Regarding the 18 month time limit, my wife applied for the 60k offer by phone. They asked her if she had a Citi Hilton card opened in the last 18 months, and she said no. We didn't think much of it at the time, as we did not know about the 18 month limit. We'll as it turns out, she did have a Citi Hilton card opened 13 months ago, but they still approved her for the card and she still got the bonus after hitting the $1k spend req. This was all within the last 45 days.