tl;dr – It’s not by any means foolproof, and these applications can be very weird!
While I love the points game, I’m not super big on pushing credit cards. Don’t get me wrong – I appreciate what credit cards have done to help me travel over the years, I’m just a much bigger fan of other strategies like purchasing points. With that said, I recently applied for my first new business credit cards in several years. For the last several years, I’d been rocking with two business cards – the Blue Business Cash Card and the Citi/ AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard. (I’d recently shed the Citi/ AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard at my latest renewal). Though I was ultimately approved for every card I applied for, the experience was bizarre and a bit tiring, to say the least. My simple advice: If you’ve decided you really want to chase it, persist.
So I’ll start by laying out some background. In general, I’m a pretty strong applicant on paper. My business has been established for a few years, makes money, and I don’t otherwise have a ton of revolving business credit, in general, nor a ton of outstanding credit that goes unused. Additionally, as mentioned above I haven’t applied for any new cards in quite some time, business or personal in quite some time so no risk of hitting any stated or not stated but understood rules of churning cards. Finally, on the personal front, I’ve got a very strong credit score. This is all to say that I didn’t expect to be put through the wringer, quite like I was.
I applied for five cards in total. Chase’s World of Hyatt Business Card, IHG One Rewards Premier Business Credit Card, Chase’s Business Ink Preferred, and two American Express Cards – the Hilton Honors American Express Business Card and the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card. I applied for all of these cards over a span of ~two months.
I had no issue with my American Express applications. I was approved instantly for both cards, and life went on.
Now, one thing I’ve long known is that Chase’s KYC is in need of work. With each of these applications, I’d fall victim to a vicious cycle where I was prompted to first call in to verify that I submitted the application, then, after speaking with a representative, prompted to submit verifying documents (IRS docs proving my EIN and my passport). I’d do this, only to then receive the same notice from Chase asking me to ‘take action to protect my personal information,’ which required me to call in again, to verify myself…again, starting this cycle all over. This happened, I kid you not, 3 times for one application. Here’s the screenshot of my ‘notices and letters’ section:
I’ve worked in technology, fintech specifically, in the past, so I know that oftentimes situations like this are the result of some automated system gone awry. And I was able to confirm as much when I called in, connected with a representative, and explained this insane cycle. Eventually, I was able to have my application process right there on the phone. I received an email for approval for that card a short while later.
The other two Chase cards followed a similar pattern, though, since I was a bit hip to not letting Chase waste much more of my time, when calling in about both my applications for the two final Chase cards, I was sure to mention the saga I’d already been put through on my prior application. That seemed to have helped, as both of the latter Chase applications only required one follow-up call.
All in all, I spent more time on the phone than I’d have liked, but since I hadn’t made an effort to refresh my business credit cards for some time now, I figured it was worthwhile to persist and see it through to fruition, approval, or decline.
If you’ve applied for any business card applications, particularly with Chase, you may simply need to stay in the fight.
