Last week, I walked through my plans for an upcoming credit card signup.  After consulting my list of the current credit card signup rules and best practices by bank, I decided on:
- Bank of America Alaska Airlines card with $100 statement credit – 2 for me, 1 for the Mrs.
- Citi Hilton HHonors 75,000 point offer, 1 for me, 1 for Carolyn – see my review here
- SPG American Express Business card for me – see my review of the increased 30,000 point offer.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS IS WHAT WORKS FOR ME! Â I HAVE SEVERAL YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AND KNOW WHAT I’M DOING. Â DO NOT APPLY FOR CREDIT CARDS BECAUSE SOME GUY ON THE INTERNET SAID YOU SHOULD!
Applying for multiple Bank of America Alaska Airlines cards
There have been reports that you can apply for multiple Bank of America cards at the same day (and they’re combined into the same credit pull). Â I had never done it personally, but I thought I’d give it a try.
But then something interesting happened. Â I set up 2 Google Chrome incognito windows, and started to fill out both applications.
But every time I started typing in one of the windows, Bank of America would time out the other window (as shown above). Â I tried refreshing it, but if I’d type in the left window, it would time out the right window, and vice versa.
So clearly Bank of America is trying to crack down on multiple submissions – I assume they have the MAC or IP address of the computer, and are doing some processing on their side. Â I didn’t have time this morning to try it on 2 separate machines at the same time, but that will be my next try.
Anyone ever ran into something like this?
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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 
When you have 2 Chrome Incognito windows on the same commputer, they share a session, so it’s like having 1 browser open multiple times. You’re better off having 1 “regular” Chrome window and another in Incognito, or a completely different browser (Firefox, etc.).
I have the rewards and cash back BOA Cards.I decided upon receiving a Alaska Airline invitation in my email-to apply.I searched for the best link available for perks.I found the 25,000 miles offer with $100 cash back in addition to the just 25,000 miles back offered to me in the email. I send this app. Last night-I get 2-3 day decision pending reply.hmmm….So I then 15 minutes later,I go back and send the email invite also.Approved !!!……for only $2000….Fiddlesticks!! I call this morning and chat with 3 very kind BOA folks on their reconsideration line.Im told i am approved for not one ,but two AA Cards. I talk to two different underwriters and an Analyst.In short,I tell them due to my heavy spend geared towards acquiring miles, I can only use these cards if they are signature cards-3x spend points…etc….They Shuffled $2000 from Travel card to one and added $3000 to the other card.Two Signature AA cards with bonuses and and Signature limits-Done…that’s all I ask for-That’s all that I needed.They know you will spend money and they know you want bonuses.Good People-Just tell them what you want they will work with you. Its that easy!!
I think the issue you’re encountering is that both of your windows are incognito. You have the same cookies within incognito windows, just as you do if you weren’t incognito. What you want to do is set up one window in cognito, and one not incognito. That way they are counted as two separate sessions.
Each of the major browsers have their own version of incognito or Private browsing. If you want to open up more than two apps then replicate the regular browsing + incognito browsing with each browser
The websites typically have access to your IP address, not your MAC address.
FrequentMiler posted the other day that he tried to apply for multiple same BoA cards and seemed to run into issue too. You might want to read his post first. I’m interested in doing this and would appreciate if you could update later. BTW, why not try to get one Alaska personal and one Alas biz on the same day?
Or how about TWO Alaska personal AND one Alaska Business on the same day 🙂
IIRC, his 2nd personal got cancelled because BoA treated it a duplicate. That’s why I said 1 personal 1 biz.
I’m all for applying for credit cards to signup for, but there is a balance between taking what you can and doing too much to the point the banks will take notice. Before you know it you’ll have killed the deal for others…
Unrelated to your specific issue, but do you currently have either an Alaska personal or business card open? If not, did you recently cancel either? Or is this the first time for both business and personal? Thank you!
We both have 1 personal card open (and have had 1 additional personal card in the past, since closed)
Never had this happen but I would suggest using two different browsers instead. I have 3 personal AS cards with BofA. I obtained them over about a year. I think that 3 may be the limit.
Don’t think it’ll make any difference. BofA is cracking down on accepting more than 1 Alaska card or approving more than 1 at a time regardless. Thanks I’m sure to the fairly recent bragging and trumpeting by certain bloggers’ of their successes at getting up to 5 or more cards at one shot and encouraging all their readers’ to do the same (via their links of course). Par for course these days…
I actually had 4 open a few months ago and have sliced it down to 1 now. I got 5 bonuses in the last 6 months or so. I usually do one application via my iPad while doing one via my laptop.
Probably answered above but don’t have the patience to check.
You don’t need to do the fake two browser trick. Just apply for one, then the next, and the next, and the next. Then call up BOA and tell them to split the credit line. They should do it. And interestingly enough if they say no, you’ll probably still end up with two as magically happened to me.
I honestly wish people would stop trying to do this. It’s just going to kill the whole thing.