I am an self-admitting noob at credit card churning. But I am definitely interested and have been reading on this forum about it.

The scenario assumes cards with annual fees but are waived for the first year:

- Apply, receive, activate, and use Card 1 to fulfill the spending requirement to get the bonus points (i.e. 50,000 points).
- At the same time, apply, receive, activate, and use Card 2 to fulfill the spending requirement to get the bonus points (i.e. 20,000 points).
- Once both spending requirements are achieved, keep the card alive by small purchases until it's time to renew.
- Call retention dept and ask for retention bonus. If given a significant retention bonus that could cover the annual fee, then accept and keep the card alive.
- If retention dept does not offer any retention incentives or if the incentives do not make financial sense, then cancel card.

- HERE IS THE REAL QUESTION: Assuming I end up canceling both cards before the renewal date due to bad/no retention incentives... what happens to my 70,000 points? If they are transferable to let's say Korean Air mileage, I can transfer it 1:1 to Korean Air mileage but that's assuming I have a "Korean Air Mileage Credit Card", right? Does airlines have a simple mileage card (not a credit card but just like a membership card where I can transfer all my churning mileages to)?

You're overthinking this. Start out by applying for the current 50K AA offers and get the two personal and one biz (you will easily find info on how to do this on FT) make the spends and then, once miles have posted to your AA account move on. No real need to keep accounts active. And getting retention bonuses is starting to look like a thing of the past, with some exceptions.

Edit: mia pointed out that the card mentioned below is the Chase Sapphire Preferred not Premier as I incorrectly named it. Thanks for the correction. The FT mods are on top of things!

Also take a look at the Chase Sapphire Premier. Chase points transfer 1 to 1 to UAL miles and once transferred are safe in the UAL account even if card is closed.

If you get an airline credit card, your miles are deposited after every statement into your frequent flyer account. Your miles are then subject to the expiration terms of the program, for example, American and United miles need activity once every 18 months to stay active, which can be generated by purchasing an iTunes song through the airline shopping mall.

If you get a hotel credit card, your points are deposited in the hotel account, and you must follow their terms to keep your points from expiring. I track my expiration dates through Awardwallet, which tells me my Priority Club points never expire, and my Hilton and Starwood points need activity once every 12 months.

If you have points in a proprietary credit card program, such as Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards, you must transfer your points to another program before closing the credit card or you will lose them.

yeah first step for u is to sign up for the airline/hotel miles programs.....

and by "Programs" you mean credit cards, right?

No, by programs he means frequent flyer programs or hotel loyalty programs.

If you don't sign up first, the credit card company will do it for you. But it is much easier to track account login information if you do it yourself first. For example, go to the American Airlines website, sign up for their frequent flier program, write down your account information (I keep it in an Open Office spreadsheet), then go to the Citibank offer page and put your new frequent flier account number on the application for the Citibank Aadvantage Visa. This step is not necessary if signing up for a credit card with proprietary points, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

i believe hilton points are every 12 months.

Corrected. I estimated from the expiration I saw on Awardwallet and my mental math could use some work!

Is there a need for me to sign up for more than 1 frequent flyer program if the airlines I am going to be using all fall in the same alliance?

i.e. Do I need to sign up for Asiana, United, and US Airways frequent flyer memberships or can I just sign up for one and then use that one membership to rack up mileage for all three airlines since they are all members of Star Alliance?

And in terms of transferring CC signup bonus points 1:1 to an airline, what they mean is transferring the points from your credit card to the frequent flyer program, right?

I'm sorry if this is a really dumb question.. I rarely flew before but with this new job, I'm expecting to fly more often so I'm just curious.

TIA

If you are flying several different airlines in the same alliance, you can credit all your points to one frequent flyer program. Yes, you can fly Asiana or US Airways and credit the miles to United. Alaska Airlines is really versatile, you can fly Delta or American, credit miles to Alaska, then redeem miles on Delta or American or others.

If you have accumulated United miles, you can redeem them on any Star Alliance carrier.

What credit cards are you considering? When a card says it transfers 1:1 to an airline, that usually means you are are accumulating something like American Express Membership Rewards points. These will stay in your Membership Rewards account until you decide when and where to transfer them (hopefully taking advantage of a transfer bonus). In this case, the best features of the Membership Rewards points are their versatility (lots of partners to transfer to) and the speed at which they transfer. You can put reward plane tickets on hold, then transfer points from Membership Rewards to pay for them.

If you think you will be flying Star Alliance carriers for work, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card would be a good one for you. You could transfer points to United miles as needed.

If you get an airline card, like the United Explorer card, miles are automatically transferred into your United account a couple days after each statement closes.

Are you considering signing up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and the Chase Freedom card? I'm guessing that since you talk about Korean miles.

If you sign up for these cards and cancel them after a year, you will want to transfer the points to a partner before cancelling the cards (such as United, British Airways, or Korean Air). Yes, every airline has its own redemption chart for redeeming frequent flyer miles. Typically, 25,000 miles will get you a domestic coach ticket at the lowest level, meaning availability is very limited unless you are willing to use more miles. 60,000 miles will get you a coach seat to Europe if you can find availability.

You're not churning until you apply for the same card a second time. That's what churning means. What you are suggesting in your initial post is simply applying for credit cards and then using them a bit. Maybe we could make up a silly name for that too?

I got approved for Sapphire Preferred a week ago and am expecting it in the mail any day now. I am thinking about signing up for another card with Chase to rack up more points.

Thank you for all the explanations. It makes sense now and I understand what I need to do to start this process. ^

yeah its looks like you've read up upon the basis of getting good credit card offers..i think you should spend more time focusing in on the whole concept of frequent flier clubs/programs and miles expiration and overall usage...

How are you guys able to keep your credit scores high while getting mileages from signing up for credit cards, achieving spending requirements, and then canceling them?

Is it because you have a few cards that you actually hold on to that has a bigger "say" in your credit card history/longevity?

Here is what I have:

AmEx Cash Everyday (Since 2008) $1,500 limit
Citi Dividend (Since 2008) $4,500 limit

I just got a Sapphire Preferred with $6,000 limit

and I am thinking about doing the 50k AA offers for the two personal and one business.

I want to get retention bonus or cancel or downgrade the Sapphire Preferred to a regular Sapphire once I reach spending requirement and get the signup bonus. Same goes for the AA cards... I'm going to try to get retention bonuses or cancel them to avoid having to pay renewal fees.

Will canceling these cards affect my credit much or will it not matter since I have two cards (AmEx and Citi) that I've had for a while and are occupying a bigger piece of the pie when calculating credit score due to their older age?

My hunch, from reading up on this forum, is that it will have negligible effect on my credit score due to the short amount of period I will have owned these cards.. Can someone explain/confirm?