My App o Rama - Part 1
I decided it was time to do an app o rama to make some more free money. Never heard of it? I discussed what an app o rama is not too long ago. It’s simply a process of opening up a bunch of new credit cards when your credit score is high in order to get sign up bonuses and 0% balance transfer offers.
Starting out my credit cards and their limits were pretty much the same as before.
A little over a month ago I began to plan for this. The first step was to pay off my old balance transfers. All but one had its 0% promotional period ending last month so I didn’t lose any money. The only other one has 6 months left but I went ahead and paid it down to less than 30% because it was already pretty small.
The next step was to ask for credit increases on any cards that would allow you to do so without a hard credit inquiry. This would allow me to increase my limits as much as possible before I got started. Many times new credit cards are given limits very similar to the one’s you already have.
Unfortunately, only discover gave me an increase, and a paltry 250 one at that. Citi and American Express both did not give automatic increases online so that means a hard inquiry is needed. Last time I asked for increases on Chase and MBNA hards were needed so I didn’t bother with them. Here is what my current setup is:
Citi Dividend 1000
Citi mtvU 1000
Citi Simplicity 13700
Citi Professional 6000
Chase Cash plus Rewards 9000
Chase Amazon 5000
Discover 1250
American Express 6700
MBNA 529 Fidelity 3200
MBNA Fidelity Investments 4000
MBNA Charles Schwab
Crapital One 600
local credit union 3500
The only major changes are that I moved lines from my citi cards to the simplicty because it had an unused 0% offer for a year on it. The professional one also has a 9 month offer. I have a subscription with privacy matters where I can pull my credit reports every day so it was simply a matter of waiting until my reports updated the paid off balances. I had no inquiries on Transunion or Equifax. I had several on Experian but they are all over 6 months old now so are not really factored in.
The next step was the real planning stage: deciding which cards I would apply for and in what order.