Success: Two Atmos Rewards Credit Card Approvals In One Day!

If you are 0/24 and have a bunch of cards you are thinking about, would you generally recommend that you apply for them all in the same day? Genuinely curious about this especially as more folks think about a P2 strategy and incorporating cards like Strata Elite, C1 Venture X, etc. that may care more about whether you are 0 or 1/24, etc. No clue how long “the systems” takes to update - presume with checks against multiple different vendors, it may take a little while for them to communicate with each other?

Remember applying for them all on the same day also means having to put an enormous amount of spend (for the bonuses) across those cards in the same short amount of time.

I suppose the holidays are coming up which may mean a lot of planned spending for gifts. However, if you're someone like me who doesn't have any friends to buy gifts for, my gift-giving expenditures over the holidays are pure cash (as is customary to residential building staff in New York City).

@ Peter -- It depends how many cards you plan to apply for, but yes, personally if I have several cards on my radar, I prefer to apply for them all the same day. Sometimes it takes a couple of days for a new card to show on a credit report, and other times it can take weeks. But I tend to think there's merit to just applying as quickly as possible, before there's any ding from inquiries on the credit report (not that it should make a huge difference for most).

Ben, you mentioned Ford didn’t have any Bank of America or Atmos Rewards cards, but did you? Specifically, did you have the legacy Alaska Visa when you applied for the Atmos?

Yep. I hear you. The building staff would not take kindly to gift cards from the Capital One shopping portal, sadly.

Very helpful, thanks!

@ Todd -- I had a couple in the past, but not at the time that I applied for the cards.

It's a Citi Strata Elite & BofA Alaska Atmos app-a-rama! *gong*

If you or anyone is 0/24, for the love of... apply C1 first. Those picky sons of... then Chase... then Citi... then BofA... finally, Amex.

What I truly don't understand, given your wealth, is why you play the credit card/points game at all.

For. The. Love. Of. The. Game. Dawg.

Hi Ben,

Can you write an article about how to deal with all the AA phantom availability when trying to use Alaska Atmos points? Like there are so many times I've searched for AA space and it pops up and I get through the whole process of putting in payment details and everything, then it errors out at the end.

Thanks!

There are more fulfilling and prosocial "games" out there. Have you considered teaching?

If you or anyone is 0/24, for the love of... let's hope you've just started.
Or this isn't your game.

0/24 you might as well just use a bank debit card.

Are you 'recruiting' on here? Ya gotta 'sweeten' this honeypot, bud.

How do you rack up so many Atmos miles if you primarily fly AA? Tell us your strategy

This phantom issue is the bane of my existence.

Which bureau did they query ? Assuming just one hard pull.

It. Depends. On. Your. State. Of. Residence.

(You really should know that already, unless this is your 'first time,' and if it is your first time, please excuse my sarcasm, and don't worry, there is a learning curve, so please keep at it, this is a 'safe space'... *wink*)

I'm in NY; BofA pulled Equifax.

I donno about Ben, but, I'mm'a 'rack up' a buttload on foreign spend using that new 3x category with this Summit card... (I predict they'll scale that back, like US Bank quickly realized their 4% cash-back on the Smartly was unsustainable for their bottom line, which, by the way, one more time, not-cool USB... not freaking cool. Nuked to just $10K each cycle, no taxes. Reminds me of BILT reducing their Double Rent day to just 1,000 bonus points, and worst of all... no more trivia!)

Bane, you say?

Peace has cost you your strength. Victory has defeated you...

You merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, molded by it!!!

Eskimo, perhaps, instead of punching-down, and assuming those at 0/24 are deadbeats... have you considered, oh wise sage, that maybe, just maybe, those at 0/24 are the most disciplined among us... waiting... patiently... for that perfect moment to strike!

...C1 Venture X. Submit. "APPROVED." (instantly) *GASP*

why not save the sarcasm until you've proven it's required? Or just leave it out all together?

@ Mike -- Interestingly, that's something I've never dealt with, probably because I never start my award availability search on Alaska's website. I always find American award space through ExpertFlyer, and if it's available there ("U" for business class and "T" for economy), I've never had an issue ticketing it through Atmos Rewards.

@ Geni -- While I'll rack up quite a few on an ongoing basis for spending, historically I've earned them in a few different ways. For example, I transfered some Amex points to Hawaiian before that partnership ended. Furthermore, thanks to the points sharing that's now allowed between accounts for free if you have the Summit Card, I moved over points from Ford's account and from my dad's account, since they had balances from having Alaska cards back in the day.

Thanks for the reply; that makes sense! Many folks got a lot of Atmos points through Amex. Also, as a relatively new reader, who's Ford?

Mike, I agree, does anyone have suggestions on finding out if the award space is phathom prior to actually booking your flight?