In general you are always better off getting new cards with nice sign up bonuses throughout the year. But if you don't wanna do that for some reason your system seems fine.

My AF just hit for my Blue Cash Preferred, so I downgraded to the no fee version. I checked and the extra 3% for groceries didn't cover the AF so I downgraded. I recently got a Costco Visa for a laptop purchase where I wanted the extra 2 years warranty that card gives. Costco Visa gives 4% on all gas stations, so I was only going to be using the amex for groceries anyway.

Lots of better cards with better bonuses have extended warranty. Costco visa is something to avoid in the future.

Marriott/SPG merger seems like a disaster, huge devaluation. Any reasonable alternative?

I'm currently MSing/selective spending on Hilton cards currently. I have the Business + Aspire combo. I use the Aspire for 7x points on dining and just use the Business card to hit $15k in MS to get a free weekend night. Hilton points are generally valued around .5, but I've found quite a few redemptions that have given me more value than that. The Aspire was a great card for a signup bonus, but when the AF comes around ($450), I'll have to do some math to see if it's worth keeping, as I don't value some of the benefits like Diamond status and haven't been able to use the resort credit.

I like that Hilton has such a wide variety of brands to choose from. I've found great value on road trips at Hampton Inns and DoubleTrees, while also getting solid value from an all-inclusive Jewel resort in Jamaica (yes, I was at a resort and wasn't able to find a way to use my resort credit on the Apsire. LOL) and might end up booking some Waldorf Astoria rooms in the future.

In the past I've gotten the IHG cards for the signup bonuses and have kept the cards because I get more value out of the free anniversary night than the AF. I highly recommend IHG for the initial signup bonus, but not for ongoing spend.

If you're eligible, getting the Sapphire Reserve or other UR or Amex cards and transferring can also get you a lot of value. I haven't done any research on these lately as I'm not eligible.

Overall, it really depends what your travel/redemption plans are and if you are willing to MS + signup for new cards.

Realistically, a case could also be made for just using a 2% cashback card and using the cashback on hotel purchases if you don't want to think about it or spend time on it.

and maybe bonus whore the lowest hanging fruit, if you don't mind minimal effort.

Krunic, if you want to be anonymous you could create an LLC and create a card through the company and use that to make purchases. Not sure if this would work because I've never opened up a card for a business and am not sure if the owner's name has to be included or not. You can also use bitcoin if it is available.


I have some questions about credit since I have recently dived into the world of credit cards and taking advantages of bonuses. Firstly, if I have poor utilization for a long time but then switch to something low like 5%, does that have an impact on my score still or is it only the utilization at the current time that matters?

Secondly, I also was considering the 0% APR for a limited time that a lot of these cards offer. What is stopping me from racking up huge amounts of debt on these cards, paying the minimum each month and with the rest of the money putting it in a CD, and then at the end of the APR promotion using the money earned from the CD to pay off all the debt and keeping the interest?

A financial person told me that I get screwed over through some transfer fee, but I couldn't find this in the fine print.

Utilization doesn't have a lasting effect. I regularly go from 60-70% utilization to 0% and my credit score will fluctuate by 100-120 points. As soon a you reduce your utilization your score will jump right back up to where it was.

De captain is correct here.

A lot of CCs that have 0% interest typically have a transfer fee of 3% for any balance you transfer to that card. The APR is usually only for transfers, not for new purchases on the card.

There are a few cards that have a true 0% intro APR (Chase Slate comes to mind). You can certainly do that, but the amount of money you would make off a CD would be less than just getting a large signup bonus from another card. It will also negatively impact your CC score during that time, as your utilization would go up. You can get a lot more value out of just opening cards with large signup bonuses.

yup all this

Wow! thanks, this forum is awesome.

What number is considered a good baseline for credit cards you never close in order to establish good history?

This is probably illegal, but suppose someone made large purchases for items within their own business to take advantage of cash back bonuses. What is stopping someone from doing this?

What if someone bought a bunch of items from stores that don't do in-store-credit to take advantage of the bonus and returned the items for cash later?

How nitty are you willing to get? I'd add CitiDouble cash, probably downgrade the Blue Cash to the free one.

My setup right now is
Capital one Savor for Dining & Drinking 4% (Might not keep this once the AF hits)
Blue Cash for Groceries 3%
All else on Citi Double Cash for 2%

Could do a little better with rotating 5% on discover or elsewhere.

Not sure what you are asking. Like how many cards is good to have for your credit history? Your score will be fine no matter what number you have as long as you are keeping your utilization low and not getting late/delinquent marks for paying late/not paying.

Why would it be illegal to purchase things for your business?

Don't do this. Sure you could get away with it a couple times most likely but eventually they will catch on and you'll be stopped from getting additional cards with them. You'll end up way worse off than if you just did things legitimately. They may even claw back the bonus once they catch on to it so you aren't even guaranteed to profit before you get burned for doing it. If you want to manufacture the spending to get bonuses there are much better ways to do it. Bank account funding/buying vanilla gift cards and getting money orders/etc. Personally I don't bother with that stuff because I don't want to risk my relationships with the banks and the returns for the time spent are not worth it to me. I prefer to use mostly my organic spend and get a bunch of sign up bonuses which is easy/low effort/great ROI. My time is better spent playing poker or relaxing than it is going to walmart and semi sketchily trying to buy money orders with gift cards. Up to you to decide whether that type of stuff is something you wanna do and is worth your time.

Businesses get charged a fee by the cc company for processing the transaction. I'm not sure what it is but pretty sure it's larger than what you're going to get in cash back.

Hi all,
I am 75%+ to be taking a one-month vacation in Asia next year to 3 cities. As such I am looking at credit cards for maximum points and value. I already have and use the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and have a current UR balance of around 100k. I'll likely be staying in hotels every night (not sure if airbnb is in Asia or safe there) so anything with a 4th or 5th night free would probably be good as well as anything that helps cheapen the cost of long flights.

Thought I would get tips on what I should do. So far I'm seeing the best as

Amex platinum - has 4th night free. does it need to be at super luxurious place tho for it and to get the free breakfast and other stuff?
Marriot Bonvoy card that the points guy is touting - has 5th night free
Hilton Amex Aspire - 5th night free but seems to be not available everywhere

You should check out which hotels there are in the area you are looking to stay in first. But in general getting the chase ink preferred/chase ink unlimited/chase ink cash would all be good choices for UR which you can then transfer to a number of partners or use in the portal. And the business hilton amex or any of the business cards that give you MR and don't count toward 5/24 would all be good options as well. But yeah definitely think about which airlines/which hotels you want to stay at and then work backward from there. Citi AA biz is another easy good option as well if you want to fly american airlines for any of the trip.

It's been a while since I looked at point values in Asia, but last time I searched I was able to find some incredibly cheap hotels via points with IHG, Hilton and Marriott. With just a few hotel cards, you could cover anywhere from 10-30 nights, depending on whether you wanted to stay in the cheapest places possible, or nicer places. Some things with the CCs that you could take advantage of would be the 4th or 5th night free, free breakfast, late checkout, etc.

Take a look at award prices with IHG, Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt (get two free nights somewhere expensive like Tokyo) in the cities that you're going to.

Flights: are you looking at trying to get there as cheap as possible, or fly first class? AA miles are very easy to get a lot of, assuming a certain trick continues to work (PM me if you're interested) and can be used with multiple carriers to book flights. You could also transfer URs to Korean. Another option would be to transfer MRs to United and book with Asiana. I recommend a quick read over this to give you an idea of some first class redemptions: https://thepointsguy.com/2015/08/5-w...n-first-class/

Another option if you can't adjust your flights/hotels based on timing, or if you want more flexibility for last minute hotels or tours, get an Arrival+. It currently has an incredible signup of $700 (travel credit) for $5k in spend. plus you get 2.05% on spend.

The bottom-line is that you have time, but you need to put together a plan and start getting CCs soon in order to get in as many apps as possible. Plus award availability will decrease as dates approach.

Anyone know of any good cards for someone with a credit score range of 650ish?

So far I have:
-Capital One, 1% cash back, $2k limit
-Discover It, 1% cash back, 5% cash back up to $1.5k on quarterly categories, $2k limit
-Citi Double Cash, 2% cash back unlimited, $500 limit

I'm also waiting for a response on the Huntington Voice card which gives 1% back on everything and 3% cash back on an area of my choice.

Any ideas for other good ones where it isn't too difficult to get approved for my credit range? I only want cards that have a $0 annual fee.

Indeed. Upon further research it seems like doing the Chase Ink Business Preferred is a no brainer to get 80k more in UR points. The high annual fee ones I list above are not as appealing to me anymore. I might do the $95 Marriot Bonvoy though to get the 100k points. Then probably another one.

Does anyone have experience with vacation rentals or airbnb/vrbo type stays in East Asia? I was reading that Japan at least has tried to crack down.

How many new CCs have you gotten in the past 24 months? You should definitely consider getting any UR earning cards with large bonuses before other banks, as Chase is one of the most difficult banks for churners to deal with currently (IMO).

When you have time, read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/co...nder_524_v_20/

Here's a great flowchart to consider: https://i.imgur.com/3XOcRlT.png
Pulled from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/co...ion_flowchart/

Chase Freedom is the same as the IT card (categories are usually different though) and is typically easy to get.

BOA Cash rewards has a $150 signup bonus, plus 3% on a category of your choice, and 2% at grocery stores + wholesale clubs. Not sure how easy it is to get.

Amex Blue Cash Everday gives you $150 signup bonus, 3% at groceries, and 2% back at gas stations. This was one of my first cards when I had non-existent credit.

WF Cash Wise Visa has a $200 signup bonus. Only 1.5% on purchases after that.

What's your goal? Signup bonuses? Best return on your spending? Just build credit?

My goal is to setup a nest egg of credit cards to build credit. I have 3 missed payments back in 2015 which really sucks. Long ago I setup auto pay, but then later removed it. Months went by without me using my credit card. Unfortunately I bought a small item and forgot about that and went 3 months before thinking to check my credit card account. Ever since, I've always paid on time. I want to dilute the 95% payment history with good payments to increase my score quicker. Also my credit limit is quite low so utilization can get higher than I want.

Basically tl;dr, I want to improve my credit score and get the best return possible on my spending. Money saved is money I can invest. I love collecting interest on my spending

Sign up bonuses aren't as big of a concern right now. In the future, once my credit is awesome, I imagine that will be my main area of focus.

Amex Blue Cash Everday sounds quite juicy. I'll have to give that one a look.

In that case, all of those cards I previously mentioned are good options. The signup bonuses are nice as well, as they will dwarf any return on spending that you get.

If you make a mortgage payment with a credit card is it considered a balance transfer or a purchase?

I’ve got 2 credit cards that total $11,000 available credit of my total $25000 limit between all cards. They each have a $99 yearly fee. I plan on buying a house in 2 years and leasing a car in 6 months. Is it foolish to cancel them? I asked to downgrade the cards to a no fee card, but they could only do $39 a year fees.


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