Ok, I'm new to flyertalk but am rapidly catching on. So far have bagged Chase United 55K and Chase Sapphire Preferred 45K for the wife and me. Nice since I found flyertalk 5 days ago(probably 20 hours of reading). Now there is a list of the credit card sign up offers on "The special credit card offers master thread".

My strategy is to take 2 long haul flights each year for several years when we retire in 3 years. Hoping to have 500K air miles and 500K Hotel miles each by then. Does that seem unreasonable? Of course we only need one hotel room for the two of us so maybe I don't need so many hotel points.

My question is I plan to hold most cards for 11 months, cancel then wait and reapply when it is likely I can get a new signup bonus. So the Hotel and airline points that go to their own programs will remain when I cancel the cards. Then there are cards like the Barclay's arrival card 40K that it is not clear I can transfer. So is this an earn and burn card?

Not sure I can do the business angle unless I get creative. Assuming that's out here is the next plan. Most valuable on my list, staying away from the earn and burn cards seems to be.

Chase Southwest 50K Rapid Rewards Premier
Chase Southwest 50K Rapid Rewards Plus
Citibank American Airlines 50K
Club Carlson US Bank 85K
Hyatt 4 nights with 1K spend
Marriott 70K

Feedback would be appreciated.

This is a big assumption. I think 2-3 years from now churning would be absolutely impossible. You can only reliably count on getting all your bonuses once or twice in a 5 year period. Plus the time that goes into this might make you eventually realize its not worth it. Plus miles will devalue with time.

Maybe explore the manufactured spending forum?

Thanks for the reply.

I have looked at the manufactured spending threads. I'm not sure how it would help me unless you are saying it would generate points on the spending dollars and not on the signup bonuses. Is that what you mean? My credit card spend for 2013 was about 30K which would cover a lot of initial spend for the first 90 days to get a lot of bonuses.

I am reading other newbie threads and suspect all the rookies are getting the low hanging fruit and it quickly gets more difficult.

What do you think would be a realistic expectation for 3 years of work here, mostly on bonuses?

That Chase United card you just got will give you a 10k mile bonus if you spend $25k on it this year. I generated most of that last year with manufactured spend.

You could add the USAir card, which will eventually be combined with any AA miles. There is a current AA card offer of 75k miles with a $450 fee and $7500 spend. Or you could get a Amex Gold card, which also gives a 15k bonus on $30k annual spend.

Maybe you should map out the destinations you have in mind and figure out which alliance has best availability and then apply for cards based on that.