I used to accrue on UAL, but have changed to AA.

I was offered an AA Mastercard for 10K miles so I got rid of my UAL Visa, signed up with AA MC and used it for 1 year.

Then AA offered me an AA Business card for 20K miles so I got it and cancelled the first one. The online service for the business card was miserable to say the least, so I cancelled that after 4 months and got another AA card for 10k miles which I plan to cancel in 6 months when the $85 annual fee kicks in.

Between times I got another UAL card for 10k miles after the first purchase. They gave me the miles for the first purchase and now want the annual fee of $60. I�m thinking of canceling this one now.

What are your thoughts about these rapid turnovers? Can I just keep doing this? I don�t ever carry a balance but have hefty charges. I have great credit thus far, so have had no problems getting cards, but will these activities change my credit rating?

It could definitely cause adverse responses by potential creditors. Having many credit card sign-ups in short periods of time hurts your credit report, while many 'hard-credit-pulls' by new creditors in a short period of time hurts your FICO score.

sowalsky is correct. I don't recommend it. You will pay later when you want to apply for credit you really need.

sowalskyI agree. Generally there is the risk that this "credit card hopping" (for miles) hurts your FICO score.
I did the same, however, may be not as extensive as sylvia. Still, I had plenty of new cards in the last two years or so. And what happened: My FICO score went up!?! From very good to very, very good.
I would recommend that sylvia should check her FICO Credit Score on the internet - from Equifax for some $12 or may be free from E-LOAN.

You can get a free credit report from Experian. You need to sign up for their Credit Expert service but it is free for 30 days and painless to cancel.

Can you sign up and cancel online? I would like to get a full credit report, but do not want to get involved with a service that requires me to call to cancel.

You need to call to cancel but it only takes a minute. I have done it and also a friend.

[This message has been edited by FlyByMike (edited 07-19-2003).]

If the only reason for cancelling the card is the yearly fee, call and see if they can convert the card to one with no fee. It may give fewer miles but instead of cancelling the card just, if you don't plan to use it, just put it aside.

From what I've seen having lots of cards doesn't hurt your credit. Just keep them open without a balance.

What is a "hard credit pull"?

Hard pulls are generally what is done when applying for a new line of credit (eg. CC, mortage, car loan, etc.). Particualrly damaging is a hard pull by collection agency.

Soft pulls are for various things like a company collecting an updated report on you for an account already open, or if you request your own credit report, or if the credit agency pulls your name to hand off to a company that is looking for a certain credit profile for advertising.

Basically hard pulls occur for reasons likely to impact your outstanding credit, and soft pulls occur for other reasons.

The reason that they matter is that a credit report issued to a potential creditor include only the hard pulls, and those that you pull for yourself include all of them. Hence hard pulls can decrease FICO, while soft pulls don't.

Also regarding hard pulls affecting your FICO: IIRC This only hurts you for a short period after the pulls were done (6 months?). If no account was opened soon after, it will not effect your FICO. Of course the extra new accounts may hurt you, but are less likely to if they are closed down shortly as they no longer represent any exposure (assuming they did not have any late payments, etc.).

sylvia, I'm sort of in the same boat you are.

About 4 months ago, we acquired a Citibank AAdvantage MasterCard, with the intent of racking up enough FF miles in a year's time to use them for vacation tickets.

We already had enough miles in our respective accounts to get coach tickets. Through a series of dumb moves (detailed in a previous thread), we're now stuck with 2 RT FF tickets (STL - YYZ) that we won't be using.

In light of the recent developments re: AA and STL, Mr. lv2 is suggesting that
1) we blow off the FF tix and not pay the fees to reinstate the miles in our accounts(forfeiting 25,000 miles each);
2) we cancel our AAdvantage MC, since the chances are considerably slimmer than they were 4 months ago that we'll be looking at AA for future vacation travel. (And he's slightly ticked off because we paid $50 for the card, thinking we'd recoup the cost in FF tix.)

In fact, we're looking around for another "rewards" MC or Visa; we already have Discover, but not all merchants take it, especially not in Canada (where we're going on vacation next month). We've had a GM MC for a couple of years, but the "reward" (i.e., amount to use toward a new car) is almost maxed out.

If anyone has any suggestions along these lines, I'm listening.

It's interesting that you are receiving miles with each new card. Generally, the fine print says that miles are awarded for new accounts. I have tried to reapply for a card only to be told that I wouldn't get the miles (or upgrades, etc.) since I had already opened an account.

I suspect there's a time thing with this and if I wait a few years, I would get all the goodies as if I were a brand new applicant.

There are at least three reasons why your credit score / rating will be reduced with your behaviours.

1. The number of hard inquiry will be too much.
2. The average length of all accounts will be too low.
3. The number of new accounts will be too high for the most recent period.

When you get your credit report, look at the "reason code" for scoring basis. Then you will likely see these listed as why your score was negatively affected.

If you are thinking about mortgage or car loan within the next 12 months... my advice is not to get any new credit until them so the accounts will settle down to increase the score. Because you might get these denied if you keep playing this card game.

I have been playing the credit card game for the last year, five new cards. In addition I have had very large credit card balances while being on a bond-buying orgy. All credit card balances have been paid in full before the due date and on many occasions I have charged two and three times my �credit limit� during a month. The results have been that I now have lots of miles and my credit score has dropped 150 points.

Exactly... I noticed something similar myself too but not as much drop. 150 points can often mean the difference between a good mortgage / loan and a high rate... sometimes a 2% difference. APR difference of 2% can translate to $10,000 in interest over the amortization period of a mortgage. It is not really worth the miles.

This was also confirmed in another (MSN) forum, have a look.

http://moneycentral.groups.msn.com/Y...06144151685495