Churning After Midnight

I learned a lesson two nights ago. Churning after midnight is not a good idea.

Let me take you back a second, for the past few days, I have been facilitating at a conference in Stamford, Connecticut. The days/nights were very long and the 7 hour drive Sunday took it out of me. I went down for a nap at 5 pm Sunday and woke up 5 hours later. Made a quick dinner, checked email, and started reviewing the posts on my blog roll. Then I had one of those great ideas: time to apply for credit cards.

My last churn was back in late July, which resulted in an increase in my credit score. According to Credit Karma, my credit score is 775. With that knowledge, it was time to apply for credit cards.

What credit cards was easy:

1) US Bank's Club Carlson Premier Card

2) Chase Southwest Business Card

3) Chase Southwest Personal Card

Picking which credit cards I thought was the hardest part of churning. I was wrong. The problems started immediately with applying for the Club Carlson card. I kept on typing my student ID number, instead, of my social security number. An error kept appearing on my screen stating that I need more digits in my social security number section. I applied two more times with my student ID number until I figured out what my mistake was.

I was eventually approved for the Premier Card with a very large credit line.

Next, I went to apply for the Southwest Personal Card. Chase has a nice feature, where you can sign into your account, on the application to pre-fill your application. This is a great feature, if you can remember your password. That night, the password escaped my brain. After four failed attempts of failed passwords, I gave up or in reality, the system told me it to fill out the application manually.

This time I filled out my social security number correct, but the application system kept on coming up with an error: "Zipcode does not match state." I kept on looking at the Zipcode (22201) and the state (DC) without seeing where the error was. Five minutes later, I realized I live in Virginia, not Washington, DC. At the conference  I kept on telling people I live in Washington, DC area. My brain must have been tricked itself into thinking I still lived in Washington, DC; instead, of where I actually live in Virginia.

After fixing that error, I was approved for the Personal Card.

Two card down, one left to apply.

Now its 1:00 am, the last card is the Southwest Business card. My experience with the personal card, I skipped the prefill option and manually filled out the application. My exhaustion was full blown and filling out a business application, as a sole-proprietorship is difficult even with a clear mind. I thought that application was asked about "annual revenue" vs "annual sales." In the mortgage world, those two can be very difficult.

Then, I made the error everyone makes: I forgot to click the agree to the terms button. After all the other mistakes, I had a small breakdown: some silent swears, a hand gesture or two and some stumping on the ground. I clicked the accept button and hit submit, which I hoped was my last time.

The result was "you will hear from us in 10 days." The answer isn't surprising since I applied for both the Personal and Business card at the same time. However, I wasn't not going to to wait 10 days for an answer, so I called the reconsideration line. Any smart person would guess, they aren't open 1:30 am. But I called anyway and was upset to hear they have regular business hours.

Not willing to go to bed without an answer, I called the application line and talked to a very nice lady. I explained my situation and she put my on hold. A few minutes later, she apologized profusely and said I would need to speak with a business analyst, but they work normal business hours. I would have to call back tomorrow, but she would send an email to the business department now for me.

One of the things, I have learned reading blogs, if you don't get an answer you like on the phone, hang-up and call back. I did just this. If I was of clear mind, I would have listened to the first person I spoke with and went to bed. She did not provide me back news, she told me the truth, they were closed. The next call went much quicker. It went something like this:

Chase: I looked up your profile. I see that you just called

Me: Yes, I did.

Chase: Did you have another question?

Me: No, I just was hoping you could help me.

Chase: I wish I could help, but as the colleague said, the business department is closed at the moment. You
           will need to call back tomorrow.

With two approvals and one pending application, I went to bed.

The next morning, a three minute call to Chase resulted in an approved Southwest Business card.

Looking back, I will never apply for credit cards in the middle of the night. At that time of night, no one should be applying for credit cards. I was lucky that I did not make a major mistake on the application. How many time do people transpose a digit in their social security number? A mistake like that will result in a suspended application, a call to the credit card company and most likely you sending in your social security card to the credit card company. Way to much work.

For this reason, no more Churning After Midnight!


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