15 000 sign ups in 10 years is about 115 approved apps a month. Thats not much... isn't Chase or Amex threshhold for keeping you 30-50 apps a month?

So if you add Chase, Amex and Barclays together ~100 apps/month is the bare minimum OMAAT and VFTW have to do to stay on top of the game. I would fathom a guess that FTG and TPG do far more. The FTG stat is also probably not linear, but they probably had 20-30 apps aproved per month in the beginning and now trend some place in the 300s. Also pre Lehman the affiliate revenue must have been low, the market only really heated up after MBNA merged with BoA and left a gap in the market that Chase wanted plus Amex went retail after becoming a bank to get TARP money in 2008-09.@:-)