Credit Card Applications Yesterday

I applied for both the Amex Hilton Surpass card and the Alaska Airlines card yesterday.  I purchased a new vehicle a couple weeks ago and since my credit was pulled, I figured I would open up a couple cards because of the 30-day window of credit pulls.

You may ask why I opened the Alaska Airlines card since I live in Boston and they are more of a west coast carrier.  The reason is because Alaska Airline miles are awesome! First off, they have a distance based award chart. They have many transfer partners.  Specifically, airlines that will get me to Asia in the future.  Since my wife is Thai, I am planning to go the Thailand in the near future.  Since her parents live in France and we plan to fly there, I can transfer to Air France.  Lastly, they partner with Iceland Air.  I would love to go back to visit Iceland again.  This time for more than a couple nights.

Travel partners:

I also opened up the SPG personal and business cards recently.  SPG points transfer to Alaska miles with a bonus.  Every 20,000 SPG points that you transfer to most of SPG’s partners, SPG will give you an extra 5,000 points.  20,000 SPG points would equal 25,000 Alaska miles.  With those two SPG card bonuses and spending, I now have roughly 85,000 SPG points.

As of right now, I have over 13,000 Alaska miles just for opening an account with them and Virgin America.  Alaska bought Virgin America last year.  A few months ago, Alaska gifted everyone 10,000 miles if they belonged to both programs before December 5th, 2016.  I had just over 1,000 Virgin America miles for signing up for their emails.  Alaska lets you transfer Virgin miles at a 1:3 ratio.  That’s how I ended up with over 13,000 miles and it didn’t cost me a penny.

Lastly, I was approved immediately for the Alaska card from Bank of America.  After I spend $3,000 in first 3 months, I will have another 33,000 Alaska miles with the $100 credit, which will take care of the annual fee for the first year.

Now on to the other card I opened.  The American Express Hilton Surpass card.  They are having one of their highest bonus offers right now.  I know Hilton points are not worth that much, but since it was a special 100,000 point offer and a free weekend night on your anniversary date, I jumped on it.  There is just one problem.  I was not approved immediately.  I have a feeling Amex is looking further into my application.  They are starting to crack down on point churners.  Since September of 2016, I have opened 4 of their credit cards.  I opened the Gold Premier Rewards card for 50,000 points and the Gold Business card for 50,000 points.  You also read above that I opened both SPG cards recently.  Let us just keep our fingers crossed that they approve me.

I will try to write more blogs soon instead of one every few months.  I have a few that I would like to write in the coming days.