Credit Card Churning Experiment Month Eight: My Favorite Resources

THIS PAGE CONTAINS REFERRAL AND AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.

I am now 2/3 of the way through the 1-year credit card churning experiment! Before we get started, I thought I’d do a quick review comparing when I started to now. You can get all of the details in the links posted below.

Starting status:

• Points/Miles: 52,472
• Credit scores: all above 800
• Number of credit cards: two, not counting my government travel card

Current status:

• Points/Miles: 212,798
• Credit scores: still all above 800, despite some drops
• Number of credit cards: five, not counting my government travel card
• Travel booked with points since July of last year:
  • Trip home for Thanksgiving: 25,000 United miles
  • Trip home for Christmas: 12,500 United miles and 13,500 Delta miles
  • 3 nights at a Hyatt Regency for my parents: 36,000 Ultimate Rewards points

In 8 months I’ve gained 247,326 points, of which I’ve used 87,000 points. My original plan was to earn 290,000 points in a year but I’m on track to earn about 360,000! You’ll see why below.

And yes, a fair amount of those points are from you awesome readers. As always, thank you!

If you want to see the previous posts in this series, here they are:

• Travel Hacking? Credit Card Churning? Let’s Do This!
• Credit Card Churning Experiment Month One
• Credit Card Churning Experiment Month Two
• Miles and Miles and Miles: Credit Card Churning Experiment Month Three
• Q&A: Credit Card Fee Waivers and Churning Plans
• Where Are My Points? Credit Card Churning Experiment: Month Four
• Card Churning Experiment Month Five: My Points Come In!
• Credit Card Churning Experiment Month Six: Stymied
• The Travel Bookings Start: Credit Card Churning Month Seven

The cards

The Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus

I’m now 1.5 months into having this card (referral link), and I am ¾ of the way to the minimum spend in order to get the sign up bonus. This card currently has a 50,000 sign up bonus for spending $2000 in 3 months, so I’m well on track for meeting that (January 2019 update: the bonus has changed). I do seem to be spending much less than expected, though. If you read my very first post in this series, you’ll see I said I spend about $2000/month on credit cards. That’s an average, and unfortunately I’m working on this Southwest card at the same time my spending is low…meaning slow.

Why is that important even though I’ll still obviously meet the minimum spend in time? Well I’m working on that Southwest Companion Pass! Here is a reminder in case you don’t remember, or an intro if this is new to you.

• Earn 110,000 (or more) qualifying points in a single calendar year
• Earn a Companion Pass! Not just for the remainder of that year, but for the full calendar year following
• One person can fly with you for free (except taxes and fees) every time you either purchase a flight, or redeem those 110,000 points on a flight

You can find out more about the Companion Pass in last month’s update.

This card will get me 47% of the way to that Companion Pass! (50,000 point bonus + 2000 points on spending)

Then my next card, which I just applied for but haven’t been approved for yet, will be the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Business card. That one (once I get it) comes with a 60,000 point sign-up bonus for spending $3000 in the first 3 months. That should not be a problem, especially since I have some larger expenses coming up that I will tell you about later.

So in all, I should finish the minimum spends on these cards around late May/early June. At that point I will have around 115,000 Southwest miles (50k bonus + 2k spend + 60k bonus + 3k spend). 115,000 will qualify me for the Companion Pass through December 31, 2019 (next year!) and those 115,000 miles will buy me plenty of tickets. Maybe I’ll start taking some long weekend trips 🤔

Interested in this card?

If you are interested in getting the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus card and pursuing the Companion Pass for yourself, you can use my referral link. There is no extra cost to you for using referral links. You will get the bonus described below and I will get some bonus miles too. If you use the link, thank you!

Update: since writing this, the card has changed the terms. Instead of getting 50,000 points for spending $2000 in 3 months, you now get 40,000 points for spending $1000 in 3 months. Still a great deal!

What you should know before getting the card

The Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus comes with a $69 annual fee that is applied to your first billing statement and is not waived for new signups. If you are a civilian, unfortunately, you would just have to pay that. But it does come with 3000 bonus points at your card anniversary to offset the cost…plus the chance at the Companion Pass…it might be worth it. Up to you.

Military members who open this card after September 20th, 2017 and are serving in active status can request Military Lending Act (MLA) benefits be applied to their card. If you receive the benefits, your annual fee will be waived, as well as other benefits as described here and here.

***I’m seeing conflicting reports on whether Reserve Component members who are not in active status can receive MLA benefits. You will have to contact Chase to confirm this for yourself.***

American Express Platinum

Nothing significant to report.

I am maintaining my position that any responsible credit user who is in the military, or married to the military, should get this card. There are so many benefits and considering the annual fee is waived for military members in active status, it’s just a smart idea. That is of course assuming you want a credit card and will use it responsibly.

You can find out more about the AMEX Platinum card (referral link) and why I chose it here.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

I used this card this month to pre-book a hotel I will be staying at in October. Why this card? Well, I wanted to take advantage of the 2x points on hotel bookings. I get 5x points on the AMEX Platinum when booking hotels, but only pre-paid hotels and only if booked through their portal. The hotel I’m staying at isn’t in that portal, and I may change hotels so a pre-paid option wasn’t right for me.

You can find out more about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (referral link) and why I chose it here and here.

Discover Card

Nothing significant to report.

Month Eight Experience

Purchases

None

Month Eight Lesson: Good Sites to Follow

In the spirit of teaching you something new each month, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite travel hacking resources.

You see, I’m learning all of this right along with you. And while for some of you I may be a little ahead, I know you aren’t going to want to wait a month every time to see if I cover something you are wondering about in my next monthly report.

That’s where these resources come in.

These are the blogs, websites, and forums I use the most to answer my travel hacking or credit card churning questions.

The Points Guy

This is by far the travel hacking website I visit the most. They have lots of info on exactly how different rewards programs work, so whenever I’m trying to figure out how to use points this is where I go. They are also great for identifying where you can get the most value, and a great place to find hot deals on flights.

This site also lets me stay on top of new offers, such as this intriguing card.

Nomadic Matt

Thinking back, this might be the site where I originally discovered travel hacking and long term travel. Though Nomadic Matt is mostly known for traveling on the cheap (think grocery store lunches and hostels), he also has some travel hacking tricks. His book, How To Travel The World On $50 A Day, is a great read! I read it in 2016 and it inspired a lot of my $250 trip to Strasbourg.

(That link to the book is an affiliate link. If you use it to buy anything on Amazon there is no additional cost to you, but I will get a few cents to help run this blog)

The FlyerTalk Forums

A useful resource for asking questions or, if you’re like me, just quietly stalking other people’s questions.

Travel Is Free

This is a newer one for me, but I like it so far. Right now I’m digging through The Complete Guide To United Miles.

One Mile At A Time

Another new-to-me site, this one is noted for its reviews…but I have my eye on this article about Chase cards that don’t abide by the 5/24 restriction. That’s going to become important to me soon enough, so it’s good to have this info in my virtual hip pocket!

My Month Eight Results!!

Everything here is based on my statement date, which happens to be the 17th of each month. You can expect my monthly updates to happen about week three of every month.

Starting Points/Miles:

• Ultimate Rewards: 30,585
• United: 545
• Delta: 2,915
• Southwest: 1,637
• AMEX: 164,886

Total Points/Miles as of February 20th: 200,568

Points/Miles Earned:

• Ultimate Rewards: 10,250 (one referral + normal points)
• United: 0
• Delta: 0
• Southwest: 381 (normal points)
• AMEX: 1,599 (normal points)

Points/Miles Earned In Month Eight: 12,230

Points/Miles Spent:

• Ultimate Rewards: 0
• United: 0
• Delta: 0
• Southwest: 0
• AMEX: 0

Points/Miles Spent in Month Eight: 0

New Point/Mile Totals:

• Ultimate Rewards: 40,835
• United: 545
• Delta: 2,915
• Southwest: 2,018
• AMEX: 166,485

Total Points/Miles as of March 21st: 212,798

My Credit Score

Credit scores may drop or rise if you start churning. I have no major purchases planned, no need to take out a loan anytime soon, and a high starting score. If you plan to take out a loan soon or are concerned about your score dropping, credit card churning might not be for you.

Between July and now, my CreditCheck (Experian) credit score has gone down 13 points. That’s a 4 point drop since last month. I am trying to figure out why. I did apply for a new card in that time, but that was after the date on this card. Maybe it’s catching up from applying for the last one?

Looking at my Credit Scorecard, between July and now my credit score fell 19 points. This score also went down this month – 5 points, in this case. Again, I’m not sure why. All of the data it is showing is positive – no new inquiries, a 1% utilization, long length of credit, and 0 missed payments. Puzzling.

My Experian Score 8 was first baselined in October. It went up one whole point last month and is the same this month.

Note: These “monthly updates” on my credit score aren’t monthly. That’s kind of annoying, since I’m trying to closely track them for your benefit so you can see how card churning affects a real person. When I check, they are often 45 days or more behind despite being advertised as updating monthly or even weekly. So I’m trying to give you regular updates, but keep in mind when I say “now” that “now” might not be “today.”

Final Thoughts

Not much to share here, honestly. I’m chugging along. I’ve already said this is working out better than I thought. I’ve already spent more in points this year than I used to earn in 3 years. Ummm….this works. How’s that?

What are your favorite travel hacking and card churning resources?

Referral Links

As I said before, if you sign up for a credit card via my referral links, I receive referral bonuses. In turn, you receive the same signup bonus I got on the cards. 

• You’ll earn 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points if you get the Chase Sapphire Preferred and spend $4,000 in three months.
• You’ll get 60,000 Membership Rewards points on the AMEX Platinum if you spend $5,000 in three months.
• You can get 40,000 Southwest points via the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus if you spend only $1000 in the first 3 months. This is 10,000 points lower than the signup bonus I qualified for, but for a much lower minimum spend.

You don’t have to sign up via the referrals to receive the bonus, but if you sign up through my link you are helping support this blog. If you use the referral link, great! Thank you very much! If not, I completely understand. No hard feelings.

Make sure you will be able to meet the minimum spend requirements before you sign up. That’s the whole point, right?

NOTE: Please do NOT use the referral links or start churning cards if you don’t plan to pay off your balance in full every month. I’ve been through the pain of having credit card debt, not paying off my bill each month, and even a couple late payments. That’s not something I recommend for anyone. Besides, the rewards are only a good deal if you pay off your balance in full each month. If you don’t, the interest you are paying will outweigh the rewards. Use credit wisely!