My Recent Credit Card Applications and Surprising Arrival+ Approval

Due to some large upcoming spend ($10-$20k range), I’ve been looking at available credit card signup bonuses. I briefly entertained the Capital One Spark $2k bonus, but $50k spend would be a pressure I’m not interested in taking on. I’ve already tried and got denied for the 75k Venture deal. I thought about the Arrival+ 70,000 bonus.

My assumption was that Barclays would deny me due to the suggested 6/24 rule on the Arrival card. On whim, I shot off an application, without quite deciding if I’d try calling in to get it manually approved (reports indicate calling in sometimes works to get a 6/24 application approved).

Initially, the application went pending, yet just 10 hours later they sent me an approval email. Score!

Looking at my credit card history over the past year, I was surprised to see how quiet it’s been. In December 2017, I signed up for the Schwab Amex for the triple dip (that card will be closed out soon enough), and otherwise the only card picked up recently was one Synchrony store card. I also did two business Platinum upgrade offers (50k for $10k) which took up much of my spending over the past few months.

Reviewing my totals, it seems that I have 6 new cards in the past 24 months: Chase Amazon, Merrill+, Altitude, BofA PR, Schwab, and one Synchrony store card (this discounts business cards which doesn’t show on the report). While technically a store card, the Synchrony card shows up on the credit report as a regular card. Chase reps can usually discount a store card from your 5/24 count manually, but the system usually recognizes it (last I know), and I’d guess Barclay’s system would act the same way.

So did I break the 6/24 rule? Yeah, sort of, maybe, depends if you count the Synchrony store card or not. We noted in the original post that there have been many reports of approvals, and that it never appeared to be a strict rule. In my case, the approval wasn’t instant, and may have been manually reviewed before approval; it may be that some 6/24 people are manually reviewed and approved.

Overall, it was interesting for me to review my recent credit card history, and I was shocked at how few new cards have joined my wallet lately. I may even be under 5/24 in a few months from now. Then again, the new Arrival sets me back one, plus, I’ll soon be eligible for a Citi Thank You bonus, so getting down under 5/24 isn’t very easy. We’ll see.

Related: Can I Get the Barclay Arrival Plus if I have the No-Fee Arrival?