Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

What's With all the Credit Card Denials?!?!?!

• Raya & Duane

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We explore strategies for handling credit card denials and share insights on navigating bank-specific rules to improve approval odds while discussing recent Hyatt award chart devaluations affecting popular properties worldwide.

• Cancellation strategies for point bookings when plans change, including leveraging elite status for fee waivers
• Comprehensive overview of Hyatt's 2024 award chart changes affecting 118 properties moving to higher categories and 30 moving lower
• Notable category increases for popular properties including Grand Hyatt Kauai, Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile, and multiple Japan hotels
• Personal experience with recent credit card denials for Capital One Spark despite strategic application approaches
• Bank-specific approval strategies including closing older Chase Ink cards before applying for new ones
• Using an EIN instead of SSN for business card applications to improve approval odds
• Understanding American Express "pop-up jail" and potential workarounds
• Application timing rules for major banks: Capital One (one card every six months), Citi (one card every eight days), and Barclays spending requirements

Remember that credit card denials aren't personal—they're algorithmic decisions based on specific data points. Take a deep breath and be patient if you experience rejections, as this is a marathon rather than a sprint.


Speaker 1:

If you've been noticing an uptick in credit card denials recently, either for yourself or for others online, we've got some tips on how to avoid that in today's episode, so listen in. Hi, I'm Raya. And I'm Dwayne. And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

Speaker 2:

We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

Speaker 1:

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome back to Travel Party of Five podcast. My name is Raya, I am one of your hosts and I am flying solo again today. If you listen to last week's episode, we've got a couple episodes like this coming up, predominantly because, at the time of recording, dwayne and I are in the middle of getting ready for our biggest trip ever, which is going to be two full weeks in Europe with all three kids, and he is working a ton of hours before we leave and we are just scrambling to fit things in where we can, and this happens to fit in during a time when he is at work. So we're going to talk a little bit about credit card denials today. I'm going to share a couple of very recent denials that we have had just in the last 30 days, and I'm also going to give some tips for each bank, or actually not each bank, but for a few of the different banks, if you're specifically getting denials from, say, chase or Amex or Capital One.

Speaker 1:

I also, before we jump into that, though, wanted to talk about a couple of other things. So first of all, we were supposed to have an episode about Austin, texas, and staying at the Driscoll Hotel in Austin, which is a Hyatt, and that was going to be a girl's trip that I was going to go on with one of my best friends from high school and unfortunately that trip got canceled because both her and one of her daughters came down with the flu just a couple days before we were supposed to go. So that was super disappointing. But I did want to share a little tidbit about the cancellation process, because I know that sometimes things happen, things come up and we do need to cancel, and so when you book with points, generally you can get those points back. However, in this particular instance, the hotel had a 72-hour cancellation window. The hotel had a 72 hour cancellation window and we did not cancel until 24 hours prior.

Speaker 1:

And when this happens, there's generally a couple of things that you can do. One of them is to call the hotel and ask to move your reservation out. So maybe move it out a week and then wait a day or two and then cancel, and then at that point you know it's obviously more than 72 hours and so you're fine and you should get all your points back. I didn't do that that. I was going to do that and I thought you know what? Let me just call the globalist line, because now we have globalist status. And I thought let me just call the globalist line, let me tell the truth, because they don't want someone who has the flu coming to their hotel and let me just see what happens. And so I did call. They did say hey, you know, this hotel has a 72 hour cancellation policy. I said I understand that, you know.

Speaker 1:

Unfortunately, one of you know, my friend, has the flu. We were not able to make it, so they put me on hold, they called the property and they were able to cancel it without any penalty. I am not sure if that was because of my status or not, but I would say, give that a try and if that doesn't work, then maybe go back to the first thing I said, which is to move the date out and then cancel. I'm not sure if that hotel always has a 72 hour cancellation policy, but what we didn't know at the time of booking was the Austin Marathon was going on the same weekend. We were there and we didn't realize that until maybe a week or two prior. So that could have just been the cancellation policy during that time because of a big event, who knows? But just a little data point. There they were. I was able to cancel within 24 hours with no penalty, so that was great.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I wanted to talk about before we jump into credit card denials is last week about a week and a half ago actually Hyatt released their award chart devaluations, and so if you're new to points and miles, I think that can maybe seem like a horrible thing, but just to like level set expectations, they do this every year. So I think overall there are 118 Hyatt hotels this year that are moving to higher award categories, and then there are a few, like around 30, that are moving to a lower award category. We're not going to talk about every single property today that would be very boring, but I did want to highlight a couple of the ones that I'm most disappointed about. And then there is one that I'm not disappointed about. There is one that's going down in category that I actually think is really fantastic. Okay, so let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

In the US specifically, there's a few properties that we are going to stay at this year or that we stayed at last year that are changing. So the Hyatt Place Flagstaff for one, that's like it was a really good, like cheap option to stay in Flagstaff If you live in Phoenix, which is Flagstaff is just like a two hour drive. It's going from a category two to a category three just like a two hour drive. It's going from a category two to a category three. The grand Hyatt at SFO so this is an airport hotel is going from a five to a six Like. The fact that an airport hotel is even a category five or six is insane, but we are going to stay there for one night before our flights to Japan later this year, so good thing that that's already booked.

Speaker 1:

As a side note, let me tangent for one second. If you are planning to stay at any of the properties that I mentioned that are going up a category and you have not booked it yet, you need to book it by March 25th I would even say March 24th, which is coming up very soon, in order to get the lower rate. If you book after March 25th, you will pay the higher category points rate. If you're paying cash this doesn't really actually know the cash rate would also be a little higher. Anyways, I would book as soon as possible. Okay, another property we're going to stay at this summer that's going up in category is the Grand Hyatt Indian Wells Resort. They just did a renovation, so I guess that doesn't super surprise me.

Speaker 1:

Another one in California that's on here is the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach. That's going from a four to a five. We have also stayed at that property. It is in desperate need of a renovation. So I would not. I would not say that's worthy of a category five at all. Um, let's see, uh, the Hyatt Regency Orlando international airport. That's a fantastic hotel If you have to stay like overnight, um, either before a flight or on a layover, because the hotel is directly in the airport. That is also going from a four to a five. Coconut Point in Florida, which is another one kind of in South Florida, is going up. The Grand Hyatt Kauai is going up. Let's see.

Speaker 1:

I'm scrolling down the list to see if there's any other ones that jump out at me. The other disappointing thing is that a lot of these categories that are moving from a four to a five like it's not a big difference in cost, right, it's like maybe it's 5,000 points for the most part, which isn't a huge deal. The bigger deal is that you can no longer use your category one through four free night certificates at these properties, which then makes those certificates a lot less valuable in my opinion. I think that's it for ones that are going up in the US. Again, that's not the entire list, but those are the ones that jump out at me as being some of the more popular ones in the points and miles world.

Speaker 1:

There is one in the United States that's going down a category, that is the Hyatt Regency Maui, and I'm not sure if that's because of the fires and they've had low occupancy or if it's because they redid their pool and it's not as good, but it is going down a category and that's really. It's still a really fantastic place to stay. Maui is our favorite Hawaiian island that we've been to and I would I would actually consider planning another trip back there, maybe in 2027. So if you've got Maui on the brain, I would definitely recommend that hotel for families. The other good thing is, if you already have it booked. The other good thing is, if you already have it booked and you know, then the rate devalues, hyatt will refund you the points difference, so that's also really good. You don't have to do anything to get that.

Speaker 1:

Jumping over to Asia, japan took a big hit in this devaluation. So I think there's maybe 10 properties in Japan that are all going up in category and several of them we will stay at later this year. So the Hyatt Centric Ginza in Tokyo is going from a 6 to a 7. The Hyatt House Tokyo Shibuya is going from a 4 to a 5. We will stay at both of those later this year. And again, we actually used some free night certificates at the Hyatt House Tokyo Shibuya and after March 25, you'll no longer be able to do that because it's going up to a category five. The Ondas in Tokyo, which is also super popular, is going up, and a bunch of others. So that is disappointing.

Speaker 1:

Another family friendly property that's been on my list is the Grand Hyatt Bahamar in the Bahamas. That is going from a category six to a category seven. The Ondas Papagayo in Costa Rica is going from a seven to an eight. There's some all inclusives that are going up in category, like a few secrets in Mexico and that sort of thing. That's not really our jam, but if it is I would check that if you're planning to book.

Speaker 1:

And then, moving on to Europe, in Italy, the Il Tornabloni in Florence. I stayed there last year with my mom and my sister. It's a phenomenal hotel in a phenomenal location. It's going from a seven to an eight and I'm not surprised by that. I think that that probably makes sense. There's also a couple in London, in Germany and a few others, so you can Google world Hyatt, world of Hyatt, award chart changes and you can find the full list. If there is a property that you are, have your eye on that. You want to see if it's going up or down.

Speaker 1:

The last one that I want to talk about this is such a disappointment to me because I stayed there last year, we're going to stay there again and it's such a good value for families is the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile. This is, or was, a category four Hyatt, so you could use your category one through four free night certificates here. This is a fantastic hotel for families because you can book two rooms and fit five without a problem and they have a fantastic club that you can book club access without even needing status, and the club is really great. It has fantastic views of the Eiffel Tower. It is a little bit outside of the city, but not so much that you can get to the city center, and maybe 10 minutes on the Metro. So it's not a bad location and we are literally staying there the week that this episode airs, probably. So that's a disappointment. It's going from a four to a five. It's not surprising to me. It's super popular, it's always booked out. But again, it's just disappointing with the category one through four free night certificates. So, hyatt, if you are listening, that really should probably become a category one through five free night certificate when you're considering your award status changes for next year. Please keep that in mind, thank you. Okay. That wraps up the high end award chart changes.

Speaker 1:

Let's jump into some credit card denials, because I'm going to share a few denials that we've had recently and talk about some tips to potentially offset those denials. If you're experiencing something similar, let me start by saying, if you are new to points and miles, that you're probably not likely to get declined in the beginning, especially if you have decent credit, like if your credit is above maybe 740, you're like I would not expect you to get declined, and the other thing to know that is, if you do get declined, it is not personal. I think people get really offended that you know XYZ bank is declining their application. You can't take it personally. It's done by a computer, it's a robot. It's looking at certain data points and it's making a decision. There's no feelings involved and it doesn't say anything about who you are as a person.

Speaker 1:

In fact, my personal trainer, I referred her to a card and, uh, she wants to get into points miles and she already has a venture card, which is a great, a great first step. And she's like what's my next card? And I said it should definitely be the chase Sapphire. So she applied she has great credit, um, decent credit history, um, and she got declined and she was like I don't understand why it got declined. Okay, turns out they had actually sent her a request to verify her identity, like they had called her, and she missed it, and so that was why her application got declined. So what she did was she called back again that's how she learned this and her application at the time had expired. So she applied again and then they called her immediately and she was able to verify her identity and then she was approved. So, step one make sure the bank hasn't reached out to you to confirm something on your application if you're getting declined. Step two again, just don't take it personally, because we're in this for the long haul and credit card denials will happen to you at some point. It's just a fact.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to tell you the story of what's been happening over here and the denials that we've had, and why I think that is, and then I'm going to jump into a few tips that I have learned from jumping down Reddit rabbit holes and reading in Facebook groups about a few different banks. So we have a high spend coming up. We are going to renovate our master bathroom shower and we are also doing some putting in a kitchen backsplash. We're doing a few home renovations. We're going to have the exterior of our house painted coming up in the next few months, and so we've been saving up money for this. We have the money to pay, but obviously we're going to use a credit card to earn the points and get the signup bonus, and so I originally thought, okay, you know, if I combine all these home renovations, plus we have summer camp bills coming up and all that, I thought I think we can meet the minimum spend for the Capital One Spark card, which currently has an elevated offer of 200,000 points, but the spend is very high. It's for a $30,000 minimum spend in three months. Normally that is something we could never, ever meet, and so it's not something that's been on my radar. But with all these home improvements I thought you know what we probably could meet that spend now. And you know, at the end, once you've met the spend capital, one gives two x on everything. So you would end up with 260,000 capital one points, which that's fantastic. I'm like, oh, that I'll transfer that to Flying Blue and Heartbeat and get us back to Europe again next year, and that would be more than enough for round trip for all five of us in economy. So that was my original plan.

Speaker 1:

I did some research on getting approved for the Capital One Spark card and it seemed to be that if you froze your Experian credit or, let me add, if you froze whatever credit bureau had the most inquiries for you, you would have a greater chance of being approved. So I did that I froze my Experian credit report and I applied and I was not approved, and then I was disappointed. So then I went down a rabbit hole of looking at each credit bureau and figuring out okay, they all actually have a good amount of inquiries, because I have opened quite a few cards for myself this year already. And so then I thought, well, maybe Duane should apply for the card instead, because we haven't opened a card for him in maybe a few months. So then I applied for him actually, and he also got declined, denied, whatever you want to call it. So then I was definitely frustrated because we have this great opportunity to open these cards and get all these signup bonuses and if I can't get approved for the cards, then that can't happen and I certainly can't have this spend go to waste, right? So here's what I did.

Speaker 1:

I kind of settled a little bit for opening a few different cards. I was able to open a second Chase Inc, and I'm going to talk more about how I was able to do that at the end of the episode I was. Also American Express has been targeting me for the Blue Business Plus card and I have been not doing it because the signup offer was not great. It was 25,000 points for, I think, $6,000 in spend, and that's not a great offer in my opinion. If it had been 50,000 or something like that, then, yes, I would have done that for sure. But in a moment of desperation I said you know what? I'm just going to do this I can meet the minimum spend in one purchase right with the down payment on our shower and so signed up for it, got the card number, met the minimum spend within an hour of getting the card, and now I've now that's done I've earned woohoo, 25,000 plus whatever 6,000. So 30,000 plus whatever 6,000. So 30,000 points. That's not the best, but it's something. So that's fine.

Speaker 1:

And then I also, um, on the same day that I that I applied for the chase Inc, I applied for the United business card because that is, uh, has an elevated offer right now of a hundred thousand miles. I applied for them both on the same day because I was trying to avoid multiple credit hits and I was approved for both of those. So, as of now, what we're working with is the Amex Blue Business, which I've met the minimum minimum spend for and is already going to be put away in a sock drawer, and then the United Business and a Chasing Preferred that I did refer from, duane, to me. So we will get the referral points as well, and with those two cards we will finish the spend for our shower, and then we will also use that as our spending card for Europe when we go. And neither one of them charge a foreign transaction fee.

Speaker 1:

So that was part of the reason why I wanted the ink preferred, and so, once we've met those, I'm not really sure what our next plan is, because we got denied in this process of trying to get cards. We've gotten denied for quite a few cards, and so I need to kind of probably take a break and think through that. However, I'm going to give you some tips on if Chase is denying you. You know what to do if Amex is denying you or if Capital One is denying you. So let's start with Chase First of all. If you are trying to get a Chase ink and you're being declined, there's a lot of data points that show that if you have more than two Chase inks open, your chances of getting approved are pretty low, and if you have three or more Chase ink cards opened, your chances of approval are almost zero.

Speaker 1:

So I would take a look at the cards that you have and any inks that are over a year, I would start closing them. I probably wouldn't close them all at once, but maybe close one this month, close another one next month and just start to gear up for your next application. And do the same thing for your P2, if you have one. And then the other thing that I did that took us a long time was I finally opened up an EIN for our business. This is free to do. You can do it on the IRS website and it's very simple. And then the last two inks that I have gotten approved for I don't know if we talked about this on the podcast already or not, but the last two inks that I have gotten approved for I don't know if we talked about this on the podcast already or not, but the last two inks that I've gotten approved for have been with my EIN and not my social security number, and so I would anticipate that if I tried to apply for a third, I'm probably going to get declined if I had to guess, and so I will then move on to Dwayne and have him do the same thing.

Speaker 1:

But up until this year, we have applied for all of our Chase business cards using our social security number as a sole proprietor, and we made it pretty far. I feel like Chase is definitely cracking down a little bit more. I think that's understandable, given the over abundance of Chase ink cards that I know people have been getting over the last one to two years, and so I think those are two things that worked for us. Number one closing out some cards. I actually just requested to close one of Dwayne's yesterday. He had hit the year mark, the annual fee had posted and so I just sent a secure message saying, hey, I'd like to close this account and as they come up, as the one year mark comes up, on any future ones, I will continue to do the same thing, and when he has two or less and same for me, I will then apply again with his social or my social. But the EIN is what helped us to get approved for the last two cards. So I think if you do have a business you can get an EIN for then I would recommend doing that if you haven't already.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's move on to Amex. So Amex has Amex can deny you flat out or you can get what's called Amex pop-up jail, which is where you're applying for a card and you'll get a pop-up that says you're not eligible for the welcome offer, and Amex has some algorithm that determines this and no one really knows what it is. Some people say if you spend on your existing Amex cards, then you won't have a problem or then that will help you get out of Amex pop-up jail For me personally. I am in Amex pop-up jail for any personal American Express cards. I spend on my business cards every month and I'm still in pop-up jail for any personal cards. And what I don't know is if the business spend correlates to my personal um value with Amex, if you will. And then my husband is the opposite. So he can get Amex personal cards but he cannot get business cards. He's in pop-up jail for those. So it's frustrating.

Speaker 1:

I think for the most part we don't want the card without the welcome offer. There are a few that I would consider getting the card for without the welcome offer. One of those is the Aspire card, because that comes with a Hilton free night certificate. Every year you have the card and so I would maybe consider for that card, but for the most part no, thank you. So again, if you are getting the Amex pop up, then one way to attempt to get out of that is to spend, you know, maybe a few hundred dollars a month on your existing Amex cards and maybe wait two to three months and try again.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I've noticed is if you are getting declined, like straight up declined for Amex cards, this can be for a couple of reasons. One there's a I'm going to call it a rumor because I don't a hundred percent know that it's true but a lot of people think you can only have up to five Amex cards at a time. I'm not sure if that's true, because I know people that have more. They also do limit you to one application every five days. So if you apply, get denied and then apply again the next day like I wouldn't do that you want to give it at least five days. I think you can apply for two cards within 90 days and they will approve you, but if it's more than that they won't.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I've noticed is one of the cards I applied Duane for was a Marriott business card which was through American Express, and he didn't get declined but it said they needed more information, and I've never seen that before. They basically were requesting a copy of his driver's license and that sort of thing, which is fine. I'm happy to send that in. Except that shortly after I got that notice, the Hilton cards came out with elevated offers, and so I actually would much prefer he get the Hilton card with the elevated free night offer instead of the Marriott card. So I'm now letting the Marriott application expire and then I will apply him for the Hilton card, probably at the end of this month. So denials can look a lot of different ways, especially with American Express. So hopefully those are some helpful tips to help you get around that. And then let's talk about Capital One helpful tips to help you get around that.

Speaker 1:

And then let's talk about Capital One. So, going back quickly to my story about trying to apply for the Capital One Spark card, I actually tried several times to apply and froze different credit bureaus each time and was still declined for too many inquiries, and this is not surprising. I do have a lot of inquiries, especially in the last couple of months, and so TBD on if I'll ever be able to get another Capital One card besides the VentureX that I already have, because I feel like I'm always going to have quote a lot of inquiries because we do this hobby pretty aggressively. So TBD on that. But Capital One does have a couple of rules about applications, so you can really only apply for one card every six months with them. So if you apply for the venture, you know, in March, you really need to wait until September, october, to apply for another card. This also applies to both personal and business cards with Capital One, so that can be a little bit frustrating.

Speaker 1:

And then, specific to the Capital One Spark card, you cannot have the VentureX business and hold that card at the same time. So every issuer has, like generally, some family rules. I would call them. I would recommend Googling if you're not sure. But specifically for the Capital One Spark Cash, you cannot hold the VentureX business and this card at the same time. So if you did have the VentureX business and you wanted to get the Spark Cash, you would have to close the VentureX business. I would wait about 30 days that's how long it takes to fall off your credit report and or not to fall off, but to show that it's closed on your credit report, sorry and then apply for the Spark Cash.

Speaker 1:

And then the other banks that aren't as popular as the Chase's, the Amex's, the Capital One's of the world are Barclays and Citi. I don't believe Barclays limits the number of cards you have open, but they do just have credit and income criteria, as any bank does. They don't have any specific rules like the Chase 524 rule. But you are likely to want to wait at least six months from canceling a card before you reapply, and they're also known to look at prior spending on existing cards to determine approval for a new card. So if you don't have one, then it's fine. I just opened the Barclays AA card at the end of 2024 because they will at the end of 2025, no longer issue them, so I wanted to get it before it's gone. But other than that, I mean people will say Barclays is picky I personally haven't had an issue. Both Duane and I have been approved for the Barclays AA card with no problem, and then the other one is Citi. So again, they don't really have like a maximum number of cards you can get or anything like that, but they do have a couple of rules about applications. So you can apply for one card, either personal or business, every eight days and you cannot get more than two cards in a 65 day window. They also have specific to business cards. You can only apply for one business card every 90 days. So if you're not, again, if you're getting a denial from these banks, I would make sure that you're not breaking these kind of random rules that every bank has.

Speaker 1:

Go to Google, type in you know, credit card city, credit card application denials and search through the articles that come up. I also like to put Reddit at the end of my searches, because I find Reddit threads can sometimes be a lot more valuable than a article on Google. Okay, so we've covered the major banks. If you're getting denied, maybe some reasons why. I think the last thing to kind of wrap this all together is and I'm really speaking to myself when I say this, as well as all of you If you're getting card denials, just remember that. This is again number one. It's not personal. I know that part. I'm not offended, I'm more just annoyed when I get denied.

Speaker 1:

But I think, looking at the bigger picture, I want to make sure that we can do this for as long as points and miles are available to us. And so I think taking a deep breath and just being patient, that is my biggest struggle, because I want the card. I want it now. I don't want to wait. Wah wah, wah. Typical millennial. So I think just take a deep breath, right, if you miss out on a signup bonus because you can't get approved for a card, it's not the end of the world. You will eventually be able to get approved for the card that you want. It may just take longer than you want it to, and so take a deep breath. That is my message to myself and, again, to all of you. So, if you're experiencing denials with me, you're not alone, but we will persevere. Okay, I hope this episode was helpful. Thank you so much for listening A little bit of a mishmash today. Come find me on Instagram and say hello. I love the messages and I will catch you on the next episode. Bye, thank you.