Strategy for Opening a New Travel Hacking Card

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When I get within a week or two of earning my credit card’s sign-up bonus, I start prepping to open my next card.
Not only am I looking at the best available offers out there now through the Travel Freely app, but I’m prepping my own accounts to try to get an automatic approval. You always want to stay under 5 personal cards opened in a 24 month period, so that you can continuously get approved for new cards with Chase- the best bank to travel for free with due to Hyatt hotels being their transfer partner. Thus, I never open up more than 4 personal cards in a 24 month period. So honestly most of the time I am opening up business credit cards. I don’t have a huge brick and mortar business, just some side gigs. So yes, this is more that sustainable to open like 5 business cards a year from various banks. Know though that the Capital One’s Spark Cash Select, Spark Miles, and Spark Miles Select. And then any business card from Discover, DO show up on your personal credit report and counts against your Chase 5/24 status!

Here’s the 4 steps I do when I’m preparing to open a new credit card:
Check my FICO score to make sure there aren’t any temporary dips in it from opening or closing credit cards recently.
Check my existing card credit limits.
Oftentimes, Chase will automatically increase my credit limit without telling me.
Chase is also likely to stop approving us for new credit cards if our available credit across ALL cards (including Chase biz cards) exceeds 50% of our income.
One little caveat with that is if you have non-Chase business cards, Chase has no idea what you have unless they show up on your personal credit report.
I keep my business credit limits as low as possible- $3-5k per card.
You don’t want to lower your personal credit card credit limits too low, as that will negatively impact your credit score.
Altogether, my available credit between personal and business cards with that same bank equals 25-30%% of my household income. Thus, I will likely lower some credit card limits.

Update my household income on my bank’s profile, so that it matches the income I am reporting on the new credit card application.
Pull out my notes or screenshots from my last credit card application.
I like to have my household income added up and ready to go.
If I’m applying for a business card, I need my notes for application selections. Business card applications ask for a lot more info, so I make sure I have my notes for the following: My EIN, Business Established Date, Business Annual Income, Business Annual Expenses, Business Estimated Monthly Spend, Household Income, Authorizing Officer Title, Business Category, Business Type, Business SubType, Legal Business Structure, and Business Legal Name/ Desired Name on Card.
I hope that helps, and please, like and subscribe to stay in the know with travel hacking, and leen on travel!