Originally Posted by
techcrium
... I am curious how many credit cards you guys have opened in your entire lifetime? For me, I have a 4 year credit card history and I have owned 10 cards in all.
It’s good for you to ask this question, with a 4 year history you’re probably very early in your FF & CC histories. Wish I had found FT 35 years ago instead of 10 years ago. I’m at the other end of the bell curve and I keep pretty good records, still have hard copy credit card cancellation verification letters going back to 1985 (same theory as saving military firearm return receipt, if the firearm is ever used in a crime, you definitely want proof that you turned it in).
~ 40 year credit card history, ~ 240 total accounts, ~ 170 SUBs, ~ 140 of each in past 10-11 years since finding and joining FT, Credit Karma states 100 closed accounts going back to 2012.
Late 80s: churned MBNA Visa for 2,500 or 5,000 US Air SUBs and churned NCNB Visa for 2,500 Piedmont SUBs, IIRC no minimum spend, bonuses were for first purchase on the cards. (See scan below of excerpts of my old hand-written records. Please recall that personal computers barely existed in 1987.) Didn’t want to pay any AFs for many years so left a lot on the table.
2004-2010: churned Chase UA Visa for 20,000 SUBs and churned Citi AmEx/Visa/MC for AA SUBs of 15,000 - 25,000, first big SUB was in 2010 Citi AA Business Visa 100,000, churned a few AmEx for Delta SUBs of 10,000-15,000.
Started reading FT in 2010, joined in 2011, learned what churning really is, learned that sometimes an AF can be worth it and learned that I could get business cards and they wouldn’t affect my credit score and average account age. Was at 20-30/24 for much of 2011 - 2017, darn anti-churning policies. (Also learned from FT that I wasn’t quite as smart as I thought I was for my 1 mileage run in 2003 (Dec 16th NYC-FLL-NYC for an hour for lunch in the concourse) to get 50,000 BIS miles for my first airline elite status. FTers had long before perfected the MR.)
Still have USAA and NFCU credit cards I opened in the mid-80s; no SUBs, thankfully no annual fees, very low threshold for inactivity closure, and terrific for my average account age.
Best SUB: NY Yankees blanket handed to me for CC application in person at Yankee Stadium, canceled the card without activating it the day I received it.
