On one of our favorite miles blogs I read yet another claim to fame about racking up a couple million miles in less than a year and a half through card bonuses. Followed up by the blog author remarking that such a haul is "easily attainable" by others and he himself regularly takes in "One million miles per year just just with sign up bonuses."
I'm curious about the math here. Even assuming those yearly million miles are divided between a couple, that's a cool 500,000 miles EVERY year. A little more reasonable but still a stretch. You'd basically have to average 10 50,000 miles sign up bonuses every year. Are there even 10 50,000 miles+ bonuses out there to be had? I know they are becoming more common but are they
that common now? I don't see it. So letting alone those 50,000 mile bonuses and over aren't really all that plentiful, I think an even more limiting factor is the fact that one-time bonus rules are being applied to more and more of the cards (especially considering the crack down on the once dependable churning of Citi AA) combined with the Chase tightening of multiple cards do you really think a 500,000 mile goal based solely on credit card bonuses is realistic to reach for more than maybe one or two years in a row at best? There are only so many churnable cards out there and having the most perfect credit score in the universe isn't going to exempt you from the one bonus per customer rule or get you 100,000 bonuses when they aren't there to get. I can see achieving an easy 500,000 pretty easily within a year if you'd never had any AA card before or any of the other ones before, but after that, I just don't see it.
I could see a steady 500,000 miles/yr if I had a popular blog earning steady referral and ad revenues but from credit card bonuses alone? A little over-inflated claim I think. (Although I'd love to be shown differently
)