Credit card churning has allowed me to travel for way less over the past few years. I have to give credit to my now-fiancé for introducing me to the game. He opened a decent amount of cards during the first year we were dating. I thought he was insane and doing irreparable damage to his credit score (oh, how things have changed). After getting the Companion Pass and a slew of other cards, he decided to stop to reset his 5/24 status. It’s been a long wait, but he’s now 1/24 and we’re back in two-player mode. We have a lot of expenses coming up since we’re getting married next fall including four sizable payments to the venue over the next year. That leaves plenty of opportunity for new cards and tons of points! Here’s our strategy for two-player mode:
- Chase Ink Preferred (won’t count against 5/24)
- Two Chase Southwest cards (one is a business card that also won’t count against 5/24)
- American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Business card (won’t count against 5/24 and will give us a break from Chase)
- Chase Sapphire Preferred
- Chase Sapphire Reserve
At this point, he still will only be 3/24 so we’ll open one more Chase card, maybe United or Marriott depending on the bonuses. He’ll also be eligible to get the Hyatt bonus again, but we’ll definitely wait until he’s over 5/24 for that. In the meantime, I’m going to work on opening another Alaska Airlines credit card from Bank of America, and possibly the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve. As a Bank of America Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors client, I may be interested in checking out their new travel card.
Final Thoughts
Churning has been fun on my own, but it’s nice to have another person to earn and burn points with. In two-player mode, we won’t have to think twice about saying yes to quick weekend trips or flying home to see his family. Sometimes I can’t believe all couples don’t enter the points and miles game until I hear about a co-worker trying to pay off several thousand in credit card debt…
If you’re at 1/24, the Chase Ink Preferred and Southwest business cards will count toward 5/24.
Thanks for the comment! You have to be under 5/24 to get approved for Chase business cards since they pull your personal report to approve you. However, these cards are not reported to your personal credit report so they do not affect 5/24 status. However, there have been some reports of Chase reporting them to personal credit reports, but you should be able to have this removed by talking to Chase.