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Old Nov 15, 2025 | 4:29 pm
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phltraveler
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Join Date: May 2013
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Originally Posted by redtop43
I used to be an MS whale but exited basically when COVID hit. My girlfriend's mother is possibly interested in getting airline cards for SUBs. So I'm just checking, is credit card churning for SUB's still a thing?

My memory is that Chase had a 5/24 rule, and Amex is one bonus per card per lifetime. I'm pretty aware of how churning affects your credit score.

Have there been any significant changes in the past 5 years?
Churning for SUBs is still a thing, but banks are getting wiser about who to offer SUBs to and who not. Credit is also tightening somewhat.

A member of the /r/churning reddit community puts together a flowchart for recommended cards to churn, updated every few months as needed. There's some (self-admitted) bias in there for travel points for outsized redemptions.

There's also a guide on anti-churning rules on /r/churning itself.

I'm not a huge churner, but the largest change I've heard of recently is Chase went away from 48 months between bonuses on Sapphire cards to extremely vague pop-up jail with no specific timeline. There are reports of people being >48 months getting pop-up jailed and told no bonus, and people well under <48 months not getting the no-SUB popup.
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