I’ve always found reconsideration calls to be fairly pleasant. I almost never get approved for a card straight away, and when I call reconsideration to speed things along, I usually only have to confirm my income (because, apparently, saying it twice makes it true). At worst, the lender will ask me to rearrange my credit lines to avoid extending me any new credit, which I don’t mind except insofar as it prevents me from buying a yacht.
So, given my pretty good track record, I decided to apply for the Chase Hyatt Visa, since I have a trip to New York coming up and would love to leverage the sign-up bonus (2 free nights) to stay at the Park Hyatt. It would be hard to get more value out of that sign-up bonus, and I’ve never stayed at a hotel that nice before, so it’s a no-brainer for me. Chase almost threw a wrench in the gears, though… As normal, my application didn’t go through right away, so I called reconsideration to see if I could push it through by reallocating my credit with Chase. In the past two years, I’ve signed up for a Sapphire, United MP Explorer, and IHG Mastercard, so I think my credit history screams “churner!” to them. I had a whole spiel about why I wanted two separate hotel c0-brand cards (did you know that I stay in Holiday Inns for work, but my wife loves Hyatt hotels, so we stay in those on vacation???), but the rep I talked to didn’t really care. She just kept telling me over and over that my credit profile was “aggressive.”
Plus, my spiel about why I wanted multiple cards didn’t take into account the multiple non-Chase cards I’ve opened this year, which was yet another red flag. I knew Chase had tightened approval rules for their own cards, but up until now I had heard that they weren’t enforcing the same rules for their other cards. Still, the whole “I swear I’ll really use and keep this card!”/”Yes, but your profile is very aggressive” pas de deux continued until I finally just asked if she’d approve me. She put me on hold for a few minutes and then came back to tell me that I was approved, although she didn’t deploy any of the congratulatory language that lending reps usually use when approving you. In fact, she told me not to apply for any more Chase cards for two years, or I’ll get automatically denied – and she added that the only reason I was approved was that I had a 15-year banking relationship with Chase.
Thing is, I really DO want to use this card to earn Hyatt points, and I’ll definitely keep it long-term, because $75 per year for platinum status and a free night in a category 4 hotel is a great deal! So, overall I’m really relieved that I got approved for this one, but this is the last Chase card I’ll be able to get for a good long while, so I better enjoy it.
Requisite question designed to spur a flurry of responses in the comments section: Does a difficult reconsideration call make YOU question your self worth and all the choices you have made up to this point?
Windbag Miles 