Credit card application got declined - what strategy should we employ for collecting Velocity points going forward?

Credit Cards & Credit Card Programs
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Hi guys,

My partner and I are looking to build up a big points total using Velocity. We have 230,000 Velocity points at present and were able to both get approved for the AMEX Velocity Platinum cards (100,000 bonus per person after minimum spend within the first three months). We also got a tidy little bonus of 30,000 points as I was the one that referred her to sign up. This takes us to approximately 430,000.

I was under the impression that I could just do the rounds with each bank and get approval to claim sign up bonuses, however I was knocked back by ANZ last night for their Rewards Black (I was hoping to get this as it has no annual fee - we were able to justify the AMEX annual fee given the great amount of inclusions in addition to the bonus points). I had to enter a lot of information with the ANZ application (far more than with AMEX!) and part of that related to my other credit cards, which includes the AMEX with a $23,000 and another card through NAB with a $10,000 limit. Both of these cards are currently payed off however and we have no money owing.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why they would have declined my application? I won’t know from the bank until later this week. And are there any suggestions for how I can continue to build points primarily using sign up bonuses? Is it a matter of canceling one card before signing up for the next so that I can put on the application that I have no other credit?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
James

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Credit card providers are not obliged to tell you reason for decline.

Please remember that each time you apply for a card your credit score goes down even if the application is not successful.

So everytime you apply for a card they can see all other recent applications.  Applying for a lot of cards in a short period can show banks you’re not a serious customer. My suggestion is that you slow down. Simply applying for more cards now because you got rejected by one will make your record worse

 

There could be other reasons why you are rejected , any previous debts, your level of income compared to overall credit. No one can say for sure.

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Have had 2 friends try to sign up to an ANZ card recently and both got declined. Prior to that they had the Amex Velocity exactly as per your situation and cancelled in in the last 2 months before applying over the weekend. Sounds like they are cracking down on who they give these out to now. One thing as fnqhacker mentioned although you owe nothing on your current cards, they will always assume that you potentially could max out those cards .

I currently use the same method as fnq, apply for card and keep it for 11 months, ensure the balance is zero and then apply for the next card seems to have worked up until now.

In saying that, this news of anz declining has me a bit hesitant on applying for the next one.  will be crossing my fingers thats for sure

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