Amex - life time bonus - so cards are worthless to churn
Chase - 5/24 rule - ouch.

What's left? Citi AA cards?

serious question - what are good churning cycles/strategies these days? (have had a couple of little ones last couple of years and haven't kept up with the game).

Right now Alaska cards as pretty easy to get, a new one every 3-4 months.

see discussion here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...s-now-30k.html

isn't amex lifetime ~= 7 years?

Virgin Atlantic, Hawaiin Air, Alaskan Air, seem to still be able to churn. Jet Blue?? Wyndham?? not sure..the list continues to dwindle..

Reddit has reports that Amex lifetime is 4 years now.

Citi is now 24 months, some chase cards can be done every 24 months

unfortunately, churning as we knew it no longer exists. I just wonder if the credit card companies will change as their number of new customers dwindles.

That's per exact card. In 7 or so years. Have already gotten the bonus on the Everyday, and the Everyday Preferred, and the Premier Rewards Gold, and the non-premier Gold, and the Green, and the Platinum, and the Mercedez Benz, and the business versions?

Citi AA cards?[/QUOTE]

Citi just insituted their own pretty tough anti-churning measure this month:
Since it's one bonus per program (not per card), with a business card separation exception, it may be tougher for some people than Amex, even if it's "only" 24 months rather than 7 (or rumored 4) years at Amex.

One strategy is stop churning personal cards, and only churn (non-Chase) business cards. That way, while you wait out Citi and Amex, you can get back to Chase, since (non-Chase) business cards don't show up on your credit report (if not in default) and thus don't count toward Chase's 5/24 (which for non-Chase cards simply counts the cards on your credit report that have an "opened on" date in the past 24 months).

I can't think of that many lucrative non-Chase biz card out there especially with Amex "lifetime" rule + Citi 24-month rule.
Is there a list of business cards somewhere that we can look at?

Citi just insituted their own pretty tough anti-churning measure this month:
Since it's one bonus per program (not per card), with a business card separation exception, it may be tougher for some people than Amex, even if it's "only" 24 months rather than 7 (or rumored 4) years at Amex.



One strategy is stop churning personal cards, and only churn (non-Chase) business cards. That way, while you wait out Citi and Amex, you can get back to Chase, since (non-Chase) business cards don't show up on your credit report (if not in default) and thus don't count toward Chase's 5/24 (which for non-Chase cards simply counts the cards on your credit report that have an "opened on" date in the past 24 months).[/QUOTE]

First, not everyone has applied for every Amex business card out there.

Second, Citi's 24-month rule separates personal from business Citi AA cards. So the business Citi AA card is on its own 24-month rule, separate from all the personal Citi AA cards (which now share one 24-month rule). Btw, Citi apparently only has 2 business cards total (and the other one is pretty obscure), so tightening up at Citi didn't affect business cards overall that much.

Third, I don't know of a list. I don't tend to hunt for cards to apply for, I start with programs I want to earn in, and then see what cards are available for them. So I dunno if we could all agree on what's "lucrative" and what's not.

You could look in this thread, to see if you spot any business cards, but it hasn't been updated in a while:
and I'm not sure if it always details whether a business card is available or not.

Since I'm interested in Alaska miles, for me the Alaska business card (which you might be able to apply for a few times a year; I know you can do that with the personal one, I'm not yet sure what the timing "rules" are for the business one) is "lucrative" enough. For someone with no interest in Alaska miles, I guess it wouldn't be.

Since I've never had the SPG Business card from Amex before, I plan to apply for that the next time (hopefully there is a next time) when the bonus is temporarily increased.

Obviously that's not a big list. I'm not interested in cash back business cards, buisness cards for non-transferable bank-specific points programs, etc. For those people who are, the list may be bigger.

If there are business cards for any foreign airlines (for which there are personal cards issued in the USA), i'm not aware of them offhand. But I'm very new to this "churn business only" line of thought, and haven't done a lot of research specific to it. (I've accumulated cards which I'm happy to use "daily" for groceries, gas, travel, entertainment, etc, categories, so my need for "minimum spend" has decreased compared to a couple years ago. So I don't necessarily "need" as many cards a year as I used to, given that I don't do MS and all my spend is "natural".)

But then I've been collecting miles & points for over a decade, and have a decent stockpile, so I'm not as "desperate" to build up a stockpile as some people newer to the game (or who "earned and burned") might be.

Man. that's a tough world out there!