FYI...for those keeping track at home. I'm a regular card churner and have applied for a card a month for the past several years. I applied for the AMEX Gold on Aug 28, 2011 and put myself into a timeout to do a refinance of my mortgage. On Nov. 3, 2011 I submitted an application and today we're signing the new mortgage.

I am SO looking forward to applying for my next credit card....it about killed me to miss out on the one day 75K AMEX deal earlier this month.

Observations

- I had NO trouble refinancing with my churn record. I ended up with the best rate/cost advertised for a 230K mortgage.
- I did have to provide a written explanation for the eight credit cards my wife and I applied for from June to August. I simply stated that I applied for the cards to get FF points and showed that the balances were zero and that was that. A bit more paperwork but it didn't cause any problems.

Caveats
- My wife and I have > 760+ FICO scores.
- We have a 45 % equity stake in our house and housing values here are relatively stable.
- We have approximately 2x times the amount of the mortgage in various retirement, college funds
- Long term employment record with monthly income that easily meets the required thresholds and have a consulting business on the side.

Make with it what you will....

Interesting data point. Thanks for sharing.

I'm honestly curious as to what a consultant is. Here, its used quite a bit and perhaps I am misunderstanding, but is it like an itinerant expert? Pardon if this is obvious, as English is not my native language.

Whats your average time for keeping an account open? Do you close the cc accounts within a year of opening them to avoid annual fees?

Consultant = being paid for specific tasks rather than employed on a regular basis. The legal/financial basis varies from person to person, I have a LLC set up to handle the paperwork but you need not do this.

I generally keep the cards until the membership fee hits. I have a couple of no fee cards I've had for awhile to help with the average credit age but don't know what my average credit age is.

Ah, thank you; that's very helpful.

I am curious as to why you apply every month, as opposed to the conventional wisdom of 3-month batches? I've wondered about the monthly approach, seeing as it makes sense to me that spacing them out every month results in each inquiry dropping off the record accordingly, leaving you with a constant 2-application history vis-a-vis recent inquiries.

Any thoughts on the merits of monthly vs quarterly churning? My only attempt at more than one app in a day resulted in a denial on the second app for "too many recent inquiries", but applying for one card every 4-6 weeks has been fine...

Cheers

This is my new favorite definition for "consultant". Wonder if I can convince our business manager to put "Itinerant Expert" on my business cards?

I also ponder this question quite a bit. I tend to apply every month or two and rarely get denials. Same with my wife. And so far I've always been able to get a successful reconsideration.

Wonder if others have comparison data?

We tend to apply every month or two for what we feel like are the most valuable promotions for us. Denials are rare, unless I'm trying to get a Citi Aadvantage card earlier than I should or something. The churning had no effect on our mortgage refinance, either, except that the review of recent accounts was conducted WAY too close to the last possible day for closing. I'm not sure why the bank sat on the application for so long (like 45-50 days) before addressing those issues, but they did.

We halted our credit card application activities once we applied for the refinance and resumed shortly after the new mortgage was sold off by our local bank to Chase. Ironically, a few of the recent accounts about which I was asked were Chase credit cards. Heaven help the bank who ultimately is servicing the loan if it researches our accounts WITH THEM internally, rather than through a 3rd party credit check agency. Sometimes the way in which large corporations operate gives me a headache.

I apply for one card a month because (1) it makes doing the spend and record keeping easier and (2) it allows me to jump on deals as they appear and (3) I've never had a problem with getting cards.

As someone who works for a large corporation, I cannot possibly agree with you more.

I have been doing more and more cc churning the last year or two because of the great deals though I am very careful about paying off all my bills, etc.

Well today I was declined for a card because of too many apps---checked my experian credit report and I have done 12 apps this year and 22 in the last two. My credit score is still better than 780.

A few questions:

1) How long do I sit on the sidelines from cc apps?

2) Will this (and for how long) also prevent me from getting a car loan, etc.

Any advice/guidance would be very much appreciated.

I wrote my earlier message (obviously) without having read this thread carefully (my kids were screaming and I was anxious to post) and now have read everything and feel silly for having written my earlier post.

I am still (sort of) stunned that I was denied (after having asked for reconsideration) with a credit score of just under 790.