I've put a note in the wiki, emphasizing this Citi quirk, under "How Mailers Work".

Quick question - how many open Citi cards can you have open before you are at risk on not getting approved? for new ones? I currently have 9 open right now. I only close them when the annual fee hits?

I don't think the issue is the number of open cards. I think it's how much credit Citi is willing to give you and how much of that is locked up. I don't recall what the minimum CL is right now on these cards. $2,000? 9 x $2,000 is $18,000. Will Citi extend a lot more credit to you than that? What limits did they give you on cards 7, 8 and 9? If you are still getting high credit limits, you might be OK, but if the last card or two had a small limit, you might be pressing your luck applying for more without closing any.

Its not totally a question of the number of cards, its about the MAC (maximum allowable credit) Citi will extend to a customer. And that amount is different between each customer due to their income, credit score, etc. Numerous individual techniques about managing MAC are discussed in these Citi/AA threads. I think if you read through the wiki on how the game works and this thread (or other annual Citi/AA threads) there are several posts from people describing how many cards they have, how often they are (were) applying, how they manage(d) MAC.

As used in this forum MAC refers to Multiple Applications for Credit, and seems to be a measure of application velocity rather than credit exposure.

Credit limit is what really matters but 9 open cards means you have to have at least 18K in credit with Citi as the minimum CL is $2k per card

I would close some starting with the oldest card first.

+1

I used to wait until the fee hit. But once I started getting mailers, and now emailers, applying once every 35 days results in just too many cards, and too much credit with Citi. Lately I've been canceling at around the 6 month timeframe. Citi could care less, as some of us cancel as soon as the miles post to their AA account. Maybe one day Citi will pay attention to that, but for years now they haven't seemed to even notice.

What you should do though is as soon as you complete the min spend, and have it paid off, call Citi and lower the credit line on each card to the $2K min, or whatever amount you expect to want to use on that card. With AA cards, as soon as I meet the min spnd, I 'sock drawer' the card, as there are other cards I find more useful for non-bonused spend.

Is there any difference between closing the oldest cards after 6 months and lowering the credit limit of them to $2000?

I will never understand why anyone churning these cards keeps them open any longer than necessary. The second I’ve met my spend and receive the bonus, the card is closed and I move on to the next one. This also simplifies management and lowers the risk of me screwing something up.

Well in the OP's case its $18K in open credit at Citi.............9 open cards times $2,000 each

I lower the cards to $2k after the spend is made AND the balance is at zero then cancel around 6 months.

Maybe it doesn't make a difference but I always get IA and have a FICO over 800 despite HEAVY churning.

Just applied for a new AA credit card using an email code (50k points for $2500 over 3 months). Before applying I went ahead and closed an old account (6 months old or so) that had an $8500 credit limit. I had to call in and the rep took several minutes to "check things over" on the application, but never asked me for any new information or to verify any information beyond my name and birth date. At the end the rep said the card was approved with a credit limit of $1500! By way of comparison, 1 month ago I was approved for another AA card and was given a $14,000 credit limit. I asked about moving credit around but the rep said she couldn't do anything and I'd have to call in once I received the physical card. Kind of weird to have such a low credit limit, but weird is normal for Citi I guess.

Not that weird in my experience. I used to get credit lines of $10-11K routinely, but now i've gotten credit limits of $2.5K three cards in a row since the emailers started.

You need to reduce credit line to $2000 prior to closing the card, otherwise the credit remains tied up for some period (maybe as long as months). When you reduce credit limit on a card the amount reduced is immediately available for a new card.

+1

And unless you plan to spend a lot on a card, and I sure wouldn't on an AA card (unless you buy a lot of FC tickets) just do the min spnd, and pay that off, then as soon as your balance is @$0, lower the limit to $2K right away. Then you are all set for your next app, whenever that may be, with no danger of closing a card with too much CL, nor of Citi being reluctant to approve your next app due to excess CL. As long as you pay off your charges before your statement posts, your CB rating of Credit Utilization will stay around zero.

Great to know!!