Good prices in a fortress hub? OMG. Well, ok...

Go to www.creditkarma.com and check your FAKO score. ("FAKO" is a .......ization of the FICO score, the actual industry standard, FAKO means it's kinda fake but not entirely fake.) I wouldn't worry about having too many accounts or "hard pulls" or whatnot. If you have a fair number of accounts, keep your balances very low, and pay your bills on time, you'll stay in the high 700's and that's fine.

I personally just get a lot of cards, get the bonus, then cancel them unless they seem worthwhile to keep long-term. It's good for your credit score to get and keep at least one Amex open because they report your age of account as being when you got your first Amex.

Grab a couple of Citi AA cards (see the "two-browser trick" and make sure you get the 50K signup bonus) each before that goes away and before the merger.

Make sure you have the right US MC, the one that gives 10K bonus points with each annual renewal - that makes it worth the $89 annual fee.

Mostly hotel cards aren't that great if you get one point per dollar, because a hotel point usually isn't worth as much as an airline point, the scales are just different.

Yes, the big rewards are in having lots of credit cards, getting them for the bonuses, then cancelling them within a year. I've gotten close to a million points that way in the past couple of years. Most of the cards sit in my drawer and never get used. Simply, that's how it's done.