Last week, I detailed my plans for a November 2015 credit card signup. I repeat my disclaimer
One thing I DO recommend before signing up for a ton of credit cards is that you go slow, understand what you’re doing, and only go as fast as you are comfortable with. Don’t sign up for a credit card just because some guy on the Internet says you should!!!
In the end, I decided on the following cards:
November 2015 credit card signup results
- Dan – Bank of America Alaska card: 25,000 Alaska miles on first purchase; $100 statement credit after $1,000 in purchases in the first 3 months, $79 annual fee not waived: RESULT: Instantly approved with $17K credit line (cmon, last time I got an $18,000 credit line :-D)
- Carolyn – Bank of America Alaska card: 25,000 Alaska miles on first purchase; $100 statement credit after $1,000 in purchases in the first 3 months, $79 annual fee not waived: RESULT: Also instantly approved with $17K credit line
- Dan – Chase Marriott Business card: 70,000 Marriott points after spending $3000 in the first 3 months, $99 annual fee waived the first year and a Category 1-5 certificate on your anniversary: RESULT: Pending – call in
- Dan – Barclay Arrival Plus: 40,000 Arrival points after spending $3000 in the first 90 days – RESULT: Instant approval ($12,500 credit line)
- Dan – Citi Prestige: 50,000 ThankYou Points after spending $3000 in the first 90 days. There is a $450 annual fee, but also a $250 airline credit each year – RESULT: DECISION PENDING
- Carolyn – Amex SPG Business Card: 25,000 SPG points after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months – RESULT: DECISION PENDING
I ended up deciding to wait on the Chase Southwest business card in order to see how bad my Chase reconsideration / application phone call goes before I subject my wife to one 🙂
I also decided to wait on applying for a Citi Business AA card until she does the pending application on the Amex SPG Business card, because if there’s one thing my wife likes better than calling credit card application analysts on the phone, it’s doing so for BUSINESS cards!!
Final result – 140,000 points instantly approved, with another 145,000 points pending (and should be approved). If you are interested in applying for these or any other cards and wish to support Points With a Crew, you can use my creditcards.com links here.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Would you mind sharing your (rough) scores? Also was this Dan’s only Barclay card?
I had a Barclay card before but closed it when they devalued their currency. While I no longer think it’s a good card for ongoing spend, that’s still $400 as a signup bonus, which is worthwhile.
Logging into Credit Sesame (affiliate link), my score is 795. Carolyn’s score is similar
A word of warning : depending on how many cards you’ve opened in the last 2 years, that Chase call can be very tough. I was grilled for 20 minutes and felt like a criminal. I got approved, but will avoid chase for a while (and I bank with them!)
Do you mind sharing how many open Alaska cards you had when you applied for this latest one? I’ve read of others being denied if they had cards open. I have two open will be applying for a third soon.
I had 4 of them but closed 2 (or maybe 3?) before applying for the most recent one. My wife had 3 and closed 2 before applying. In both cases I kept the oldest one