Originally Posted by
cmlsu
With the newish 18 month citi no churn language for my hilton card it states that you are not eligible for the two certs if you have opened or closed the reserve card in the previous 18 months. I opened my reserve card two years ago...I may just keep it open and apply again this year. That way, I have neither opened nor closed the account in previous 18 months haha
Yeah, the new strategy is to keep the first card open for 18 months, reapply, and then cancel the first card as soon as the new card comes in the mail. The problem with this is that, unless you get a super retention offer, you end up paying two AFs for each card you get. So those 3 HH certs, one from the 10K spend, and 2 from the sign up, costs you $95 +95 + $120 in MS fees. So a little more than $100 a night. Which if you use them at a high category location is a lot cheaper than paying the rack rate, but far from "free". But of course you also end up with @$37K HH points from the spend. Bottom line: it's no longer "free" travel, or even "Big Travel. Little Money". It's now discount travel.