I have not had an issue applying for credit cards and being accepted by the various credit card providers.
Just a word of warning to anyone cancelling/consolidating/cutting up cards close to retirement, especially if you will be drawing a pension from an SMSF. I thought I would simplify life when I wound up my small business, so I cancelled the card I had been using specifically for business expenses, and another that I found I used infrequently. (I wasn't tuned in to collecting points at that stage.) So I ended up with just one credit card with what seemed like a reasonable limit (ANZ Visa Rewards for the SQ link) and one debit card.
Intent on reducing outgoings and perhaps save on the annual fee, I applied for a BankWest zero account fee card and was knocked back. Because my SMSF pension was paid directly into ING Savings Maximizer it didn't appear on my bank statement, and super pensions are not included in one's taxable income. Even with 12 months' worth of ING statements showing the regular monthly pension payments that income was totally disregarded. Income from other sources that
was included in my tax assessment fell short of their criteria. In the end I was glad they knocked me back because their service was appalling. Failed to return phone calls, communications between staff members were minimal, and they left me over a couple of weeks without telling me my application was going nowhere.
Thanks to this forum, my eyes have been opened and I've become interested in earning points via credit card as best I can now. I doubt if it's worth my while applying for another card elsewhere, but I have at least done what I should have done ages ago and added the ANZ Amex to the Visa, and am actively seeking ways to use it in preference to Visa. Pity the ANZ transfer rate is so poor.
A sad cautionary tale, but I hope it may prevent someone else from making a similar mistake.