Seems that best practices for churning, or general churning suggestions, have changed during the past couple of years. Most recommendations 2-3 years ago were for one big churn (app-o-rama) every 90+ days. At that time, best thoughts on Citi AA churning was no new applications for 18 months after last approval.
Now we seem to have different Citi policies, apparently based on last application vice last approval:
(per Citi AA thread wiki): •Only 1 Citi application of any kind per week (8 days to be safe).
•No more than 2 Citi applications of any kind in 60 days (65 days to be safe).
•No more than 1 business application in 90 days (95 to be safe).
In the past year we’ve also seen:
- Apparent elimination of ability to have multiple Barclay’s USAir cards at the same time.
- Apparent elimination of ability to get 2 identical HHonors Visa cards at the same time.
- Better delineation of AmEx’s policies regarding churning and bonuses.
Previously on this thread we read:
Chase & AmEx- 2yrs.
Citi- 18 months
BofA- 90 days
Barclays- 90 days
Regarding new applications/churning, wondering what folks are doing these days.
The issue of cancelation timing is integral to this discussion, obviously most of us aren’t going to get hundreds of open credit card accounts, you gotta cancel them at some point. Per the Citi threads: “Anecdotal evidence suggests that Citi counts the credit lines of recently-closed accounts for 3-6 months against your total available credit.” And we’re all aware of the “haggling” over credit limit distribution which often occurs during reconsideration phone calls. Thus it would seem that cancellations immediately prior to new applications are not recommended. While Citi apparently encourages multiples of the same card at the same time, not sure if other card issuers embrace that same philosophy (AmEx specifically states once per year for many bonuses) so cancellations for churning purposes are necessary at some point.
Regarding cancellations (mainly) in anticipation of churning, wondering what folks are doing these days.
(BTW, it would be nice if we could avoid the dead horse of sharing information and good deals and risking elimination versus not sharing. Clearly there are people of each camp here at FT and it’s unlikely this thread will change anyone’s mind.)