Originally Posted by sdsearch

First of all, you have to make sure your points have already posted to Hilton HHonors (and to the correct account there! sometimes Citi makes mistakes with account number, so until you verify at HH, not just on your Citi statement, that you got the bonus points I would not close the card). If you haven't gotten to that point by day 64, then definitely don't close. If the points have posted correctly to HHonors already, then no, Citi doesn't clawback, no matter when after that you cancel the card.

Second, if you close before you apply for the new cards, they can't pull credit limit from the cards you just closed to the new cards. In some cases, that may turn out to cause you to be denied ("we cannot offer you more credit")! The better approach is to either close the cards many months before you apply for new ones (obviously not psosibly if you're trying to apply after 65 days), or else leave the previous cards open until you've been successfully issued new cards.

Btw, that's one possible hitch with applying every 65 days: It can take much more than 65 days for cancelled cards to return credit limit to your "pool"; and so you'll always be 2 to 4 cards' worth of credit limit "behind" at that rate. So depending on how much credit they're willing to offer you, that might put a limit on how often you can really apply for these cards (on a repeating basis).

(On the other hand, if you keep all the cards open, you'll eventually hit Citi's "you have too many open cards with us" situation. So therein's the dilemma when to cancel what if you want to keep applying every 65 days.)