Navigating a path to the credit cards I want

For a variety of reasons, I’ve decided that my credit card portfolio needs a refresh and unusually for me, this refresh requires me to add three or four new credit cards to my portfolio in the next six months.

What this means is that I’ve spent the past few days trying to work out how to give myself the best chance of getting what I want and minimizing the chance of one or more denials.

The cards in question

These are the cards I want to add to my collection:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card: I’m not a big fan of this card, but if I want to retain the ability to transfer points to Hyatt in 1:1 ratio (which I do), I have to hold one of the two Chase Reserve cards, and as I have no interest in the Business Card, it will have to be this one.
• Chase Freedom Flex® Card: This card is expected to stop charging foreign transaction fees from next month and that, combined with the card’s earning rates, makes it attractive to me (as someone who spends a lot of time outside of the United States).
• Chase United℠ Explorer Card: This is probably the card I “need” least, but I’d like to have it for the access that it gives to discounted United Airlines award pricing.
• Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® card: I can see the day coming where it will make sense for me to earn Oneworld status through Alaska Airlines and not Finnair, and this card could help with that a lot.

These are the cards that I hold and which are relevant to the situation:

• Legacy Chase Freedom Card
• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

I’m a fan of the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (it can pay for itself and I like that it comes with a $0 fee for authorized users), so I want one in my wallet. The legacy Freedom Card, on the other hand, is disposable if I can have the Freedom Flex® card in its place.

The situation

I need to be careful how I go about trying to get these cards as (a) I don’t want to spook Chase with three card applications in quick succession, and (b) I don’t want to have a string of recent card applications on my credit file when I go to apply for the Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® card.

That’s the one card I’ve applied for in the last two years, and Bank of America turned me down after I declined to hand over my full tax return, so there’s some negative history there.

I think the issue was that, at the time, I had absolutely no history with Bank of America, and unlike a lot of the other card issuers, that seems to matter to Bank of America.

Since that denial, however, I’ve opened a Bank of America account and I’ve nurtured the relationship to the point where I’m now getting credit card offers (just not for the Atmos cards), so I’m feeling a bit more confident of being accepted for the Summit card next time around.

This relationship, however, needs a bit more work (a year hasn’t passed since I opened the bank account), so I’m not ready to pull the trigger on another card application just yet. I think it needs another few months.

So, how to proceed?

The plan

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I need to focus on getting the cards that I want rather than focusing on what welcome bonuses I can lock in.

I’m not after any of these cards for the welcome offers, I’m after them for what else they will give me, so I’d rather forgo a welcome offer and get the card that I want than aim for a juicy welcome offer and end up without the card or the bonus.

At the moment, this is what I think I’m going to do:

1. In the coming days/weeks, I’ll apply for the Chase Freedom Flex® Card
2. Then I’ll upgrade the legacy Freedom Card to a Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card
3. Next, I’ll wait a few months
4. Then I’ll apply for the Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® card
5. I’ll then wait a couple more months before applying for the Chase United℠ Explorer Card

The way I see it is this:

Getting the Freedom Flex® Card should be fairly straightforward. It’s not a premium card, I have a strong credit score, and I have a good relationship with Chase.

If I were to apply for the Sapphire Reserve, there’s a chance that Chase will turn me down me on the grounds that I already hold the Chase Sapphire Preferred® card (even though the “one Sapphire card at a time” rule went away in 2025), and that would be a wasted search on my credit file.

I don’t want to give Chase any excuses to decline me, so better to apply for a card that I feel I should get with ease and upgrade to a card where the application could hit a problem.

I’ll have to move around some of the credit I have with Chase as the legacy Freedom card doesn’t have a large enough credit limit to meet the requirements of the Sapphire Reserve, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

If this works, it will mean that, when it comes time to apply for the Atmos Summit card, my credit file will show, at most, three searches (only two new cards) in almost three years, and if that makes me “too risky” for Bank of America then I’m just going to have to live without the Atmos Card. I’m obviously not the kind of card holder Bank of America wants.

That just leaves the Chase United℠ Explorer Card, and as I’ll still be well under 5/24 and will have only had four credit searches and, at best, three new cards in three years, that should put me in a reasonable position to pick up that card as well (and if I get declined, it won’t be a big deal).

Right now, I think I’m comfortable with that plan, but I’d like to hear from any readers who have an opinion on what I should do (or what they would do in my shoes) – there’s always a chance that I’ve missed something important!