It's been 3 months or so since I applied for a card and I have the following:

Amex: Personal SPG (keeping), Hilton (keeping - no fee), Amex Rewards Gold (canceling)

Citi: 3 AA cards (2 canceled and will cancel last one too)

Chase: Freedom (keeping), Sapphire Preferred (canceling), Chase Ink Bold (canceling), British Airways (keeping for one more year as will get another 50K miles at year end)

Barclays: 2 US Airways cards (keeping - 10K/year)

Bank of America: Alaska Air card (probably canceling, though maybe keeping)

Thinking which would be a good one to add. Thinking of going for Chase Ink Plus and United Explorer with Chase. Anything else that would be good?

Why are you canceling the CSP and IB? Those are my 2 favorite earners. I can understand the IB if you are going to get the Plus but if you cancel the CSP before the end of the year you will not earn the 7% bonus. I also do not agree with canceling the Alaska card. That gives you the $99 companion pass every year so it is worth paying the yearly fee! See my post on Double AOR for some ideas on what to get.

CSP has no benefit once one already has IB and I don't think I spent enough on it for the 7% bonus to be beneficial for the fee. I am not canceling IB right away, but in another 9 months and by then I'll have the Ink Plus so no point keeping both. I think as long as one has at least one UR card that transfers to miles, it's good.

For Alaska Air, I am based in NY so the only way for me to take advantage of the companion pass is to fly through Seattle and I don't see myself going over there again within the next 2 years. Also, to try to make a connection through Seattle to Hawaii or west coast is quite inconvenient, especially at the cost of around $200 for the additional ticket once one counts the annual fee of $75 and ticket taxes.

The UA offer is probably at its peak. I would go with that one for sure.

Do you mean the 65k miles offer?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...nt-credit.html

Agree 100%

If you're into Hilton, assuming it's more than 65 days since your last Citi application, you could pick up two of these:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...nors-visa.html

and if you meet the $1500 spend in 4 months requirement on both of them you'll get 100k total (50k+50k) bonus Hilton points.

(And the Hilton Visa is churnable at least a few times a year, unlike the Hilton Amex which is to keep rather than to churn.)

Are you saying you can only get the bonus points from the Hilton AMEX once?

It's the zero fee Hilton card that gives you access to both GLON and AXON rates.

Thanks shadow2k, but do you know if I could open an new zero fee Hilton for more bonus points after 2 years?

My current understanding is that would be long enough for Amex. But as always, it's a YMMV type of thing.

I believe the other poster was simply telling you that if you're trying to churn Hilton cards, the Citi ones are far quicker/easier to do it with. Amex is a bear you don't want to poke too often, where Citi doesn't seem to care.

You only get it once if you hold the card. Perhaps if you cancel it and wait a year or two, you may be able to get another one bonus. (And then have to wait as long for the next one.)

But compare that to being able to get several bonuses each year from the Hilton no-free Citi Visa card. (You can even get one, sometimes, two, 50k Citi Visa HHonors bonuses while having another, maybe another two, Citi Visa HHonors cards still open!!!)

So why bother trying the difficult hoops to churn the Hilton Amex rarely when you can so much more easily churn the Hilton Citi Visa often?

(And only the Hilton Amex gives you a 500-point booking bonus. So since it's hard to churn, why not keep that one, and you use it for your actual Hilton stays, at least in the US, and then only churn the Citi Visa.)

I went for the United one before the link disappears and Ink Plus at the same time for a single credit pull. Had to close my Sapphire account as I already have Freedom, BA, IB and Sapphire with them, but got approved for Explorer. Guess I'll try to stay away from Chase applications for at least 6 months.

Some folks have gotten offers to upgrade from the no-fee Amex HHonors to the surpass and pick up an extra ~50K for additional spend. My understanding is under the Card Act this would have to be after a year of holding the card, as one of the protections in the new law is that banks can't worsen the terms in 12 months, even at the cardholder's request. Under this theory the annual fee for the Surpass would be detrimental, and thus precluded under the law.

I got the no fee card last Feb. I will likely try to upgrade it in 2013. In the alternative Amex seems to say its 12 months from closure to be bonus eligible again for a given product. I like having access to Axon, so I'd probably not close it with so many other ways to get HHonors points.

I just did (for the umpteenth time). It's $3000 spend within 3 months to get the extra 50k.

And guess what I could with that same $3000 spend? Get 100k instead of 50k! By applying instead for 2 Citi HHonors Visa cards:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...nors-visa.html

and spending $1500 on each (within 4 months).

I thus don't see the point of choosing the upgrade to Surpass unless you're "maxed out" over at Citi.

(Even if you only want 50k, $1500 spend in 4 month on the Citi Visa seems a lot easier for many people than $3000 spend in 3 months on the Amex. Especially if you have to do some spend during that time at places that only take Visa/MC.)