tedbackmann

I'm pretty new here so forgive me for rather basic question.
Have been reading where folks apply for new card-get bonus-and apply again
a few months later. With all the fine print about new customers only/ not prior
card holder etc, how do you get away with it? I have only played using different bank.
I see where Barclays even keeps track of my closed account in web page.
PS-credit score is not an issue

sdsearch

Well, it depends a lot on the bank, and it also depends on how much the bank "likes" you, and in some cases it depends on the specific offer. (And sometimes the language in the offer about restrictions on repeating is true, but in some other cases it's not quite true.)

Barclay is not representative of the banks at which you can repeat that easily. They are among the toughest.

Citi has certain cards that can be repeated with a few months, and other cards where you have to wait 18+ months, and yet other cards which some people can't seem to repeat at all.

Amex has a once-in-a-lifetime limit for personal cards (since May of 2014), but a repeat occasionally policy for business cards still. (But if you read posts that predate May 2014, you'll read about repeating of Amex personal cards that no one in the USA* can do any more.)

Chase you have to wait a couple years typically before you can repeat exactly the same card, but they often have a card that is similar but not exactly the same (yet earns the same kinds of points in the same program) that you can get (in a shorter time after getting a different-enough card).

So it's extremely hard to generalize. And so you can't take what read about one person doing for one card at one bank at one time and expect it to necessarily apply to another person or another card or another bank or at another time.

You have to research each card you might want to repeat individually.

* Ah, yes. Also keep in mind that the repeating rules for the same bank can change in different countries. And you can't always tell easily where someone posting on FlyerTalk (or elsewhere) is based. FlyerTalk has members all over the world, but not all of them explain where they're based in every post (or in their profile). You can jump to the wrong conclusions if you assume everyone posting on FlyerTalk about credit cards must be from the USA.

tedbackmann

I have now learned this is referred to as "churning".
I find that most banks have cautionary language that certain practices are prohibited like one application per24/mos.
Yet, reading many posts, I see a lot of folks get away with it.
My concern is that I get the new card-spend the required $$-and then not get the bonus. Asking the bank at application time would seem to be a tipoff.

On this forum, one poster claimed they got a 2nd bonus after 6 months. I assume that meant closing the 1st and waiting 6 months.

Only thing that I play is getting a 2nd card in wife's name.

Any education will be appreciated

sdsearch

Again, specifics matter greatly.

You can apply for at least one card (HHonors 50k) from Citi every month if you want (if you're not applying for much of anything else, that is) and get the bonus each time, because Citi generally doesn't approve you if they are not going to give you a bonus.

On the other hand, the churning rules for Citi AA cards are quite different, and are constantly changing, vary from one AA card to the next, and vary even from one offer link to the next. So you can read a post about someone who got two AA cards a month apart, and it may be true, but it may true only for a very particular (and potentially expensive) card and/or it may be true but the offer may gone by now.

You can apply for at least one card (AS 25k) from BofA at least every few months (maybe even more than one at a time). However, there you have to make sure you get approved for Visa Signature, because if you get approved for a lesser Visa you get a way tinier bonus (5k instead of 25k). But that has to do with credit and process, not a limit on churning.

At Barclay, if you have one US card, and you're lucky enough get an "instant approval" (by the computer), you can get another US card after a few months. But if for any reason you don't get an "instant" approval, and a human has to look at your application, you're bound to get denied. And whether you get instant approval or not is not tied to credit score (we haven't figured out what it is tied to). So in the US card thread, you'll get plenty of anecdotes about people who've gotten a 2nd US card while having the first one, but if you dig down, you'll see they all got "instantly approved"; then you'll see other people with denial reports, and you'll see that they didn't get "instantly" approved, and a human denied them.

If you study the threads for those cards (follow the links above), you can figure out the churning rules for each card/offer. But you have to take the time to figure it out for each card/offer.

On the other hand, you cannot apply for another personal Amex of the exact same type every again adn get the bonus:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...etime-usa.html

You can call up Amex and ask them which cards you've had before. It's not a red flag, because you can't apply for them anyway. Or you can switch to applying only for Amex business cards, which don't have that restriction (though they do have a timing restriction).

You can churn Chasse by the rules (24+ months) and have more reliable success, or you can try bending the rules and maybe you'll have success and maybe you'll fail miserably. How risk averse are you?


In general: I find it's not a problem if I follow the rules (that I learn about on FT) and add some "fudge factor" for safety. But I"m fairly risk averse. Some other people like to test the system; sometimes they get lucky, sometimes they don't. If you only focus on the posts that happened to lucky and ignore all the posts about people who failed, then you get a distorted perspective. There are always exception to the rule, but do you want to rely on being the exception?

But don't try to figure it out all at once. It can be a bit overwhelming. Identify a couple cards you'd like to repeat, and figure out the churning rules for those, and see if you can repeat them yet or if not when you can. If there's no repeatability there yet, go through the same process for another couple cards.

(Also, for each "currency", find out if there's more than one card with the same currency. For example, temporarily there are AA cards from both Citi and Barclay, because Barclay US cards will become AA cards. There are Hilton HHonors cards from both Citi and Amex, and two different ones at each bank. You can earn Marriott, United, and Southwest points/miles not just from their cards but from several different Ultimate Rewards cards from Chase. And so on.)

Anyway, back to your original question as posed: I've never yet had to ask a bank whether I would qualify for a bonus, and I've never yet been denied the bonus. I just researched it all ahead of time on FT.