Mastercard acceptance is widespread.
At present, until August, the reward on this card is 1.5% basic with a path to 1.65%. I am quite pleased with this announced upgrade to 1.8% since I was already making very satisfactory profit at 1.5%. And Citizens Bank offered me a decent credit line, too.
Bottom line, I can recommend this card.