THANKS for all the help so far. At this point in time I really can't say how "deep" I want to go with earning points. I know I don't want to create a big impact on the credit score because it took a long time to get it in the low 800's and I want to keep it there. I travel about 15,000 miles per year so I'm probably looking to add just enough to give me a basic ticket every 18 months or so.

Churning my cards is IMHO the best way to get AA miles at a crazy rate. You can get 100k+ per quarter if you really max it out. The coins gig seemed better for some folks but I don't have the time to find banks to deposit hundreds of thousands of coins each month

The impact on credit is minimal and frankly at 800+ I think you have nothing to worry about. Fact is 750+ will put you into the top bracket, so getting to 800 just earns bragging rights. You get the best mortgage rate at 750, you don't improve at 800. For someone looking to buy a house who has a score < 800 I would say wait till your moved in, then start burning straight away. For other forms of credit I'd say as long as you start out > 750 your fine.

Opening/closing accounts won't have a huge impact on your score anyway. I can tell you from experience using up your credit lines is far worse. Listen to FrugalTravelGuy when he says don't use more than 50% of your credit lines. In fact don't use more than 35%. That way you keep the hit to a minimum.

Even having said that... if you do go over those suggested limits... if you pay it off then your credit score bounces back immediately. Last year my FICO went down to 650 as I had a 20k balance on a 26k Amex card along with about 10k across 3 maxed out 0% interest cards. I wanted car financing so just paid the whole whack off and within about 5 weeks once everything was updated on credit reports my FICO went up to 740ish. Just opening and closing accounts will not give you that kind of volatility...

Thanks for the info on credit impact via churning. I'm really considering taking the plunge. Wish me good luck. Thanks again!

10k miles every 18 months? There's some here who do that weekly. Get with the program! :D

If it's every 18 months, apply for a Citi AA account. $750 spend for 25k miles. Then tear up the card, and close the account after 6 months.

Yet you can't stop at just one. It's a slippery slope...

Take a look at Frugal Travel Guy's blog http://www.frugaltravelguy.blogspot.com/, particularly "Frugal Guy Ricks Top Seven Travel Deals #1" and you'll get the idea. Good luck!

Churning refers to applying for a card, making the minimum purchase amount required to qualify for a bonus, cancelling the card before any annual fee is due, and re-applying for the same card and repeating the process.

If you rent cars, then that's a good way to add to Delta. Delta routinely has richer car rental bonuses than AA, so even though I'm primarily with AA, I more often steer car rentals to Delta (and mostly increase my Delta miles only with car rentals lately!).

But you have to know where to look. Avis has a bonus which gives 5000 bonus miles for 4+ day rentals and 2500 bonus miles for 3 day rentals (US+ airport locations, any car class) through the end of 1999, but they've removed the promo page from the Delta website, so you have to go to the Avis forum here on FlyerTalk and find the recent thread about the Delta 5000 mile bonus and on the first page of the thread someone has a saved picture of the original web page showing the coupon codes and the terms. And everyone eho's been using it lately (including me), even after Delta rmoved the page from the web, has still been getting the bonus per the original (through Dec 31 2009, no GPS add-on required) terms using the original coupon codes.

Here's a link to that thread in the Avis forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis/...ill-alive.html

(Depending on how your browser feels at the moment, post #4 in that thread may show the picture inside the thread, or you may have to click on the link to see the picture. One way, or another, though, post #4 gives you the picture of the original promo page.)

Most of the airlines and hotels for that matter have shopping portals which give multiple miles or points for each dollar spent thru their portals. Delta has good partners as well such as energy, dry cleaning, wine clubs etc and occasionally has good sign up bonuses for them. The airlines have dining clubs as well such as Delta's Skymiles dining that give extra miles for each dollar spent and they often have bonuses as well.
For newbies there is still Club bing to get the 4,000 or so miles allowed.

What's your experience with posting time for the Bing miles.?...miles here from Sep 15th haven't posted yet....thanks!

Check again Nov 15th.

ima try some of these ouy:)

What about consolidating your travel with one airline?

15K miles/year spread between 2 airlines is pretty inefficient.

Let me share just a short story. Last year at this time I had maybe 19K miles in my AA account, 40K lifetime, 30K in LH and 40K in DL. Never had status on an airline. I thought this year I would fly mayber 35-50K miles, which is more than I have ever flown in 1 year in my life. I commited all of the travel I could to AA and thier partners. Due to a huge uptick in business travel, a couple of family emergencies and my planned travel I wound up flying 115K miles in 2009, if you include last December in the tally I did 143K in the last 11 months. Believe me, around this crowd that is not a large amount of flying!
Thanks to some promotions and a mile run I finished this year with 275K miles in my AA account, 315K lifetime, all but about 10K from flying.

I'm not suggesting that you go hog wild flying around the world, but focusing you efforts on one airline will help you get your to your goals in a couple of different ways ways (and I'm going to speak from an AA perspective)

-the obvious of all flown miles going into one account
-the ability to take advantage of promotions, like double elite qualification miles etc. If you happened to fly you 15K miles during that promotion you would have Gold status which would get you free luggage, 25% mileage bonus on all AA flights and lots of other bennies

Had I not focued I would have missed out on tons of promos and had my miles scattered around 3 or more airlines. Now I am approaching the point where I can take my DW on an around the world trip in Business Class instead of thinking about a free domestic in coach.

By focusing and following some of the advice others give you here you very well may get your every 18 month domestic trip in 1st, instead of coach, and then you will be ruined for life!

If you are "only" looking for a "basic ticket" every 18 months or so, applying for a Citi CC will be an overkill:rolleyes:. You can get about 300K miles per 12 months if you churn hard:D:D:D.

but beware of churning your way to a bad credit rating

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Rewards Network (formerly known as i-dine). Almost all my travel is on Air Canada, but I've accumulated a surprising number of miles on AA from dining. 64K miles in 2007, 52K miles in 2008. (This pales in comparison to Jailer who seems to earn about 200K miles/yr from eating! :eek:) This year won't be as lucrative due to a lack of bonus opportunities, but I still expect to get around 40K miles.

OP, check these out:

AAdvantage Dining Program
Delta Dining Program

Make sure you check out the i-dine/Rewards Network forum for sign up bonuses and tips on how to maximize points earned.