Originally Posted by Dr Jabadski

I also follow your blog and have found it informative and helpful, thank you very much. You are not alone with your general recommendation regarding credit card applications and cancellations. Others share your suggestions and IIRC, at the FT University near LGA a few months ago one of your fellow bloggers (the Frugal Travel Guy) advocated a very similar, if not identical, approach. I understand your basic advice yet I hope you don’t mind some further discussion.

Presumably if one is applying for about 4 cards every 3 months and being approved for most of them, one would have 12 new accounts each year. For some of those accounts annual fees will be waived after a phone call. And some will not need to be closed to obtain a new card from the same back, it might only be necessary to transfer some of the credit line. Potentially, including accounts that are kept open for many years to maintain a long history, one could have several dozen open credit card accounts. Is there a number of open accounts that is TOO high, at some point are too many open accounts counter-productive or too difficult to keep track of or too much of a security risk? Or do you find that closing accounts as you suggest (to avoid fees and to open new accounts) keeps the total number of accounts under control? Is there a maximum number of open accounts you would recommend and if so what is that number?

Presumably also, banks will not approve an identical account at the same time as one has an open account. If you have an open ABC Bank XYZ Airlines Platinum card, it would seem unlikely that ABC Bank will approve another XYZ Airlines Platinum card which would seem to go against the basic premise of churning. In other words, to churn the card to get the bonus (again!), it would seem that at some point the account needs to be closed. With the understanding that Citi apparently bases approvals on time since last approval, don’t other banks base approvals for identical cards on the amount of time since the account was closed? If one closes the account at 11 months, instead of 3 months, would that not result in an 8 month longer delay until that card could be churned?

Please do not think I’m being argumentative, I’m just trying to learn more. Thanks very much for your participation and comments.