Results of My Recent Credit Card Churn

Last weekend after returning from Thailand I did a quarterly credit card churn, I am not a hard core churner, I signed up for four new cards. There are only so many with significant signup bonuses, so many cards whose bonuses I’m eligible for (such as because I haven’t had the card before or I haven’t had it recently, depending on issuer). So it was a modest churn.

I had wanted to jump on a few offers for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t want to apply for cards while I was out of the country thinking that the foreign IP address could look like fraud and make it more painful to get approvals. So I waited until I came back. But I wanted to get it in before the end of the month because of word that Ink Bold’s offer was going to be changing, I hadn’t gotten in on that one yet, and I definitely wanted the 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points since they transfer to United/Continental and Hyatt (and also Marriott, Priority Club, Amtrak, British Airways, and Korean — but I’m less interested in those options).

Having just spent a ton of points on vacation — 300,000 British Airways miles for airline tickets and a couple hundred thousand Hilton HHonors points for my villa at the Conrad Koh Samui — I wanted to replenish a bit. And credit card bonuses are the best way to construct a dream trip quickly.

Here are the four cards I selected:

• Chase Ink Bold: 50,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points after spending $5000 within 3 months, fee waived the first year.

• Business Gold Rewards card from American Express: 50,000 Membership Rewards points after $10000 in spend within 5 months, fee waived the first year Update: as noted by DealsWeLike inthe comments, the 50,000 point signup bonus no longer comes up along with this link.

• Citi ThankYou Premier: 50,000 ThankYou Points after $2,500 in spend within 3 months, no fee the first year.

• US Airways Mastercard from Barclays: 40,000 US Airways miles after first purchase, fee waived the first year.

US Airways Mastercard

I chose this one because I’ve had it in the past and have been able to get the bonus more than once. And even though the signup bonus is less than 50,000 — sort of a minimum threshold for me when I’m just signing up for a card to get the bonus — it’s issued by Barclays and I don’t have any other cards with Barclays. I can only get so many Chase cards, Chase has most of the really good offers these days, so I’ll take a lower bonus from a bit more obscure of an issuer.

I was approved instantly for the card, it hasn’t come in the mail yet after a week but I created my online account instantly and they approved me for more than $20,000 in credit.

American Express Business Gold Rewards

Here’s my past discussion of the value of the Business Gold Rewards card: no fee the first year, 50,000 Membership Rewards points after $10,000 in spend within 5 months, triple points on airfare and double points on gas, advertising (GoogleAds!), and shipping. I had recommended this card for big spenders.

I can hit the minimum spend for the bonus, 50,000 Membership Rewards are worth a whole lot even though they’ve lost Continental as a partner and Aeroplan has begun adding fuel surcharges to awards. There are frequent huge transfer bonuses to Delta, good bonuses for transferring to the (devalued) British Airways program, and I’m a big fan of using All Nippon. So I’ll be thrilled to get the signup bonus, and it’s halfway towards my next premium cabin international award ticket.

I wasn’t approved right away. Instead, about 36 hours after applying I got an email asking me to call in. They wanted to verify some things about the business — the phone number and that the business existed! I called from the phone number I gave on the application, so that was fine, they didn’t actually ask me anything about the business. They just thanked me for being a good customer of American Express and approved me on the spot, telling me they’d expedite the card and I’d have it within 2 days. Score! Second card down.

Citi Thank You Premier

I chose this one because it’s the best Citi offer that I haven’t had, just three months ago I hopped back on the American Airlines 75,000 mile bonus [now 50,000 is the best confirmed offer], and I wouldn’t be in a position to get that one again. The 50,000 points will be worth enough cash to be worthwhile signing up for, no fee, and the required minimum spend at $2500 within 3 months is modest.

I was approved after 5 days, I received an email letting me know that I got a whopping credit line of $2000 but that’s probably because Citi had just given me a pretty substantial limit on my American Airlines card and didn’t want to extend even more. That’s fine, I don’t need a lot of credit, I’ll hit the minimum spend but this won’t be a card I keep, the point was to churn for the bonuses after all. Third one down!

Chase Ink Bold

I took my own advice seriously, since the then-current offer for Ink Bold was supposed to be going away on November 28, I took the plunge and applied. Of course the 50,000 point signup bonus didn’t go away, they simply changed the benefits on offer, adding bonuses for specific spending categories (quintuple (!!) points on office supply, cable, wireless and landline expenses and double points on gas and hotels) and removing the threshold bonuses for high spending on the card.

Here’s my discussion of the new benefits on offer from the Chase Ink Bold small business card, bottom line they’ve brought it even closer to being the small business version of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. (And of course Sapphire Preferred may be the king of credit cards, but I already have one, its offer is a bit more generous with a 40,000 point bonus for less spend, $3000 within 3 months.)

The nice thing is that while Chase is pretty tight-fisted about approving new cards, and while they’ll take into consideration how many personal cards you have and your personal credit in applying for new small business cards, those small business cards offer a whole new line of bonuses you can obtain and they seem more willing to add a business card than another personal one. And they’ll let you horse trade with your personal credit in order to get business cards.

I hadn’t heard back from Chase after a week so I called the business lending line at 1-800-453-9719 (M-F, 8am-9pm Eastern, thanks to The Points Guy for the number so I didn’t have to ring up CHase for it first).

If you’re going to do this over the phone you want to actually have a business or be able to answer specifics about what you’re planning to do of course, it should be fine to be setting up and planning a business and needing to collect all of your spending in one place.

A couple of questions about my personal income and my expected monthly spending, the representative put me on hold to look at my credit report, and she came back on the line to say she was recommending approval and that I Would have the card in 7 to 10 days.

No horse trading involved at all, I was prepared to give up some credit on another card to get approved but this wasn’t necessary. And it’s only been a couple of months since my last Chase approval.

Bottom-line: Four for four in approvals, I’ll net 190,000 points from signup bonuses [though I value the Citi Thank You Points less than airline miles]. Not a monster churn, but good enough for now and without any mega bonuses on offer. A nice bulk up of my accounts for right after I had drained them a bit with this trip and with my next big international award redemption that’s coming up in a couple of months. I’m looking forward to new offers that I can jump on, probably in three months.

(All but the US Airways card earn me referral credits.)