SD, thanks for the advice! I am all in now. Here is what I have now (below), and l'd like your guidance on what to get next, what to cancel (need more instruction on "churn" tactics), and what to use for bills etc (ongoing spend when I am not trying for a bonus spend on a new card).
Chase Sapphire
Chase Southwest Airlines
Chase Marriott
Amex Delta Airlines
Amex Gold (recently acquired)
MasterCard American Airlines
Diners Club (work only)
I have hit all bonuses on these, and don't NEED to hit any spend levels at all with these.
I want to get any and all new ones that are useful and rewarding, but I am honestly a bit confused on the recent talk about "maximum number of card applications" warnings that have been posted about.
OK, that's a good list. Ditch all of them except the work one and the Chase Sapphire Preferred when the annual fee comes due. They will remove it and cancel the card up to 60 days after it hits so you don't have to be very pro-active about it.
The maximum amount of cards stuff is only for Chase and only for their proprietary cards (CSP, Ink, Freedom). Those also happen to be some of the best cards so you'll want to get them all soon so they don't start giving you crap about it. They may already right now but it doesn't hurt to try. I'd get the Ink now and hit the minimum spend (obviously use my referral link
) and then hopefully the Freedom will be back up to 20k and you can get it. Of all of my cards the only ones I keep and don't cancel when the annual fee comes due are those 3 Chase cards. But, I do plan to cancel them when I hit the two year mark and can get the bonus again. You can merge all of the UR points into one account so just make sure to move the points from either the Ink to the CSP before cancelling or vice versa. The points actually aren't worth much if you ONLY have the Freedom but become worth a lot when you transfer them from the Freedom to either the Ink or CSP (this is confusing but it's how it works). The Ink gets the 5x bonus on phone and cable as well as a bonus on office supply stores. It's a business card but you own part of a message board so use that and your SSN as a sole proprietor and you're all set. The Freedom has no annual fee and has quarterly bonus spend of 5x for the first 1,500 per quarter. Right now it's gas so we use it for gas only. Last quarter of the year is always Amazon so we obviously buy all XMas gifts through Amazon. After you get the Ink and Freedom I'd start getting SPG, another Citi AA, any number of good limited time options that may be available, etc. but right now you should get those two Chase before you go application crazy because (as I mentioned) they are the two that will cut you off if you have too many applications.
