Originally Posted by
Recoilx
I've seen alot of postings on the Amex Cards in Canada for signup bonuses, and I wanted to ask what the best route would be for applying and reapplying for charge cards, without doing damage (at least significant) to your card, and of course being approved by Amex Canada.
Let's start with two cards - AeroPlat and Amex Personal Gold. Both have fees waived for the first year. In order to maximize your return without taking a beating on your credit limit, and of course to be approved by Amex Canada (which by many postings here indicate that Amex Canada suggests 6 months to apply for the same card again):
b.) Cancel both cards in 6 months from the date of issue, then reapply to get the bonuses in another 6 months (getting the bonuses twice in a calendar year - one at the start, and one at the end of the year).
c.)6 months down the road cancel both cards and reapply for two other charge cards right away (such as AeroGold, Green, etc..). Thereby having signup bonuses 3 times in the calendar year, at the beginning, middle (cancel and reapply to another card), and end (reapply to original card).
d.) Same as c.) but cancel and reapply for the same two cards again (begginning (issue aeroplat, gold), middle (cancel aeroplat,gold - then renew aeroplat, gold), and end (cancel aeroplat, gold then renew aeroplat, gold).
e.) Don't cancel at all but in 6 months change to another charge card (i.e. gold to plat). So beginning of the year issued gold, middle (switch to another card, dont cancel, to get that cards bonuses), then end of the year cancel the card and renew the original card (gold).
I'd like to see what peoples thoughts are on churning and how they do applying/reapplying.
Your post overlooks the best part of the Amex Canada programme for mile building, which is the referral part of the game.
As you will see, a number of people in the forum have links at the bottoms of their postings (such as this one), offering card referrals. All of those links will soon be disappearing as Flyertalk rules are in transition and will ban these moving forwards; however, you can see how they work for now - any cardholder can make these links for their friends and family to sign up.
By signing up for cards via referral, the referring person gets a generous bonus and in most cases the referred person also gets more points than a "street" sign up, so there is double incentive. This works especially well if you are in a couple (and can both obtain credit) or if you have a buddy to swap referrals with routinely. However, although I have never needed, there is apparently a possibility to self refer between cards and score for yourself the referring bonus and the referred bonus.
This works along the lines of sign up for Aeroplatinum through a referral and score 51k points, then before you cancel refer your spouse or self to Aerogold - a free crd - pick up 15k for referring and 30k for being referred. Spouses can constantly bounce the bonuses between themselves.
In general, I would recommend MR Platinum card and Aerogold as starting points if you wanted one ultra-premium and one less-premium card. I think there is much more value in that combination.
Note also I typically would draw attention to how great opportunities there are to build miles using the SPG card, however I would just keep that in the back of your mind for the moment since the card recently had the sign-up bonus slashed ad is not looking too attractive next to other offerings at the moment, especially in terms of the upfront sign up incentive.
Make sure you understand the referral programme on the different cards, it works well in my experience for paying out your bonus points and lets you earn a lot of points if you find a handful of interested traveling friends and family without causing any injury to your credit score.
Send me a message if any Qs!