Dobie241

[QUOTE=TheManofaThousandPlaces;17377522]Has anyone scored 500,000 points or more in a single App-O-Rama?

I'm on track to do it. I call it my Evel Knievel churn. It includes 13 card applications (so far, 10 are confirmed approved). The beauty of it is that I only expect 7 or 8 inquiries. Once my credit score "bounces back", I may still have difficulty getting approvals due to a high number of new accounts, but I'll worry about that later. I estimate more than $5,000 in value from this churn.

Here is a list of the cards involved:
Amex Gold Business - 50,000
Amex SPG Business - 25,000
Amex Delta Gold Business - 30,000
Citi ThankYou Premier - 50,000
Citi ThankYou Preferred - 50,000
BoA Alaskan Airlines - 25,000
BoA Hawaiian Airlines - 35,000
BoH Hawaiian Airlines - 35,000
Chase Ink Bold Business - 50,000
Chase Priority Club - 60,000
Barclays Travelocity - 20,000
Barclays US Airways - 40,000
Discover Miles - 12,000



Which cards are you waiting on and what message(s) did you get. Can you say more about the two different? Citi thank you points card?
Did you have a thank you account already?

TheManofaThousandPlaces

I'm waiting on the Amex Delta, the Citi Premier, and the Barclay's Travelocity cards.

The Amex rep seems to think the system approved me, but there is a glitch due to the maximum number of cards I can have. Still working this out.

The Citi Premier card has been the biggest frustration. I've never had a ThankYou card before. I applied for the Preferred and the Premier at the same time. The Preferred was instantly approved. When I called about my application for the Premier I was told it didn't exist. I reapplied hours later and still don't have an answer.

I haven't heard anything from Barclay's about the Travelocity card. I expect I will receive notice in the mail.

newbynewbynew

Just want to thank FT members for the points I've earned. I know I could not have done it without your posts. Granted I made some mistakes in some FT's eyes with many hard pulls (I also wasted two by trying to apply for both Citi AAdvantage business cards... genius I know), but only because I was new and ambitious to racking up miles. Just like everyone else (well some of you anyway ), I have goals and am trying to meet those goals. To reach those goals, I will probably focus primarily on AA and Oneworld alliance, Hilton and Marriot rewards. AA works best for rewards as I can redeem through FWA for the same amount it would cost me out of IND/ORD/DTW which I used to drive to for the cheaper fares. Not any more!!! Below is my path with dates I applied.

Start - Experian score of 760

9/20 Citi AMEX AAdvantage card – 75K miles
9/20 Citi Visa AAdvantage card – 75K miles
9/22 Chase Continental card – 30K miles
9/29 AMEX Hilton – 50K points
10/6 BofA Hawaiian Air card – 35K miles that convert into 70K Hilton miles.
10/25 Chase Marriot card – 70K points plus a free night coupon
11/3 AMEX Gold Business – 75K MR (probably transfer to BA or Delta)

Finish (for now anyway ) - Experian score of 738

A few comments...notice I received two Chase personal cards in a little over 30 days. Instant approval for CO card, and had pending response for Marriot card, but after 7 days I noticed the card showed up in my account. No reconsideration line or anything! I now have 4 Chase cards (Freedom and Sapphire Preferred) I was instantly approved for every other card except BofA, but a quick call to reconsideration and I was approved. All my hard inquiries (all 8...including the failed business card attempts mentioned above) came up on Experian with the two Chase cards also pulling Transunion. I figure I won't press my luck at this point and enjoy the 10K spend requirement on the AMEX business over the next few months and be ready for 50K and higher deals in the spring/summer 2012. I'll be looking at the Citi Business AAdvantage card, Chase BA card, Chase INK business as those will probably be most advantageous to me and add the Hilton Surpass when the wife and I decide to get to Cabo for a few days . Too bad her credit is bad...but in a few years her credit will get us miles that much quicker!

ingy

The $30,000 minimum is above what most can handle unless doing some creative spending

I am convinced after three plus years of churning, every 90 days plus, that the three month mark between apps eliminates the "too many recent inquiries" denial.

Your next churn will be of interest as well as those inquiries will be adding up. I've actually started to back down as we have 2 million miles and points and "future devaluation" may set in.

We are up to bat again January 9th and in hopes that 40k Alaska card will still be around

Again, congrats Ben

brasov02

Good post. While it's nice to know one can get a half-million miles on a single churn, what's the point? What's the rush? You're only making the minimum spending threshold more difficult by bunching them all up and risking credit negatives such as the "too many recent inquiries", requisite dings to your score, ...etc. And also, as Ingy points out, getting more miles than you can use in the relatively near future only puts them at risk for devaluation. So, unless there's some panic rush for a half-mil, what's the rush?
As for me, I'm sticking with the periodic smaller churns that keep pace with my periodic traveling needs and no need to worry about any sudden "shocks" to my credit system. Earn 'em and burn 'em. The negatives of getting a half-million miles on one big churn for me far outweigh any positives (if I could even think of a positive).
Each to his own...

SliceoftheAction

I agree with pretty much all of your post, but I would mention one positive for the OP: the churning game may end tomorrow (or some indefinite point in the future). Chase and Citi may start cracking down on those of us who sign up for multiple bonuses every year. The OP avoids this problem by applying for all of the cards that he can handle at one time.

TheBOSman

I believe this was more of an experiment to see how much could be applied for and received at one specific time. I am like you brasov, I am working for the smaller churns with some specific goals set in mind. I can't even stomach a $30,000 spend, I'm having enough fun attempting to hit $5,000 in the next 4 months with the Citi AA cards, and that's with a free $2250 next month! I'm trying to do it without too much creativity if I don't need to do it, more than enough ways to get the spend though so I am not too worried. Hitting up everyone I know and buying things on the card that they were going to pay cash for then taking the cash is working better than I thought it would though :-D.

Best of luck to the OP, I certainly hope we can all learn a lot from this!

jeelele

My recent round of applications will fetch me 485,000 miles/points. My list is somewhat similar to the list of cards in the app-o-rama in this blog post except Barclays and Chase Marriott. I totally omitted Barclays and instead applied for an additonal Citi card in the form of ThankYou preferred with 50K bonus TYPs. And in place of Chase Marriott Visa, I applied for Chase Sapphire with 50K Chase UR points.

I love these card bonuses. Unfortunately, I missed out on the AMEX Platinum 100K, AMEX Gold PR 100K and Chase Sapphire 100K because of timing.

PatMike

I churn as much as possible. There is no point in waiting, as these deals may dry up at any moment, like the unlimited AA Citi churn of yesteryear and the dollar coin deal.

I'm currently waiting for the 100K Amex Plat card to come back before I sign up for Global Entry.

brasov02

That is one reason to splurge on churning but personally I don't see it as a very convincing one. Deals come and go all the time and there's nothing to indicate that they are all coming to a screeching halt any time soon. IF anything, history shows the opposite. One ends, another one will come along sooner or later. Which brings up yet another negative to the one-time mega-churn: you could be applicating your way out of a really great deal that shows up tomorrow because you used up all your apps for a bunch of run-of-the-mill offers today just because you can. There is definitely a point to sometimes waiting. Better for me to lie low and use my ammo in a more timely and potentially more effective way.
But, again, that's just me...

SliceoftheAction

This is absolutely true, but you have to think outside of the frequent flyer deals. In the middle of the last decade, 0% balance transfers were all the rage, and many people were making tons of very easy money from online casino bonuses. Well, interest rates crashed and online gambling is now illegal, so the best free money offers are now credit card sign-up bonuses. It's almost certain that at some point these will dry up as well when banks further refine their internal rules for offering bonuses. We've already seen slow moves in this direction as Chase (2007) and Citi (2009) cracked down on churning. It's only a matter of time. But then we will find something else - it just might not be credit cards.

lakers6902

Guys insane.

This is the type of person I want drinking with me at a bar

drbobguy

I agree with this completely. I mean look at it this way, the banks obviously don't want to subsidize $500 or $1000 worth of miles to customers that end up not earning them much money beyond the commission fees on the minimum spend. If they can exclude churners (or not just churners, but "abusers") by targetting only those that might be profitable then they will do that. And as the miles game has gotten more popular, there are more people doing this so it's becoming less and less just a few people getting lost in the noise of the masses of applicants. And let's not fool ourselves, if you look at the credit report of most of us here it is nearly completely obvious that we are taking the sign-up bonuses and running. It would take only minimal programming to weed out the people playing the miles game.

I think though what we've already seen is a move towards higher minimum spends. The minimum spend idea has always been about getting you into the habit of using the card (and guaranteeing some return for the banks, still 3% of $5000 is not $1000 in airline miles). But if your users are tracking things on spreadsheets and stopping using the card immediately upon hitting the minimum spend then the bank is forced to keep raising the minimum spends.

All in all though it seems to be a slow process and the banks still leave many loopholes (like the Citi AA 75k cards which were up for over a year after expiry). And I'm sure sign-up bonuses will still be around but I wouldn't be surprised if we stop being able to do absurd 10-20 cards per year and are limited more to 4-5/year (which is still pretty good!).

TheManofaThousandPlaces

This is exactly right.

I wanted to conduct an experiment to see if I could get approved for 10+ cards. Just as importantly, I wanted to see the impact to my credit score and watch how long it takes to bounce back. I hope the experiment is useful to everyone.

The commentary in this thread is great! Thanks to everyone who makes it interesting.

dc333

I couldn't pull the trigger on this myself. Just not comfortable with it mainly because of a lack of examples to learn from by guinea pigs like you. So thanks for being a public case study and large scale data point.