Along the lines of “general churning guidelines”, curious how people view preparing for a churn fairly far off in terms of canceling existing accounts. I currently have all 3 Citi AA personal cards, two of them for about 2 years, one for about 6 months. In thinking about applying for one (or more) of them in the future, according to common wisdom, 18 months from last approval seems to be the best current theory. The question is when to cancel the existing accounts?

Don’t need to cancel to avoid annual fees, they are more than happy to credit them. Don’t need to cancel to transfer credit limits. So, cancel now, cancel a month prior to applications in a year, cancel sometime in-between? Might canceling sooner make one more likely to receive targeted offers? Thanks.