Every credit card company has specific rules for applications and welcome bonuses. Knowing these rules is important to crafting your personal credit card signup strategy. Certain welcome bonuses or cards are unavailable if you are outside of these rules. There are also certain card family rules you should be aware of (examples of card families: Chase Sapphire Cards, Amex Delta Cards, Marriott Cards, Southwest Cards). These can also affect your strategy for getting a card in a specific card family. This article summarizes those rules and provides some tips to help you determine your strategy.
Marriott Cards
Marriott has some of the most complicated application rules. This is due, in part, to the fact that both Chase and American Express have co branded cards with Marriott. There are 3 main conditions you need to watch out for.
- If you have had certain cards open within the last 30 days, you are ineligible for the welcome bonus for certain cards
- If you have had certain cards approved within the last 90 days, you are ineligible for the welcome bonus for certain cards.
- If you have received a welcome bonus from certain cards within the last 24 months, you are ineligible for the welcome bonus for certain cards.
Frequent Miler has an extremely useful table to help determine if you are eligible for a certain card based on your past/current cards. You can find that here: Are You Eligible for a New Marriott Card?
American Express
American Express has many rules when it comes to getting welcome bonuses, but there is a silver lining. If you are not eligible for a welcome bonus, they will let you know that you aren’t eligible and let you stop the application before they do a hard pull on your credit. Also, if you are denied, they will not usually issue a hard pull on your credit either. You can also potentially avoid a hard pull if you currently hold an Amex card. This means there is not very much risk to apply for a card and see if you could potentially get the bonus. Here’s a summary of the rules:
- Welcome bonus is only available if you have never had the card/certain cards in the same card family
- Hard inquiries are combined into 1 when you are approved for multiple cards the same day
- You can get a maximum of 2 cards within 90 days (except for Pay Over Time cards AKA Charge Cards)
- You can have a maximum of 5 Credit Cards and 10 Charge Cards at a time
These rules may seem really strict, but there are some things to know. American Express seems to “forget” that you’ve had a card after 7 years, allowing you to potentially get the welcome bonus on the card again even though the terms say you can not get the bonus if you have ever had the card. American Express will also send out targeted offers with no lifetime language, allowing you to get the welcome bonus on a card again. The bonus is, there is really no reason not to try again anyway since American Express will warn you if you aren’t eligible for the welcome bonus and won’t do a hard pull if you withdraw the application at that point.
Now, about the family language added to the lifetime welcome bonus restriction. This is a newer addition to the American Express terms. The good news is, they seem to be using this language to encourage customers not to move from more premium cards to cards with lower annual fees. So, if you work your way up in the family, there’s no reason you can’t still get multiple welcome bonuses within a card family. For example, if you want both the Gold card and the Platinum card, get the Gold card first. Otherwise you most likely will not be able to get the bonus for the Gold card if you already have had the Platinum card. Always check the terms to be sure, and since it’s American Express, feel free to try and see if you get the warning.
There are advantages to having at least one American Express card in your wallet at all times since this will allow you to more easily get other American Express cards. Also, American Express will often send targeted upgrade offers with bonuses tied to a spending requirement. This allows you to get around the lifetime welcome bonus restriction in many cases.
You can also refer friends or family (especially useful for 2-player mode) to get more points. These referrals allow you to refer someone to pretty much any American Express card (even if you don’t have the referred card currently). With these referrals you have the opportunity to potentially refer your player 2 to the next American Express card you want and vice versa and gain points from the welcome bonus and the referral. Be aware that referral offers may not be as good as the publicly available offers, so don’t refer someone if there is a better opportunity for them somewhere else.
Bank of America
Even though Bank of America does not offer transferable points, there are several of their cards that you may consider getting. The Bank of America application rules are not hard and fast rules, but you should be aware of them as they could potentially prevent you from getting the card you want.
- 3/12 Rule – You may not get approved for a card if you have opened 3 or more cards from any bank within the last 3 months.
- To get the same card again, you may need to wait either 24 months after you opened the card before, or 24 months after closing the card.
- Consumer Credit card applications are limited to 2 within 2 months, 3 within 12 months, and 4 within 24 months.
- Hard Inquires within 30 days may be rolled into one (not guaranteed)
- Bank of America may limit you to 5 Personal Cards.
The Bank of America application rules are designed to limit churning. In the past, there were fewer limits, allowing you to get these cards repeatedly and earn tons of points or cash. However, this is less accessible now, but still within reason. The 24 month language is not uncommon on rewards cards, and is used on most co-branded Chase cards. However, you should make sure to check if the terms indicate 24 months after closing or opening the card, as that will change the amount of time you have to wait.
Barclays
Barclays has no known rules or specific language preventing you from getting the same card again and its welcome bonus. However, data shows that it may be hard to get approved for a new card. Hard inquiries are also combined into 1 if approved on the same day.
Capital One
Capital One has a few hard rules when it comes to credit cards, and there are definitely some restrictions to prevent opening a lot of cards for welcome bonuses.
- Welcome bonus can only be earned if you have not received the welcome bonus for the same card within the last 48 months
- Max 2 Consumer Credit cards per person
- Must wait 6 months between applying for another card
- Hard inquiries are often pulled using all 3 credit reports
To further complicate things, Capital One may be less likely to approve you for a card if you are constantly opening new cards with other companies. There is no known number of how many is too many. With that in mind, getting Capital One cards early in your strategy may be good. Or you could plan to get a Capital One card after you’ve taken a break from opening a lot of cards for a few months.
Chase
Chase has one of the most talked about credit card rules in the points and miles game, the 5/24 rule. Along with that rule, there are some other rules you should know about.
- Must wait for 24 months after the previous bonus before applying for the same card again (for most cards). The Sapphire cards require 48 months and the Ink cards do not have a waiting period
- Better offers (in-branch, with partners, calling, etc.) may be available
- 5/24 rule: You usually won’t be approved if you’ve opened 5 or more cards within the past 24 months (most business cards don’t count towards your 5/24 count)
- Hard inquiries are combined into one if you are approved on the same day
- Usually you can not apply for more than 2 cards within a month
- You can only get one Sapphire card (Preferred or Reserve) at a time. If you’ve earned the bonus within 48 months on either of those cards, you are not eligible for the welcome bonus on either of the Sapphire cards
- Similar rule with the Southwest Rapid Rewards cards, except you only have to wait 24 months after receiving a bonus on any of the Southwest Personal cards before you can get another bonus (whether or not it’s for the same card)
The 5/24 rule plays a crucial role in your credit card strategy as it is very easy to open 5 or more cards within 2 years. However, there are ways around this restriction. The reason this is important is because Chase has a large amount of very useful travel rewards credit cards that you probably will want to open throughout your strategy.
The most popular method is to open business cards that don’t report to your personal credit report. Since Chase uses your credit report to determine if you are over the 5/24 count, these business cards allow you to open more than 5 cards within 24 months and still be eligible for a new Chase card. What most people don’t realize is that the requirements for a business card are relatively easy to achieve, and most people could classify something they already do as a business and be eligible for business cards (more information in this article).
Another strategy that can be useful is to group applications for new cards closer together. With this strategy you can potentially still open 3 cards total each year (6 cards every 24 months) with 2 of them being Chase cards. The key is to group 3 card applications closer together (within a few months) each year. By timing when you open the first card each year for when you’re below the 5/24 rule, you can open 3 new cards again. This takes a lot of planning and careful timing, but combining this with opening business cards could allow you to open way more than 5 cards every 24 months.
It’s important to know that authorized user cards do not count against 5/24. However, since these do show up on your credit report, Chase may initially deny your application even if you are under 5/24 in reality. A call to the reconsideration number explaining that they are authorized user cards will resolve this.
Citi
Citi has few rules when it comes to applications.
- You must wait 48 months between receiving welcome bonuses.
- Hard inquiries are NOT combined when approved the same day.
- Max card rules
- 1 Personal card within 8 days
- 2 Personal cards within 65 days
- 1 Business card within 95 days
There’s not much to talk about here, it’s pretty easy to stay within these rules with some planning.
Discover
These cards are not as common in the points and miles space, but in case you are considering any of these cards, here’s what you need to know: You can only have 2 cards open at a time and can only open a new card once every 12 months. There are no known restrictions on getting multiple bonuses.
TD Bank
No known application rules. As always, check the terms and conditions.
U.S. Bank
It can be very difficult to get approved for a U.S. Bank credit card. That is because they pull reports from lesser known credit bureaus. There used to be a way around this by freezing those reports, but that is getting more difficult as freezing that report might actually cause them to deny your application. Your best strategy may be to open these cards when you haven’t opened a lot of other cards.
Wells Fargo
You may have heard of the many issues people have with Wells Fargo. There have been a lot of questionable things that have happened with this bank; however, there are some potentially useful cards that are under the Wells Fargo umbrella, so don’t discount them immediately. My experience with the Wells Fargo credit cards has been a good experience overall.
- Often must have an existing banking relationship with Wells Fargo
- Limit one signup bonus every 16 months
- Hard inquiries are combined into 1 when approved on the same day
Getting into the Wells Fargo cards can be potentially difficult if you don’t already have a Wells Fargo account. However, if you’ve ever considered the Bilt Card you could potentially build that relationship through that card. I haven’t personally tried getting another Wells Fargo card yet, but from what I see in the rules, using the Bilt card to get to other cards could be a great way to start. Plus, the Bilt card is the only Wells Fargo card with transfer partners.
The fact that you can get a welcome bonus every 16 months could be attractive if you are needing a consistent source of cash back since you could get no-annual fee card bonuses every 16 months. However, this is using up a hard inquiry and a 5/24 slot, so you have to weigh your priorities.