Time For A New Card! Credit Card Churning Experiment: Month Ten

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

Welcome back to the credit card churning series! This month: a new card, and some thoughts on what to do when you don’t know what you are aiming for.

Want to catch up on the previous posts in this series?

• 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
• Credit Card Churning Month Eight: My Favorite Resources
• Credit Card Churning Month Nine: Less Than Successful
• Bonus because people like the chart on this one: Just A Bunch Of Random Money Thoughts

The cards

The New Card: Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Plus

I have a new card! Kinda. This is card #4 that is new-to-me in my experiment.

I’m still waiting for it to arrive, but I was approved for the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Plus (any time the card name is a link, it’s a referral link). I was hoping to get it right away because I have a bunch of spending coming up soon (a trip, buying a new car, and moving across the country!). Instead, Chase said it couldn’t be expedited because they have to go through a verification process with Marriott. Just a heads up in case any of you get this card – I was told to expect to receive the card 10 business days after approval.

Why I chose the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Plus

The primary reason behind choosing this card was the signup bonus – a hefty 100,000 Marriott Rewards points after spending $5000 in the first 3 months. With an upcoming cross country move (and maybe putting some of the car purchase on it??) that’ll be an easy minimum spend to meet.

100,000 Marriott points gives me multiple options:

• 5 nights at a Category 5 resort right outside Walt Disney World (I’m going later this year); or
• 12 nights (two weeklong stays) at a Category 2 hotel at my new duty location (perfect for visiting family and friends); or
• 4-6 nights at destinations around the world

Additionally, this card comes with the following benefits:

• Earns 6 points per $1 spent at Marriott and SPG hotels
• Earns 2 points per $1 spent on all other purchases
• One Free Night Award every year, starting at the first anniversary of the card
• No foreign transaction fees
• Automatic Silver Elite status with Marriott

There is an annual fee of $95, which does not appear to be waived for the first year but is waived for military members in active status. See my post about waivers of annual fees for military members for more information.

If you use my referral link, I will earn 20,000 bonus Marriott points. You will get 3 Free Award Nights as a bonus for spending $3000 in the first 3 months. Each award night can be redeemed for a room that normally costs up to 35,000 points, so this is like getting up to 105,000 points! Of course, make sure you follow the advice at the end of this post about credit card churning (don’t do it if you don’t pay your bill off every month!).

So that’s my new card. I’ll keep you updated!

The Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus

Two pieces of big news on this one:

1. My signup bonus points did finally come in, so I’m the proud owner of 50,000 new Southwest points. That’s enough for several one-way flights. Seven one-way flights between my new duty location and my hometown, to be exact.
2. Holy cow – I might still be able to get that Companion Pass???

Quick refresher on the Companion Pass:

• Earn 110,000 (or more) qualifying Southwest 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 some of those 110,000 points on a flight

You can find out more about the Companion Pass in the month 7 update.

Last month I told you I’d basically given up on earning the Southwest Companion Pass because:

• I was denied for the Chase Southwest Business card (still a wee bit bitter about that tbh) so I couldn’t get that signup bonus, and
• Chase changed the rules so I couldn’t get both personal Southwest cards, meaning I couldn’t get both bonuses, and
• Chase wasn’t offering any referral bonuses for the Southwest cards anymore

I’d resigned myself to “just” taking the signup bonus (which is still great!).

But there is an update! Chase is now offering referral bonuses for the Southwest personal cards. Which means that if any of you use my link (referral link) , I might inch towards achieving that 110,000 point total I need to get the Companion Pass. And you can get 40,000 Southwest points for the signup bonus after spending $1000 in the first 3 months. Pretty easy.

Not to shamelessly beg, or anything. You definitely shouldn’t get a credit card just so I can get a bonus. But if you were interested in getting a Southwest card (and that sweet sweet point signup bonus) then it’d be super if you used my referral link.

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 these 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

Nothing significant to report.

You can find out more about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (referral link) and why I chose it here and here. If you use that referral link you’ll get 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points if you have $4,000 in qualifying purchases in the first 3 months.

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 these benefits. You will have to contact Chase to confirm this for yourself.***

Month Ten Experience

Purchases

None with points. I did purchase a plane ticket to a conference, but I used cash for that because it’s a tax write off for my business.

Month Ten Lesson: Making A Churning Plan When You Don’t Have A Travel Plan

I struggled to choose a new card over the last month. Why? Because I don’t have a big trip I’m planning for (and getting points for) so I’m trying to optimize my points without a goal. That can be difficult.

If, for instance, I had a plan for a trip to London and Berlin, it would be easier to choose which cards to churn. I’d pick two that gave me either airline or flexible spending points (like Ultimate Rewards) to pay for the airfare each way. And I’d get two cards that would cover my hotels in each location. Perhaps a Hyatt card and a Marriot card? Then maybe I’d get one with a nice statement credit that could cover other travel costs, like ride shares and restaurants.

Easy, right?

But since I don’t have a trip like that coming up, I’m having a tougher time anticipating my needs.

(don’t worry…I actually have several more trips planned this year. I just won’t be using travel rewards to pay for them for various reasons)

This means that I’ve had to anticipate future needs and actions quite a bit.

Planning for travel years in advance

Something military members have going for them that they may not realize is that the “no annual fees” benefits aren’t just benefitting us right now. Yes, we are saving hundreds or even thousands of dollars every year in annual fees. THANK YOU AMERICAN EXPRESS AND CHASE!!

But because of this, we also don’t have to stress over some of the same stuff that other churners do. Namely, I don’t have to worry about closing cards before the next annual fee is due. I currently have 6 credit cards, only one of which has an annual fee (because I opened it before Chase changed their military policy). Now that one, I need to figure out in the next month before the fee hits. I have to decide whether to move all of my points elsewhere and close the card, or downgrade the card to a no annual fee card. I plan to also ask Chase again if they will waive the fee, but if that doesn’t work I will get rid of the card.

But all of the rest of the cards? I can keep them open fee free as long as I’m in active status in the military. That means I don’t have to worry about the points right now, when I don’t have a goal for them. I can focus on earning the most possible points, instead of earning the “right” points for a specific need. As long as I keep the cards open and very occasionally do something (like make 1 purchase every 24 months) those points will just keep waiting for me.

So that Marriott card? Maybe I’ll use it to pay for hotels on my parent’s summer vacation this year. But maybe I’ll use it for my own summer vacation in 2020. Or a snowboarding trip in 2021.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep choosing the cards with the highest number of points (comparing apples to apples since they aren’t all worth the same amount). That’ll give me lots of options in the future.

The one exception is I do think I’ll be opening a relatively low signup bonus card in July or August…but we’ll talk more about that then.

Not A Military Member?

In that case, you may want to be a bit choosier about your cards. But if you are maximizing the points instead of choosing them strategically, there is still something you can do to ensure you can keep them while still closing the card before annual fees are due.

If you transfer points to a partner, you can close the card and keep the points. For instance, let’s say you don’t have a trip planned but the major airline in your hometown is United. If you have Chase Ultimate Rewards points you could transfer the points to United, then cancel the card. Once the points have been transferred, Chase can’t get them back. That way you know they’ll be waiting for you in your United account the next time you need to book a flight.

Some loyalty programs do have points that expire after a certain period, so pay attention to that when choosing which travel partner you want to transfer the points to.

My Month Ten 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: 40,835
• United: 921
• Delta: 2,915
• Southwest: 3,293
• American: 0
• AMEX: 181,584

Total Points/Miles as of April 24th: 229,548

Points/Miles Earned:

• Ultimate Rewards: 61 (normal spending)
• United: 0
• Delta: 0
• Southwest: 51,311 (50k signup bonus + normal spending)
• American: 3060 (I had work travel in April so now I have American miles too)
• AMEX: 0

Points/Miles Earned In Month Ten: 54,432

Points/Miles Spent:

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

Points/Miles Spent in Month Ten: 0

New Point/Mile Totals:

• Ultimate Rewards: 40,896
• United: 921
• Delta: 2915
• Southwest: 54,604
• American: 3060
• AMEX: 181,584

Total Points/Miles as of May 22nd: 283,980

Somebody mentioned that it would be helpful to them to see the overall points I’ve accumulated throughout this experience, including a breakout of signup bonuses, referral bonuses, and points earned in other ways. Here you go!

Total points earned across all programs since June 2017: 318,753

• Signup bonuses: 160,000
• Points from spending: 21,577
• Referral bonuses: 130,000
• Random points: 7,176 (includes things like miles awarded for travel)

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. I’m now planning to buy a car! I probably won’t take out a loan for it, but I want a great score just in case I can get 0% financing and decide to leverage my money. If you plan to take out a loan soon or are concerned about your score dropping, credit card churning might not be for you. I started out with a very high score so that’s something to keep in mind.

Factors affecting my score this month:

• I applied for a rental house at my new duty station
• I applied for the Chase Marriot card
• Some of these scores are also counting my multiple inquiries from last month’s attempt to get a business card

Between July and now, my CreditCheck (Experian) credit score has gone down 14 points. That’s a 2 point decrease since last month.

Looking at my Credit Scorecard, between July and now my credit score fell 19 points. This is down 4 points since last month.

My Experian Score 8 was first baselined in October and has gone down 27 points since then. It went down 19 points just this month! Ooof, that hurt, I’m not gonna lie. I know it’s because of the hard pulls on my card, and it’s still a fantastic score. But ooof! If your credit score is really important due to a major upcoming purchase, this is something to keep in mind.

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

This month went pretty well, especially once I received those Southwest points and got approved for the new card. And while I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do with the Marriott points, I’m pretty happy with my choice. It’s a lot of points that I can get a lot of value out of.

I know a lot of you are card churning too. Tell me about your churning experiences in the comments!

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 unless otherwise noted.

• 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.
• And if you apply for the new Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Plus card while the limited time offer is available, you can earn 3 Free Award Nights for spending $3000 in the first 3 months.

You don’t have to sign up via the referrals to receive these bonuses, 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. If you don’t, you won’t get the signup bonus. And 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!