Originally Posted by ladiflier

I'm actually in the Credit Card industry and pretty familiar with some of the reward/mileage programs as well as the thinking behind different banks policy regarding multiple accounts.

Many banks are measured by Accounts on File, Total Outstandings, and then overall performance (losses and profit) based on these numbers. The more accounts on file, the better their ratios look.

Some don't allow it because of the added risk of someone experiencing a life-event causing sudden drains on funds. For instance, you lose your job and decide to max out all your cards then find yourself in a bankrupt situation. They monitor scores and credit bureaus to watch for those risks.

As for double dipping on points, they try to put rules in place but when the expense of micro-managing policies down to the exceptions rather than the customerary use, it becomes more effort and expense then its worht. Overall, they just look at the net expenses of the program. They factor in very heavily the breakage of the program (i.e., miles that never actually get used). Keep in mind, miles aren't an expense until you use them. Most customers don't use them. (60-80% breakage thse days). Keep in mind the FT population really does represent such a small portion of total cc users and fliers, that the net impact of "gaming" the system from Flytalker cc's would probably only be a blip on the map of the big guys like Citi and Chase.