Anyone Churn Credit Cards?
Looking for real insight if this form of arbitrage pays off.
What Is Credit Card Churning?
Many credit card issuers offer great signup bonuses. New cardholders earn a big bonus for spending a certain amount within a certain timeframe — usually the first 90 days of opening the credit card. The more rewards credit cards you open, the more signup bonuses you can earn.
Credit card churning refers to the practice of repeatedly opening and closing a credit card to earn its signup bonus over and over. Doing this with several credit cards lets you rack up far more rewards than you'd get if you stuck with just one credit card. You can use some other strategies — like combining rewards from loyalty programs - to maximize the amount of rewards you earn.
I'd rather have low rate mortgages on investment properties than $300 every couple months from Chase
I am what you would call a "churner" and my FICO scores 800+.
This is mainly due to my student loans from college though - they keep my credit history nice and long.
Hey well good on you if you can make it work. Seriously. I still don't think it's a good idea for most people who would like to buy a house or start a business one day. If you can maintain a 740+ score and do that shit, go for it.
So you're saying it's a good idea to demolish my credit score by averaging 1-2 months of account tenure and racking up credit inquiries? Sign me the fuck up.
Even though FICO calculations are proprietary, there is evidence that reported credit lines are viewed as amount used versus amount available. So if you had $1000 in credit lines reported total and a $900 reported carried balance that would hurt your score. But if you had $50,000 in reported balances and had only $900 in carried balances that would probably be really good for your score.
Credit utilization percentage is a factor. So are average age of credit line and recent inquiries. Even still, the best way to have a lot of credit available to you, which allows you to maintain a low credit utilization percentage, is to have several strong lines of credit and gradually request increases. 5 cards with $50K limit, a couple mortgages, and a couple car loans >>>>>>> 30 cards with $2K limit
See my comment above.
I'm not fico expert, but does signing up for credit really hurt your score?
I know NOT PAYING YOUR BILL hurts your score, but does seeking credit really hurt it?
yep. recent inquiries are a ding
Based on past experience you see a -5 points drop for a fresh inquire. Inquires over 12 months old do not impact your score.
Hard to churn with the 5/24 and other rules. I have a number of cards I get miles and points with.
And it doesn’t hurt your credit score.
Just got 5/24'd by Chase.
The impact on your credit score is completely marginal.
Highly recommend working through the Chase cards. Racked up about 5K in rewards last year that paid for all my flights and lodging last year. It was a beautiful thing.
It's not hard: Find a card, hit the minimum spend target, shred the card before the 1-Year mark.
I keep an excel spreadsheet of when to terminate cards. It's free money that's given to me for having a good credit score.
Hit up /r/churning to get learned.
Yeah, I’m gonna get the Ink business and the Marriott card before the merger hits. Should push me over 500k chase points.
Wait...you are accumulating Chase UR without spending them? I've love to see a 500K points balance on my account lol. That would be worth $5000*1.5 = $7500 in airfare. Wow!
Just cashed in my Citi points. I have over a million points and miles when you add up the chase, SPG, AA and Amex.
My issue is I travel extensively for work so I just dick around. Definitely going to start spending the points though.
I feel like people who have an aversion to CC don’t realize banks are whores and want to be abused.
I did a little bit back in the day. I did CSR, Chase United, Amazon Visa, Costco. My buddy took it further and had his honeymoon (flight and all inclusive stay at a mexican resort) for free. I just got nice Bose headphones, cologne, and some other random shit as well as ~170,000 Chase points (good enough for a few flights to europe and some rental cars). In the end, it wasn't really worth it to me, I didn't really like the idea of it and tracking all the stuff.
You're going to kill your credit score -- don't mess with your credit, not worth it.
I feel like the opportunity cost of having to balance all of these could be used else where.
Also, ask yourself, if it was so easy or profitable vs the time required, why aren't more people doing it or why aren't you prepared to do it full time at a more leveraged scale?
Hence Chase's 5/24 rule. As long as The Points Guy keeps doing his postings it keeps the movement going.
I used to bonus chase but it grew old and too much to keep up with. Chase/Amex/Citi could intro a new card today with an amazing bonus and I wouldn't even care to pursue it.
Just applied for Wells Fargo - Cash Wise. $200 when you spend $1,000 in the first month, no annual fee, 1.85 when you use Apple Pay (who does?), and 1.5% back on all purchases.
It really isn’t hard to keep track of these cards. I don’t carry all of them and I have auto pay set up. No balances.
I travel all the time so the lounge cards are clutch. Amex offers save me a shit ton and pay for the card. Citi Prestige makes money with the 4th night free option. CSR is a great card point wise as well. Free flight to Cabo, thanks Citi points.
Was thinking of doing the CSP/CFU combo
Do the CSR / CFU combo instead. You'll get more out of it.
the $450 annual cost is a little daunting
Recently started churning bank accounts, that's a nice one that doesn't impact credit, helps if work makes it easy to change your direct deposit. Going to be getting $300 later this week from chase for making a direct deposit into a checking account, will move that money to Citi in 90 days and make another $300 off a direct deposit. Not bad for a few hours of research/setting up the accounts
Difference between that and cards is they 1099 you for interest earned. They don't 1099 you for card churn.
True. Also churn credit cards, have had 9 in the past 2 years, credit score of 745. Used points from the Sapphire reserve 100k sign up bonus back in the day for 5 nights on the executive level at the Hyatt in Tahoe, definitely my best points use so far. Upcoming I am planning on flying to Africa on points, saving $1K+ on airfare. Usually just get cards for sign up bonus and then keep the card open to keep credit history (if there's no annual fee), otherwise calling customer service and telling them you're planning to close the card can lead to retention offers (got my second year of the Citi AA card annual fee waived).
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Less is not more here. Share some war stories.
I do not churn. You could probably make it worth your while, but the hassle of having to cancel the cards and reapply/activate them isn't appealing.
If you're about to make a big purchase or go on a trip I think it makes sense to take advantage of some of the signup benefits.
Inquiries have a pretty minor on your credit score, at least that's been my experience. In fact, I just checked on myfico.com and a recent inquiry on my credit report indicated it increased my score 3 points. However, I would count that as the exception not the rule.
Meh.
I don't churn (in the sense that I don't close the credit card after I get the bonus), I just "put the card under my mattress" and buy something once a year on it to keep it active. Hasn't hurt my credit score so far (I'm at 774 and I'm 22). What it has done is helped me fly Cathay Pacific F, Etihad F, and several other J flights for only a couple hundred bucks combined (you still pay the taxes with a flight award).
FWIW, I'm not crazy about it.. I open one new card a year or so.
Can you please do quick explainer on how I can use Chase UR to get Cathay or Etihad F?
Thanks,
It’s fairly simple for Cathay... Transfer your Chase UR points to British Airways Avios and/or Iberia (it doesn’t matter which one... Both airlines are actually owned by the same group)... Then you need to book a Cathay flight through BA as a partner award (they’re both in OneWorld).
Etihad might be a bit tougher as they’re neither a Chase UR airline nor in an alliance. The way I flew Etihad was by getting an AA Citi card (70k signup bonus at the time) and doing an AA partner award as they are a Partner of Etihad.
The Etihad partner award will be tough. Almost impossible to get anything in F from the US to AUH. When I redeemed the Etihad award, I was flying DEL-AUH-MUC. That said, it might be easier to find J availability from the US which is still nice.
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