credit card churning

[BigCat]

I don't want to fill out the forms to advance to the point where I figure out whether shipping is free

The United States Mint pays for standard shipping and handling of domestic orders.

Good find. Didn't really want to even put that much effort into it. Tell you what though, I am interested enough to run the numbers on this and see how much money could be made. Wait a tick...

Not a lot....depending on what kind of rewards card you have.  Say you get 1% cash back.  You could make 200 orders and get $1,000.  Not everyone has $100k credit limit on their card (though Daris is about to have a lot of available credit) so you would have to order, say, $10k in coins a month paying them off at the end of the month for 10 consecutive months.  Kind of a hassle going to the bank with $10k in silver dollars every month though.  But, like Daris pointed out, it's an easy way to fully qualify for the rewards miles on these credit cards that require a certain amount of purchases. 

Screw rewards. I want to figure out if there's a way to make money on the interest risk-free. Doesn't look like it would be easy.

[Rick Daris]

I don't want to fill out the forms to advance to the point where I figure out whether shipping is free

The United States Mint pays for standard shipping and handling of domestic orders.

Good find. Didn't really want to even put that much effort into it. Tell you what though, I am interested enough to run the numbers on this and see how much money could be made. Wait a tick...

Not a lot....depending on what kind of rewards card you have.  Say you get 1% cash back.  You could make 200 orders and get $1,000.  Not everyone has $100k credit limit on their card (though Daris is about to have a lot of available credit) so you would have to order, say, $10k in coins a month paying them off at the end of the month for 10 consecutive months.  Kind of a hassle going to the bank with $10k in silver dollars every month though.  But, like Daris pointed out, it's an easy way to fully qualify for the rewards miles on these credit cards that require a certain amount of purchases. 

the slickdeals thread that i posted earlier this morning started last night and is now 11 pages long. some people have cards that give them 5% cash back for a certain amont of time. other people are mad that people would even do this to begin with and then some people are like "fifty bucks is fifty bucks". kind of an entertaining thread if you want to see what people are coming up with.

the overall thinking is that the money is decent but the points are what would really make it worth doing. thinking about paying my mortgage this way by using starwoods card to order from mint and then mint money to bank. that would add up.

[steve dave]

I don't want to fill out the forms to advance to the point where I figure out whether shipping is free

The United States Mint pays for standard shipping and handling of domestic orders.

Good find. Didn't really want to even put that much effort into it. Tell you what though, I am interested enough to run the numbers on this and see how much money could be made. Wait a tick...

Not a lot....depending on what kind of rewards card you have.  Say you get 1% cash back.  You could make 200 orders and get $1,000.  Not everyone has $100k credit limit on their card (though Daris is about to have a lot of available credit) so you would have to order, say, $10k in coins a month paying them off at the end of the month for 10 consecutive months.  Kind of a hassle going to the bank with $10k in silver dollars every month though.  But, like Daris pointed out, it's an easy way to fully qualify for the rewards miles on these credit cards that require a certain amount of purchases. 

the slickdeals thread that i posted earlier this morning started last night and is now 11 pages long. some people have cards that give them 5% cash back for a certain amont of time. other people are mad that people would even do this to begin with and then some people are like "fifty bucks is fifty bucks". kind of an entertaing thread if you want to see what people are coming up with.

the overall thinking is that the money is decent but the points are what would really make it worth doing. thinking about paying my mortgage this way by using starwoods card to order from mint and then mint money to bank. that would add up.

Yep, discussed this with Mrs. dave last night.  She was all, "You are not doing that.  No f'ing way!" and I was all, "Way" 

[Rick Daris]

***UPDATE ALERT***

I'm sure 99% of people don't care and this is kinda long but whatever...

CC's Applied for...

4 American airline credit cards. Two personal and two business. Total 100,000 American airline miles.
2 starwood credit cards. 20,000 starwood points.
2 HHonor credit cards. 35,000 points.
1 Marriot reward card. 20,000 points plus a certificate for a free night.


Got to reading more stuff over the weekend and learned a lot more plus found out i messed up in a couple of places.

Basically Chase has gotten really hardcore lately and only allows you to apply for a new card every six months. They have also shut down peoples accounts and are overall just kind of mean.

Citi apparently allows for one personal card appy every 60 days and one business appy every 90 days. you can only have like 5 citicards at a time. the best thing about the american airlines citi cards are that you can cancel and reapply and collect the 25,000 miles rewards as many times as you want (as of right now). It's kind of the only card that you can do that with. I can cancel the two personal AA citicards we have in sixty days and then immediately reapply and get 50,000 more miles, then wait another thirty days and do the same thing with the business cards. There's no reason that I shouldn't be about to get at least 300,000 American Airline miles w/in the next year (good for six roundtrips abroad or 12 roundtrips w/in continental us). I will really work these cards and then mix in a new hotel reward card or something else every six months or so.

BOA is somewhere in the middle of citi and chase. they allow some churning but no one that i've seen knows exactly how, when and why. some people think that if you cancel a boa card and then wait one year and reapply that you can collect the signup bonus of points again. this will take a long time to find out.

There are other cards that I want to apply for but need to wait a couple of months due to individual credit card company limits on credits cards they allow you to have and apply for in a certain amount of time and the fact that I would be applying for more cards a couple of days after i just applied for a bunch. I really should have planned it out much more thoroughly and applied for ALL on the same day and as close to the same time as possible.


Also, this thread is kinda lol. More how I want to be next time around...

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/875757/?start=0

[steve dave]

Daris, this is amazing.  Thanks.

[raquetcat]

RD, looks like you already found a bunch of these, but here are a few more

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/CreditCardSmarts/20-credit-cards-that-pay-you-back.aspx

[Rick Daris]

RD, looks like you already found a bunch of these, but here are a few more

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/CreditCardSmarts/20-credit-cards-that-pay-you-back.aspx

thanks for the link. i agree w/ starwood being the best and the hhonors might be next. two other ones that are right up there imo are the marriot rewards which is a chase card and priority club (holiday inn, hi express, etc) which is also a chase card.  i have kind of nerded out on this stuff the last week cause it's really interesting to me. really just want to earn free travel stuff and could care less about rebates/cash back. my wife would just end up spending the cash back on shoes or makeup or something equally as stupid.

i think the best thing to do is to turn over the citiAA cards as much as you can and then every time you turn them over apply for as many hotel cards as you can. you would need to know what banks provide what cards and what their limits on the number of cards, appys, etc you can have at one time are though. choice, best western and wyndham all have deals too but they aren't as good. the advantage to these are that they aren't chase or citi. the choice and wyndham ones are boa cards and you might be able to get the bonus again a year after cancelling and the best western is a barclays card which you should be able to churn quite a bit more than that according to reports.

southwest,northwest,continental, delta, etc all have stuff as well but as long as citi will let you constantly turnover/churn w/ the AA deal i will hold off on doing those and keep running the citi AA deal until it's dead and then switch over. Those other ones are one time deals only (most seem to think).

[steve dave]

I already have 60,000 delta miles so I may go ahead and get that one even if I can only get it once.  Then try the AA one.

[LimestoneOutcropping]

Blackouts?   

[steve dave]

Blackouts?   

None with delta

[Rick Daris]

Blackouts?   

about once every month or two.




 

[steve dave]

Blackouts?   

about once every month or two.




 

WOOOHOOOHOOO! 

[Rick Daris]

I already have 60,000 delta miles so I may go ahead and get that one even if I can only get it once.  Then try the AA one.

1)can get 35,000 delta miles for both the personal and the business one right now. 70,000 total. http://www201.americanexpress.com/sbsapp/FMACServlet?request_type=alternateChannels&lpid=264

2) If Hhonors points are important to you...you can convert AA miles to Hhonors at a 2:1 rate. 50,000 AA miles = 100,000 Hhonors points. Cool thing is that you can keep getting new AA cards and new bonuses every 60-90 days. easily could get over 500,000 Hhonors points in a year.

3) check this out. top 10,000 scores get 10,000  Hhonors points and Hhonors diamond status for two years. I played for a while friday and this morning and am currently ranked 686.

[steve dave]

3) check this out. top 10,000 scores get 10,000  Hhonors points and Hhonors diamond status for two years. I played for a while friday and this morning and am currently ranked 686.

check what out?

[Rick Daris]

3) check this out. top 10,000 scores get 10,000  Hhonors points and Hhonors diamond status for two years. I played for a while friday and this morning and am currently ranked 686.

check what out?

sorry.
https://www.advanceyourworld.com/

[steve dave]

2) If Hhonors points are important to you...you can convert AA miles to Hhonors at a 2:1 rate. 50,000 AA miles = 100,000 Hhonors points. Cool thing is that you can keep getting new AA cards and new bonuses every 60-90 days. easily could get over 500,000 Hhonors points in a year.

Daris, please explain how to do this.  Mrs. dave has thousand of AA miles just sitting there.

[Rick Daris]

2) If Hhonors points are important to you...you can convert AA miles to Hhonors at a 2:1 rate. 50,000 AA miles = 100,000 Hhonors points. Cool thing is that you can keep getting new AA cards and new bonuses every 60-90 days. easily could get over 500,000 Hhonors points in a year.

Daris, please explain how to do this.  Mrs. dave has thousand of AA miles just sitting there.

this should help out a lot. thread is really long but this should drop you off at a good place...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hhonors/447324-transfer-american-aadvantage-miles-hilton-hhonors-points-definitive-thread-22.html


there is a link included. basically you have to log into your aa account and then transfer from there. however, there appears to be a fee to do so ($30?) and there may be a minimum number of miles needed. may or may not be worth it for her/you. 




edit to add that...


1) you seem to love Hhonors so much that maybe you should marry it


-and-


2) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hhonors/462994-please-read-first-frequently-asked-questions-faqs-pertaining-hilton-hhonors.html
 

[steve dave]

Mrs. dave is actually Hilton Honors so way ahead of you.  Also, if you don't have either NWA Worldperks or Delta Skymiles you can get 500 more just by signing up for the other one and linking the accounts.  Or, I guess, you could just sign up for both and link them.  You prolly knew about this 50 brazzillion years ago with your elitist flyertalk messageboard but whatevs.  I just signed up for NWA Worldperks just to link it to my Skymiles account and get 500 free miles.

http://www.delta.com/skymiles/manage_account/link_accounts/index.jsp

[Rick Daris]

Mrs. dave is actually Hilton Honors so way ahead of you.  Also, if you don't have either NWA Worldperks or Delta Skymiles you can get 500 more just by signing up for the other one and linking the accounts.  Or, I guess, you could just sign up for both and link them.  You prolly knew about this 50 brazzillion years ago with your elitist flyertalk messageboard but whatevs.  I just signed up for NWA Worldperks just to link it to my Skymiles account and get 500 free miles.

http://www.delta.com/skymiles/manage_account/link_accounts/index.jsp

you've probably already done this, but here's an additional 400 free nwa/delta miles per person. plus it apparently signs you up to receive more free miles w/ a qualifying stay or flight within the next 60 or 90 days or something.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?threadid=1285947

[Rick Daris]

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=44518&t=1311545

sd, et al -

would have to get the card kinda quickly and then use 25,000 miles kinda quickly. but once you use the 25,000...they put another 25,000 back in. essentially would take $250 dollars off of a ticket and then replenish your delta account with the 25,000 miles used to do so basically giving you 50,000 miles for free. would give you a "hard pull" on your credit score lowering you score somewhere around 5 pts. cancel the card within a year to avoid the fee.

vegas, puerto rico, etc.

[steve dave]

Daris, did you see the thing the Frontier Mastercard is running?  If you sign up for the World card you get 40,000 miles for speding $750 on it by February something or other.  It has a $49 annual fee but 40k is enough for two roundtrip tickets.  And(ear muffs Jeffy) I spend $750 on credit cards every night in my sleep.  I have never signed up for one that I will guarantee have to pay the annual fee though. 

[steve dave]

Also, can you still do the AA one?  All of their cards show an annual fee where I looked.  Is it not charged until 12 months?

[Rick Daris]

Also, can you still do the AA one?  All of their cards show an annual fee where I looked.  Is it not charged until 12 months?

hmmm, dunno.


off to flyertalk 

[Rick Daris]

Also, can you still do the AA one?  All of their cards show an annual fee where I looked.  Is it not charged until 12 months?

hmmm, dunno.


off to flyertalk 

here you go....

http://creditcards.citicards.com/usc/Travel/AA/Multi/Sept09/Double/30000/fly9/default.htm?sc=6VV3AB89&BTData=C02127C746C61755D534A4AB7A2A0ACAC9C9D9281FBF6F8F3F4CA0FA59B9&BT_TRF=122501&ProspectID=DE06DD9EA608411790D45BA3B9CD3438

[Rick Daris]

also a brief thread where they talk about your frontier deal... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other-credit-card-programs/1010207-frontier-mastercard-special-offering-40k-2-round-trips.html

[steve dave]

also a brief thread where they talk about your frontier deal... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other-credit-card-programs/1010207-frontier-mastercard-special-offering-40k-2-round-trips.html

Thanks, signed up and got it.  May have the Mrs. do the same. 

[steve dave]

Also, I think I broke her on the credit card churning thing.  You still do starwood and AA? 

[Rick Daris]

Also, I think I broke her on the credit card churning thing. 

 

if you are going to do it, do it smart. nothing worse then signing up for a card and realizing two weeeks later that you could've got 15,000 instead of 10,000 by signing up differently or something. flyertalk.com is pretty amazing for getting info and stuff. just check under credit card links and check under the hotel program links too. banks that issue credit cards are always changing how they do business and how many of their cards you can have at one time, etc.

i did do both starwood and aa. you can't churn starwood but you can sign up and then refer a person and get a lot of points for having them sign up. so if you are planning on signing both of you up for starwood, sign one up first and then have that person refer the other. also, with most cards you can get personal and business and you don't actually have to own a business or anything. just make one up. double the points.

in addition to starwood, ics hotel group and marriott have pretty good credit card sign up deals.

if you're going to do this, now is the time. i think credit cards and banking industry as a whole are kinda being forced to change how they do business and are going to be getting more strict. also, you don't have any kids so now is the time to get free hotel rooms and airline flights. travel as much as humanly possible now, it get's a lot harder w/ kids. honestly just does.

also, a rule of thumb is four credit rating points a card or so but most of this has to do with it changing you avg length of credit. once you cancel the cards and give it a few months, the score should bounce back up because they are no longer "new credit" lowering you avg.

[steve dave]

 TO THE INTERNET! >

[Rick Daris]

TO THE INTERNET! >

also keep good track of what you apply for and be sure to create a way to check the account online w/ password and stuff. makes it much easier when you want to cancel the card. also, some all you have to do is use it once and others make you charge $750 over three months or something which could become an issue if you sign up for like eight cards or something. dunno.