Originally Posted by ftweb
I don't fully understand this yet, but it sounds like you can only pool the points from various cards when you actually spend the points. So if you close the account before spending the points, you will probably lose them. And you probably don't want to spend them until getting at least 10-15K flight points to match.
So maybe you can get the card, fly two transcontinental round trips, then get a free domestic ticket, then close the card and try again.
Your points pool into a seperate TY account which you add sponsor accounts to. Canceling a sponsor account shouldn't forfeit any points, unless it is the only sponsor account.
Flight points on the PP cards (and drive points on Drivers edge), however, are only transfered to actual TY points once they are matched by purchase points.
Therfore, you can churn the PP elite, but it would only be worthwhile doing so after you flew 15k miles and your flight points got transfered over. Otherwise your wasting the $75 annual fee (unless its the business card, which the first year fee is waived) to get 5k extra bonus points (as a 10k bonus on a normal card is very easy to come by, and 15k on TY Business if you apply through the right link).